RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(7)

Nobody looking at us then, I thought, would have judged us to be father and daughter. Here was this tall English man with a farmer’s accent in a pristine suit, balding slightly on top, hair stuck down to his head, a few grays here and there, a few lines here and there, booming across the restaurant so that people turned in surprise. And here was this young Texan woman, short, blonde, and timid. Yes, timid. I could tell I was not the wolf today by the way I flinched, their eyes like burning coals, their sneers like gargoyle’s grins, peering at him like some twisted faces from a horror novel, when the people from the nearby tables turned to look at us at Dad’s loudness. I rushed him to the table. I couldn’t stand the angry stares of the Brits any longer. That was one thing I had observed in my travels. Brits hated public noise like that.

He ordered a full English breakfast. I ordered toast and some orange juice. “Best sausages in town, here,” Dad said. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m sure.” I smiled. Maybe I was being too miserable. Maybe he would sense something. The idea made me clench my knees under the table. It was completely irrational, but I suppose it was that kind of morning. “I’m still a little hung over.”

Dad laughed and nodded. “Okay-dokey.”

He talked for a while about his job. Maybe it sounds bad, but I often tune out when Dad talks about his job. He works with numbers, manipulating numbers for big corporations so that they can analyze statistics (or something like that). Truth be told, I have never been exactly sure what he does, only that he gets paid extremely well for it and it was a good decision for him to start up his own firm. My mind, which was used to delving into Hardy and Scott Fitzgerald and Shelley and Bronte, was not built for business; few English literature students’ minds were, I found.

When the breakfast came, he abruptly stopped the business talk.

He crunched a sausage in half in one bite, laid the remains on his plate, and then rested his chin on his clasped hands. “Jess,” he said. It was the Jess which came before your mother left us or I found a cigarette in your school bag or you need to work harder at school or any number of horrible childhood moments. The tone was unmistakable. He wanted to tell me something big. Dread immediately invaded every part of me. I clasped my knees harder. My toes wriggled in my sneakers as though they wanted to crawl away. Heartbeat, that’s one word for it . . . it was like a giant was jumping up and down in my chest. Anxiety’s a bitch, I thought in the haze.

“Yes?” I asked, my voice wobbling.

Dad didn’t seem to notice. He barreled on with the air of a man repeating a well-learned speech. “As you know, I have been single now since you were four, when your mother left and moved to Australia with her lover.” There was no bitterness in his voice. Both of us had gotten over that long ago. Mom was happy in Australia. Dad was happy to let her go. And I was happy because I barely remembered her and she had never tried to take an interest in me. I had long ago stopped worrying about the woman who had once sung to me in a half-remembered dream. He took a deep breath and went on. “Since then, I have not had a girlfriend. I know it’s not something you want to hear from your dad, but I’ve been lonely. Well,” and here he paused dramatically, looking out at the bay for a moment before turning back, “I’ve found somebody!”

His face lit up, and I unclasped my knees. “Is that the news?” I dared to ask.

“Yes.” He creased his forehead in confusion. “Why?”

“Just—” My toes stopped wriggling. My heartbeat slowed. I had been a fool, I realized, to imagine that Dad could know anything about last night. I had let my anxiety get the better of me, as I had done a thousand times before and no doubt would do again. “Just, I’m so happy for you!” I laughed, half with relief that he did not know what a certain wolf and lion had done the night before, and half with genuine happiness for him. “Who is she?”

“Her name in Annabelle Finch,” Dad said. “She’s an artist—a painter. I met her last year, at a gallery where she was displaying some of her work. Excellent work. I like a bit of art here and there—you know that—but I’m no expert. But even I could see how excellent this was. And, anyway, we got to talking and kept in touch online and now that we’re here for the whole summer, we’ve decided to meet.”

“That’s great, Dad,” I said. “Really, that’s fantastic.”

“And I want you to be there,” he went on. “Tonight. Me, you, Annabelle, and her son, Eli.”

I saw no reason to refuse this. I was so happy that he had not somehow divined by activities from last night that I would have agreed to meet anybody. “Of course,” I said.

He nodded once, and then turned to his food.

It’s over, I told myself. You did what you did, but nobody will ever know. Not even the lion will know. It’s done, you silly girl. Relax! You’ll never see him again!





Eli

It was her. I saw that instantly. It was like watching an old friend make her way across the restaurant, an old friend whose face you may have forgotten, but whose mannerisms, whose gait, whose voice, you recognized. Mom and I sat at the table near the back of the restaurant, the sun just beginning to set, as the tall, balding man in the suit and the young, short, blonde woman made her way over to us. Yes, I thought madly. Yes, it was her. Jesus, it was her. I gripped the edge of the table, thinking crazy thoughts like throwing it across the room just to create a distraction. I had never been more sure of anything in my life than I was of this: that woman was the wolf I had fucked last night.