Daddy's Stepstalker (Daddy's Little Deviants)

“—was a horrible mom.”

“Still, I went against her wishes.”

“Because you realized how unfair she was being to me.” Why did he still make excuses for her? “She was a bitch.”

“Ari, this isn’t like you.”

It was exactly like me.

“Why are you still defending her?” I asked. “You saw everything she did to me, the way she treated me. Why did you even marry her?”

Shaw gaped at me, his eyes bulging. This wasn’t what I wanted at all. This wasn’t supposed to be about her. We were supposed to move past the fact that he ever married her and go right to the part where we wound up together.

“I’m sorry.” I pushed away from the table, the chair legs scraping on the floor. “I made apple pie for dessert, with vanilla ice cream.” His favorite. His taste was so much like him. Plain and dull, yet that turned me on more than all the excitement of the past four years.

“Ari, wait!”

I darted to the kitchen, needing the moment to get myself back under control. My hands shook as I took the tub of ice cream out of the freezer and placed it on the counter.

“You’re right. Your mother was never truly kind to you,” Shaw said, entering the kitchen.

“Bowls,” I said, forcing cheer in my voice as I opened the lower cabinets and peered inside. “I know I spotted them somewhere earlier.”

Please get the point. I don’t want to talk about this.

“Ari, please stop. I’m trying to talk to you.”

If only I could ignore the plea in his voice, continue pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary. That me wearing my favorite fifties’ swing dress and heels, cooking meals for him, and being the perfect “housewife” would get him to see me differently. The way he’d seen her differently.

My mom.

Otherwise, it didn’t make sense that a man so good would end up with a woman so wrong for him. Maybe if I became what she’d been to him, he would keep me for one minute longer than he should. Because if she was wrong for him, I’d be the death of him.

“Can’t we just eat ice cream and forget everything?” I made one last effort to give him my best smile. The one that brought out the dimples in my cheeks.

“No, we can’t. We have to talk about it.”

“Why?” I dropped my smile and faced him. “What do you want me to say? That you promised me you’d not let her send me away, and you broke that promise? That for so long I felt betrayed and hurt that you never got her to bring me back?”

“Ari.” My name was a torn cry from his throat. “I know I let you down and I’m so sorry, but you have to understand I didn’t know what she was up to. I never agreed to have her take you away. In fact, she told me you wanted to visit your dad for a while but you would be back.”

“And you believed her?”

“I didn’t know what else to think.” He made a step toward me, and I took one back. “She’d been feeding me information for a while that your biological father wasn’t doing well. I thought…I thought you wanted to see him before things got worse. It would only be for one week of summer, she said. Then she kept telling me you liked it there.”

“Why didn’t you call me if you were worried?”

“Because I told myself if you were really in trouble, you would know to call me. When you didn’t, I assumed she was right and you preferred to stay there.”

Was he lying? As one who’d mastered the art, I knew to look for another person’s tell, but I saw none. He was pale, his eyes tortured as if he’d been as upset as me when my mother sent me away.

“I was hurt that you left without a good-bye,” he added.

I retracted that one step I’d taken back and crossed the distance between us. I grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and tugged on it. “I didn’t want to leave. I swear I didn’t, but she made me. She-she…” I shook my head. No, I couldn’t tell him the truth.

Frustrated tears filled my eyes, and my shoulders shook with the effort not to break down fully. I didn’t cry anymore. I had toughened up. Silly pranks turned into deadly games. Half truths turned into deception and traps. Yet the tears came faster, and a sob tore from my throat.

I’d missed him so much. He was the only man in my life who’d shown me any kindness, and my mother had taken that away from me out of jealousy. Because she’d feared he paid me too much attention, and one day, he would leave her.