Tainted Forever (Tainted Knights 5)

Seeing someone I recognized, I quickly turned away, trying to smother my groan.

“What?” Jenna asked with concern when I attempted to hide my face.

“Five people down,” I muttered, keeping my head turned in case he looked my way. “My dad is here, and he’s not with the stepmonster.”

She snuck a glance the way I was avoiding looking, and I watched her face. The instant she set eyes on him, her brows knitted together. “Oh fuck. Yeah, that is definitely not her. He’s being pretty ballsy, isn’t he? Didn’t his last affair take place on set? This is pretty close to home.”

“From what all the trash mags indicated, yeah. Caro didn’t know the details, and I don’t ever keep up with dear old dad.” Our drinks were finally set in front of us, and I lifted mine to my lips quickly, downing a third of it in one gulp. Thinking about my father always put me on edge. Being in the same club with him was making me want to drink the entire contents of the bar, alcohol poisoning be damned.

It was weird as fuck to be out at the same place as my fiftyish father. Most fathers that age were home in bed by ten on a Friday, not out looking to score pussy in a place where the majority of the patrons were in their twenties.

“Wait, isn’t that the actress he was cheating with?” Jenna squinted, watching them over my shoulder for another minute. “Yeah, that’s her, I’m pretty sure of it.”

I snorted. “I’m not surprised. Jillian is a cold bitch. Pretty sure Scott rarely got laid.”

“He’s looking this way,” Jenna informed me. “Shit, I think he recognizes you. His eyes are all squashed together as if he’s trying to tell if it’s you or not from behind.”

I downed another third of my drink. “Damn, and I was having such a good time too.” I pulled on her shirt. “Come on. Let’s go sit down before he decides to come talk to me.”

But I barely got a few feet away from the bar before my name was being called. “McKinley.”

I tensed up, hating the name he’d forced my mother to give me. They got married because of me and got divorced just as quickly after I was born. Until my mother died when I was seventeen, I hadn’t seen him since I was a toddler other than on magazines and occasionally on TMZ. Even after I moved in with him and his wife, I didn’t see much of him, and what I did only made me glad he was on set most of the time.

Scott Montez was still a good-looking man, but I was forever thankful to have gotten all my looks from my mother, with the exception of my eyes. The gray in his dark hair was a little less noticeable now as he pulled his girlfriend behind him, stopping just a few feet away as I waited reluctantly.

He was probably using one of those shampoos that washed out the gray a little at a time, I figured as he stood before me. “How have you been, sweetheart?”

I nearly laughed. Sweetheart? He’d never called me that a day in his life. What the hell was going on with him?

“What do you want, Scott?” I demanded, getting straight to the point. The quicker this was over with, the better.

The chick beside him, a woman I only knew from her movie roles as Hollywood’s latest “it girl,” gave me a kind smile. I heard she was nice from all the talk about her, and she was definitely better-looking than Jillian. Lean with simple curves and a megawatt smile, she had dark hair that was glossy but untouched by chemicals. It was kind of refreshing to see her so natural in a sea of plastic. Still, she was screwing around with a married man, so there was obviously something wrong with her.

“I saw you and wanted to say hello, McKinley.” He tucked his girlfriend closer to his side, and she looked up at him adoringly. Yeah, there were definitely a few screws loose upstairs if she was so madly in love with a sleazebag like Scott. “I thought maybe we could have dinner together one night soon. Catch up.”

“No thanks.”

He gave me a grim smile. “Jillian is out of the picture, if that’s what you are concerned about, honey.”

I blinked at him, not sure how to take that announcement. I didn’t care one way or the other if he was still with Jillian, but Carolina would be upset. Scott was as close to a father figure as she’d ever h

ad. “You and Jillian are getting a divorce?”

He nodded, and his new girlfriend shoved her hand forward, showing off the huge rock on her finger. It glittered in the lights, nearly blinding me for a second. “The divorce will be final next month. Shannon wants a spring wedding.”

I tried to keep my eyes from widening, but it was virtually impossible. Shannon Stewart was maybe five years older than me. And that was a huge maybe. Yet here was my father, telling me she was going to be replacing my current stepmother. It was one thing for her to be my father’s girlfriend on the side, but it was something completely different to have her as yet another stepmother.

“Wow,” I choked out and tipped my glass up to finish my drink with one last gulp. As soon as it was lowered, Jenna was taking it out of my hands and pushing something else into it. The beer she’d gotten for Angie. “I guess you wanted to lock her down before she realized what a dirtbag you really are, huh, Scott?”

His face tightened. “McKinley—” he started to scold me.

“Kin,” I snapped, cutting off his attempt to lecture me on parental respect. “My fucking name is Kin! I hate McKinley. Something you would have known if you had ever tried to be my goddamn father for five minutes.”

“Maybe we should go,” Shannon murmured, looking uncomfortable. “My brother will be here soon.”

“Perfect. Let’s meet my dear old stepuncle,” I sneered at her, knowing she didn’t deserve my bitchiness but too pissed at Scott to allow her to escape it.

“Kin, let’s go sit down,” Jenna suggested, touching my shoulder.