Chapter 16
Kin
Sneaking out of my father’s house had been easy. Sneaking in? Not so much. I had my key, so I got into the house easily enough. Trying to avoid getting caught going up to my room was like trying to break into Fort Knox.
Somehow, I made it all the way into my room.
Only to have Jillian follow me in and demand where I’d been all evening.
Fucking hell.
No use in lying. I told her where I’d been and with whom. She hadn’t taken the news well that my real family was in town and that Carter would be arriving on Monday. I guess she didn’t think that Carter and the twins actually cared enough to change their traditional plans to be with me.
Was I really that unlovable to her?
Probably.
I tried not to dwell on that thought for too long. Since Jillian had caught me coming in, I was basically put on lockdown for the entire weekend. I was barely allowed to leave my bedroom, and when I did get to leave, it was only to go to some stupid Christmas party Jillian had been dying to attend all year.
I spent four solid hours trying to keep a low profile, but Jillian wouldn’t let that happen. She introduced me to everyone she knew, made sure that each person knew I was best friends with Lucy Thornton and that I spent a lot of time at First Bass with the members of the hot new rock band, Tainted Knights.
I was in the spotlight all night long and I hated every second of it. My only saving grace?
Jace had texted me all night. At first I’d been reluctant to text him back, but when my phone had continued to vibrate in my little designer clutch that I’d been forced to carry that matched my over-the-top expensive dress, I’d figured Jace was the lesser of two evils. I could just find a quiet place and text him for the rest of the night.
Of course I didn’t get to find a quiet place, but I did get to amuse myself by telling Jace everything that I was doing that night. When I told him that three different douchebags Jillian had introduced me to kept stalking me around the party, he had demanded I call him.
Instead, I sent him a picture I snapped of two of the three guys standing in the background, looking like the creepers they were.
By the time we all got back to the house that night, I was bone tired, but Jillian was snipping at me about every thing I’d done wrong throughout the entire party. I put in my ear bud and tuned her out as I made myself a sandwich and then climbed the stairs to my room. As I flopped down on my bed with the ham and turkey sandwich already in hand, my phone started going off.
Looking down, I saw it was Jace and waited while I chewed my first big bite before answering. “Hey,” I greeted, forcing my tone to sound bored. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” he demanded, sounding irritable.
“I’m in my room, eating a big ol’ sandwich. The food at the party wasn’t enough to feed a starving person, let alone me.” I took another bite of my huge sandwich, piled high with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. Jillian had made a face as I’d squeezed on the mayo and mustard earlier so it was drenched in the stuff, but I didn’t care. That was exactly how I liked it.
“I thought you were grounded,” he grumbled. “If I’d known you were going out tonight I would have gone to that damn party too.”
My brows lifted as I turned onto my stomach and kicked off the killer heels I’d been forced to wear all night. I’d been tempted to kick Georgia in the head a few times with them, hoping I would stab her in the eye with the needle-like spiked heels. “I didn’t want to be there, dummy. I told you earlier. I was there because the step-monster and my father made me go. I would’ve been happy to stay locked in this damn room all night, but I have certain benefits that Jillian likes to exploit. Like having celebrity friends and all that bullshit.”
“Harris’s stepmom had an invite to the party you were at. She’d offered it to me and Gray but there was no way I was going to that shit. If I’d known that was where you would be, though, I would’ve taken the fucking thing.” Jace let out a frustrated breath and I could imagine his nostrils flaring with his annoyance.
“I couldn’t imagine you at that party, Jace. It was totally not your scene. A mixture of greedy wealth and snarky dickheads.”
Jace let out a harsh laugh. “I’m used to those kinds of parties, babe. Alicia has forced Kas, Gray and me to attend them most of our lives. That’s what happens when your adoptive mother comes from the kind of money Alicia comes from.”
I was already half through with my sandwich. Seeing a smear of mustard on my thumb, I licked it off before answering. “Yeah, well, you’re better than that, Jace. I didn’t want you there. Besides, I liked texting you. It was fun, and it pissed Jillian off because I was ignoring the douche-buckets that she was trying to set me up with.”
“Fuck. I knew I should’ve gone over there.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the menace in his tone. Was he jealous? The thought made me grin with pure happiness. For about ten seconds. Then I forced my face into a scowl and glared at my pillows. “It’s late, Jace. I need to get in the shower and go to bed. Carter will be here tomorrow and I want to be rested up when I see him.”
“You shower in the mornings,” he reminded me with a grumble. Of course he would remember that.
“Normally,” I agreed, an evil grin splitting my face, “but some dickhead with too much cologne made me dance with him and I have that smell all over my dress and arms. I don’t want it all over my covers.”
“Fuuuck!”
Laughing at the possessiveness I heard loud and clear in his roar, I quickly told him goodnight and turned off my phone before he could call me back. That had felt surprisingly good, to tease him like that and hear how pissed he was. How jealous. How possessive.
Jace St. Charles still felt something and it wasn’t just the lust that had nearly made us combust the first time we’d been together. No, there was something deeper there.
The only question was: Did I want to find out what that something deeper was?
I fell asleep that night without really knowing the answer.
Carter Jacobson stood as tall as his son, had the same blue eyes and blond hair as both his children, and that deceptively angelic look in his eyes that reminded me so much of Angie I wanted to laugh. Seeing him standing in Scott Montez’s living room with the twins on either side of him while Jillian and Scott stood there looking at him with narrowed eyes was beyond bizarre.
My first instinct was to run and throw my arms around him, and I’d done that as soon as the doorbell had rung not ten minutes before. Now, in a living room full of the four people I hated more than anyone else on the planet as well as three of the ones I loved more than anyone else, while I stood in the middle of what felt like no-man’s land, I just wanted him to hold me again.
For my mother, it had been love at first sight with Carter. For me? It had taken a little longer for me to love him as much as I did right then. Longer, as in a day and a half. I’d never had a father figure until Carter came into my life. Scott had long since abandoned me and my mother, but we hadn’t really needed him anyway. And it wasn’t like we had needed Carter either, really. We had wanted to need him, and that was a big difference.
Carter hadn’t said a word when he’d found out I came as part of the package that was the beautiful Abigail Montez. Hadn’t blinked when he’d had to take on one more child to pay for and play daddy to. I’d never felt right calling him ‘Dad’ in all the years I’d been a part of his life, but we both knew that I considered him as just that.
My dad.
The man who had stepped up without so much as a grumble and taken me in like I was just as much his blood as Angie and Caleb were.
“McKinley is grounded,” Jillian informed Carter now, sounding like the pretentious bitch she was. “She has been causing trouble for weeks now and I have finally reached my boiling point. I am not just going to let you come in here and take her out for a special treat like she has done nothing wrong.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from arguing. I hadn’t done a damned thing to cause trouble. All my grades were A’s and I tried to stay as far away from Jillian and her daughters as much as possible. She was just pissed I didn’t want to play with her snot-nosed little brats and give them a ride on the coattails of new fame that I had apparently acquired as not only Scott Montez’s reclusive daughter, but as Lucy Thornton’s new best friend.
Not that I had to explain that to Carter. He’d raised me, for Pete’s sake. He knew how troublesome I could be, and what a good person I was too. He wasn’t blind to my faults, nor was he immune to my good qualities. He loved me regardless of the good or bad.
Thank God.
“From what I’ve heard, you grounded Kin because she wouldn’t play nice with the overly made-up blond kid behind you.” Carter nodded his head at Georgia who was standing with a smug expression on her face beside her mother. At his words the smugness turned into a glare and then a pout, as if she thought that look would work on my stepfather. “Your kid got in trouble and you expected Kin to lower her own morals to get her out of it. All while making sure the girl got a few minutes in the spotlight.” Always one to call any situation as he saw it, Carter had Jillian gasping in outrage within three seconds at his analysis of the situation. “Grounding Kin was uncalled for. And not to step on toes—ah, fuck, who am I kidding? I don’t really care whose toes I step on right now. But you have no say in what Kin does. The only reason she’s even here is to get to know Scott-douchebag-Montez. Abby is probably rolling over in her grave—God rest her soul—because she must see what a mistake it was to force Kin to come here and have to deal with a cunt like you.”
“What did you just call me?” Jillian shrieked. “Scott, are you just going to stand there and let him do that to me in our own home?”
Scott just shrugged. “He’s spoken no lies, Jillian. Shut up for a few minutes, would you?”
With another screech she stomped her foot, looking more like a spoiled child than the adult she so obviously was. “I will not stand for this, Scott. Make this man leave. Now.”
“Happy to leave,” Carter assured her. “But Kin is coming with us. We haven’t seen her in months and we’re here for four weeks to catch up. Whether you like it or not, she’s going to see us all she wants.”
“Scott!”
Carter reached for my hand. “Get ready, Kin, honey. Your brother and sister and I will be outside waiting on you.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I rushed upstairs, pulled on boots and grabbed my phone and a coat. If Carter was going to break me out of the ninth circle of Hell I wasn’t going to say no. I was running back down the stairs before they had even made it to the front door. Without a glance in my father’s direction who was now soothing Jillian’s rumpled feathers, I grabbed Caleb’s hand as he offered it to me and let him pull me out into the sunshine.
Laughing, I jumped up on Caleb’s back and he carried me to the rented Escalade Carter was climbing behind the wheel of. With us all finally buckled in, I glanced around at the three Jacobsons and wished with all my heart I had the same last name.
“Where to?” Angie asked from the front passenger seat.
“Breakfast,” I told her. “I need food.”
Carter chuckled as he put the SUV in gear and pulled out of the driveway. “Food and then fun.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Missed you, Kin.”
My heart twisted and I had to blink back a flood of tears, but my smile was bright when I offered it to him. “Missed you more.”
Over the next few days I got to spend a lot of time with Carter and the twins. I didn’t see Lucy at all, but I texted her a few times. Jace texted too, but I was so caught up in spending time with my loved ones I didn’t have time to text him back. For the most part that was good, because I still didn’t know how to handle this new change in our relationship.
I kind of missed him, though.
Okay, not kind of. I did.
More than a little, but with things at my father’s house going crazy I didn’t have time to think about how much I was missing him. Again, a good thing. I wasn’t ready to examine why I missed him.
Not yet.
After the first week, Jillian started manipulating things to get her way and I was forced to go to more parties. She was making the Christmas holiday—my favorite holiday in the past—my least favorite time of the year with all the parties I had to go to. Since I usually spent my mornings with Carter, she started keeping me out later and later for her damn parties and I was exhausted when I went out with my stepdad and the twins.
I was being pulled in two different directions, one I wanted to go in—shit, one I wanted to run in—while I would rather have had a root canal than have to go in the other. Tensions were high by Christmas Eve. I only wanted one present that year and that was to go home, but that wasn’t going to happen. The promise I’d made to my mother was still ringing in my ear. I knew if she had still been alive she wouldn’t have held it against me if I went back on that promise, but she’d raised me not to be a quitter.
I would be eighteen in February and then I could say I tried. I would finish out my school year there, but I wouldn’t be under the same roof as the twat queen known as Jillian Montez. I didn’t know where I would be living once I turned eighteen, but I knew I didn’t have to worry. Not only had Lucy’s family offered me a room, but Carter had already promised to rent me an apartment if that was what I wanted.
The Christmas Eve gala that I attended was another party I was forced to go to, but I’d talked to Lucy’s Aunt Emmie and was able to score invites for Carter and the twins. My stepdad was a hugely successful businessman in Virginia and wasn’t a poor man by anyone’s standards, but he wasn’t a celebrity so people gave him the cold shoulder.
I hated the way some people looked down their noses at him that night. Carter was a superstar in my eyes and everyone else could suck it for all I cared. Especially Jillian, who stood in a corner surrounded by her small flock of friends. She shot Carter and the twins sneers and whispered in the ears of anyone who would listen about them.
Gritting my teeth as the small group shot Angie a glance and then burst into giggles, I turned away from them. It was either that or go over and punch the step-monster in the face. As much as I wanted to do that, I wasn’t going to give Jillian the satisfaction of a) grounding me again, or b) using my actions to her advantage by gaining sympathy from the tabloids for the story about how her stepdaughter was ‘uncontrollable and dangerous’. I could just see the headlines and knew that Jillian would soak up every drop of the spotlight that would follow.
“They sound like a small pack of hyenas when they laugh like that, don’t they?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the voice behind me. I’d been hiding in a corner, away from everyone, including the twins. I’d thought my hiding spot was pretty good. I could see everyone while they couldn’t really see me unless someone was looking hard.
Turning, I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening when my gaze landed on Jace. I hadn’t seen him at all in the last three weeks so seeing him right then had my heart racing. He was dressed in a tux with his hair styled in a careless kind of way that I had perfected for him in the past by running my fingers through it over and over again.
I wanted to run my fingers through it again as he kissed me.
Shaking my head to dispel that sudden need, I frowned up at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Natalie Cutter got me an invite,” he told me with a smug grin as he put his hand on the wall behind my head and leaned forward. “I figured it was the only way I was going to get to see you before the New Year. You haven’t been returning my calls or texts.”
I lowered my eyes to his jacket, not wanting to watch as his gaze seemed to eat me alive as it skimmed over me like a physical caress. “I’ve been busy,” I told him honestly.
“So Lucy tells me,” he said with a nod. “Stepparents have been playing tug-of-war, I hear. But have you been so busy you couldn’t take two seconds to text me back and let me know you were okay?”
My teeth sank into the inside of my bottom lip. He sounded truly concerned and that caused butterflies to start fluttering in my stomach in a way that made me feel both ill and excited. “No,” I finally answered, “because I don’t know if I’m okay or not.”
“Fuck, Kin.” His free hand lifted to rest on my hip as he pulled me into his body heat. “Baby, you should have called me. I could have—”
My head snapped up. “Could have what? You can’t make this better for me, Jace. Nothing and no one can make this better.” My voice cracked and I grimaced at how emotional I suddenly felt. Fuck, I didn’t want to be emotional. I hated it.
His blue eyes looked stormy as he stared down at me. “I could have held you, Kin. I could’ve held you and told you it’s all going to be okay in the end.”
A shuddery breath left me at those words.
He could have held me.
That was what I’d wanted when my mother had died—to have those strong arms to hold me while my world fell apart—but he hadn’t been there. Now, he was offering to do just that and I ached for it with everything inside of me, but I had to be strong and not fall into his arms. I was unsure of what I wanted and I couldn’t give in and fuck things up.
“I thought you were going to have company for the holidays,” I said instead. Lucy had told me Jace’s sister was supposed to come out from Virginia for a few days, but I hadn’t had the chance to ask her if Kassa had made it or not.
“Kas couldn’t come at the last minute so Gray flew out to be with her and Alicia.” His fingers tightened on my hip, pulling me that last inch that separated us.
“Oh,” I murmured. “Why didn’t you go with him? Won’t you be alone for Christmas now?” The thought of him alone made me sad for him. No one should be alone for Christmas.
He shrugged. “I knew you would be here tonight and didn’t want to miss out on seeing you. I’ve seen Kassa every year on Christmas morning since she was born. This year I wanted to be with you.”
My pulse started to race, but I lifted a brow like his words hadn’t affected me. The gleam in his eyes told me that he saw through my façade though. “You took a big chance, Jace. What if I’d bailed on this party? Then you would’ve stayed in California for nothing.”
The beginnings of a grin teased at the left side of his mouth. “It was a chance I was willing to take, sweetheart.” He lowered his head and rubbed his nose against mine. The feel of his hot breath skimming over my lips made me shiver and I felt more than heard him chuckle in response. “Besides, if you hadn’t been here I would’ve ditched this penguin suit and gone looking for you. All I wanted for Christmas is five minutes alone with you, Kin, and I was determined to give myself that present.”
I leaned my head back against the wall, grinning up at him. “You’re so cocky, you know that?”
“What’s your point?” He winked and skimmed his nose over mine again. Fuck. Why did that feel more intimate than a kiss? My nipples were diamond-hard in my bra and my panties were soaked from just being that close to him, but having his nose rub so carefully over mine made my heart beat in a way that exhilarated me.
And it scared the hell out of me.
“You look beautiful in that dress, by the way.” I shivered again as he moved his hand off the wall to touch my exposed collarbone from my strapless ball gown. Yeah, a fucking ball gown. I had hated putting the damn thing on, but with Jace touching me so tenderly right then, I was glad I was wearing it. “I’d rather you were in jeans and an old T-shirt, though. That’s my real Kin. Not this made-up, Barbie-doll version,” he murmured. “I mean, you’re hot either way, babe, but I love the other Kin a hell of a lot more.”
Had he just said love? My desire-fogged mind couldn’t hold on to that thought for very long.
“Jace…” My voice came out husky, full of everything I was feeling and trying so hard to fight. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“The problem is that we should have been doing this all along, baby.” His nose skimmed across my cheek to my ear. “I ache from missing you, Kin. I ache so fucking bad and I need you to take the ache away.”
“Jace,” I whimpered when I felt his lips on my earlobe, his teeth sinking into my flesh in a way he had shown me could send me over the edge. “Please…stop. I-I’m not going to…um…oh, that feels good…Jace, stop. I won’t…ease any aches.” His aches were nothing compared to my own right then. I squirmed against him, feeling his ‘ache’ pulse against my stomach, which only made my own ache that much more intense.
“Bitch!”
I jerked at Angie’s high, angry tone. It was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. Turning my head away from Jace, I saw my stepsister standing toe to toe with Jillian in the middle of her flock. The beady eyes of Jillian’s friends were insulting as they accessed Angie like she was a bug to squash under their Louis Vuitton-ed heels. Jace followed my gaze, his body tensing for a reason other than our mutual need for each other all of a sudden.
The look on Angie’s face was wild. The angelic version was gone, replaced with one hundred percent devil, and the devil was ready to take on Jillian—who was more of a minion from Hell than anyone else I’d ever met.
“Sweet Jesus,” Jace muttered. “This isn’t gonna be pretty.”
I ducked under his arm and headed toward where my stepsister was drawing a large crowd. There was pure malice in Jillian’s eyes—with a hint of glee. Fucking hell, she was enjoying whatever was going on, and that told me that it was worse than I could even imagine, more than anything else could have.
“I won’t sit around while you talk about my sister like that,” Angie raged. “You have no right to judge anyone, you sanctimonious cunt.”
“Angie…” Caleb tried to intervene but one glare from his twin had him holding up his hands in surrender as he took a step back.
“I tell it how I see it, little girl.” Jillian’s smile was in place now and I could almost feel the heat as Angie’s rage built. “McKinley is a—”
Whatever she was going to call me was cut off as Angie took a step toward her, hands balled into tight fists at her sides raising to take a swing at Jillian’s expertly made-up face. Before she could hit the step-monster, Carter was there, pulling his daughter away from her intended target.
“I will destroy you,” Angie seethed. “I will cut off your fucking fake-ass tits and sell the saline bags to the highest bidder.” She struggled against her father’s hold. “Say it again, slut. Say it again, I dare you.”
The crowd around them was only growing bigger and I had to push my way through. By the time I reached them, Scott had appeared as well as both Georgia and Carolina. Georgia had a smug look on her face, but Carolina was frowning back and forth from Angie to her mother. I saw a few cameras flashing and realized that this was exactly what Jillian had wanted all along. She was going to get her Christmas wish when her picture was plastered on the morning edition of every tabloid in the country.
I felt a hand at my waist as I slowed down and realized Jace had followed me.
“Control your daughter, Jacobson,” Scott barked. “She’s making a spectacle of us all.”
Instead of encouraging Carter to deal with Angie, however, it stopped him cold. He slackened his hold on her and she would have gone for Jillian’s throat if Caleb hadn’t stepped between them.
“You’re giving her exactly what she wants,” I heard my stepbrother grumble to his twin. He had to use his full strength to hold her at bay as she struggled against him with triple the strength her little body could possibly have had.
“I don’t give a fuck,” Angie snarled. “She doesn’t get to talk about Kin like that and continue breathing.”
While Caleb’s hold didn’t slacken, his eyes did narrow. “What the hell did she say, Ang?”
I didn’t care enough about what Jillian might have said about me to listen. My attention was pulled from the twins to my stepdad now standing toe to toe with my father. “Control my daughter?” Carter spoke in a voice so calm and collected I knew there was real trouble brewing. Carter only got that calm, dangerous look in his eyes when he was so pissed he was trying to hold himself back. I’d seen it a few times over the years and usually when dealing with business, never in a personal situation like this one was. “How about you control that bitch of a wife you have, motherfucker? Maybe if you grew a set of balls you could stand up for yourself for once in your life and take care of the important things.”
I heard Jace’s breath hiss out of him as he listened to Carter rip into Scott. “Burn,” he muttered with a low chuckle. “Fuck, I’ve missed your family, babe.”
I couldn’t find a reply. It was turning into a war zone around me, and while any other time I would have been standing right beside Carter and Angie throwing my own punches, right then I was picturing the outcome of what was happening. Angie arrested for aggravated assault if she got to Jillian. Carter’s name plastered on the front of stupid tabloids and ruining his business.
I wouldn’t let that happen. Not over me.
Stepping forward I wrapped my hands around Angie’s wrists. She jerked as if I’d electrocuted her, her head snapping back almost like I’d slapped her. Wild blue eyes met mine and some of the rage dimmed. “She said—”
“I don’t care, Angie. Whatever she said doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter. Stop this before you get into trouble.”
Pain mixed with her anger, making her chin tremble ever so slightly. “She’s evil, Kin. You shouldn’t have to deal with her.”
I pulled her away from Caleb and into my arms, hugging her tight. “She doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “You’re better than her so don’t stoop to her level and give her what she wants.”
She went slack in my arms and I knew what would follow the storm that had nearly turned into an all out hurricane. I felt her tears on my bare shoulder. A sob bubbled up, but I held her head against me, drowning it out so the gossip-hungry vultures around us wouldn’t hear it.
I held on to her for a full minute before looking up at Jace. Behind me, Scott and Carter were still throwing insults at each other and I had to intervene quickly before Carter’s reputation was ruined. As if reading the question in my eyes, Jace stepped up next to me and I handed Angie over to him without saying a word.
Caleb was quiet beside us, his eyes accessing Jillian who was once again surrounded by her flock, which had grown by at least six women now. I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about him doing anything stupid, though, so I turned to my father and pushed between him and Carter. I shoved Scott back, and fuck, but it felt good when he stumbled back a few steps.
“That’s enough,” I told him before looking up at Carter. “Please, stop. You’re better than this, Carter. Don’t let them bring you down. Don’t let him ruin what you have. He destroys everything he touches. I don’t want to see you added to the trash pile that’s already a mile deep, Carter.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist when he lowered his eyes in shame. “Let’s go,” I murmured, my tone quiet and gentle like I’d heard my mother use when she had tried to soothe her husband in the past. “Let’s go get something to eat and chill out in your hotel.”
“I’m so sorry, Kin.” He released a harsh breath. “Your mother would be so ashamed of me right now.”
My arms tightened around him. “Well, I’m pretty proud of you, and since she isn’t here, that’s all that matters.” I gave him an impish grin, which got me a halfhearted smile from him in return. “I’m really, really hungry. Can we have Chinese?”
Behind me, Jillian let out an angry protest that sounded almost like a squawk. “You’re not leaving with them. I won’t allow it,” she bit out. “You came here with us, McKinley, and you will leave with us.”
I sighed and turned to face her, my expression blank so she wouldn’t see how pissed I really was. She’d already gotten one show for the night, I wasn’t about to give her another one. “I think we all know that you don’t count by now, Jillian, so what you want doesn’t really matter.” I wrapped a hand around Carter’s much larger one.
“See you tomorrow,” I called over my shoulder as I led them away from the crowd like I wasn’t affected by the shit-storm I was sure would follow the next morning.
Jace, still with his arms full of Angie, followed us. “I could really go for some honey chicken if we’re getting Chinese.”
“Only if you promise to share it.” I shot him a thankful smile as we left the venue and Caleb handed over his valet ticket. He was changing the subject, acting like nothing had happened and I wasn’t scared to admit—at least not to myself—that I loved him for it.
“If you share the noodles, babe.”
He was a tough negotiator, but I really liked sharing his honey chicken. “Deal.”