Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(21)

I didn’t ask where. It wasn’t my place.

“We’ll be visiting Karen Amsel.”

“One of your clients.”

“She’s more than a client.”

My stomach twisted. I looked at a bite of perfectly grilled chicken stuck on the tines of my fork and resisted the urge to put it down. I needed to clean my plate.

Girls are supposed to have opinions about their fathers dating. I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. I knew he’d been spending a great deal of time with her for the last several months. He’d been eating with her, but I assumed he was simply working late. My father was a financial advisor, working with any number of high profile clients. Mrs. Amsel was among the richest. I’d never met her. He wasn’t one to show me off to the clients. When they came to the house, either on business or for a social call, I was told to stay in my bedroom. Mrs. Amsel had never paid a call, socially or professionally.

“We’ve discussed marriage.”

“I see.”

“I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re excused, when you finish.”

Picking at the vegetables took longer, but I finally finished and took our plates back to the kitchen. Imelda had gone home. She would wash up in the morning. I stacked them neatly in the sink, returned to make sure my chair was neatly pushed in, and left. Father paid me no mind, reading the Wall Street Journal as he sipped his evening coffee.

I retreated to my bedroom. I wasn’t allowed to use the Internet except for school and television was also forbidden. After my evening shower, I settled into bed with a book. I had a box of romance novels tucked under my bed. One of my tutors gave them to me when I asked her about them. I’d read them all five times and half of them were on the verge of losing pages, but I carefully repaired them with tape and glue. Tonight, though, I leaned back and read one of the books I was actually allowed to purchase on our last trip to the store.

By nine o’clock I was in bed, dead tired from rising at five. Tomorrow would be a strange day, only a little stranger than all the rest of the days until I started whatever advanced reading I needed for my college courses. I wouldn’t have anything to do. I’d never had that much leisure time in my life. For as long as I could remember, my studies continued during the summer.

The next morning I put my responses to my acceptance letters in the mailbox. I’d scheduled a tour for July and I would be receiving my orientation paperwork soon. I was almost giddy at the thought, biting my lip in excitement.

I dressed in a light blue sun dress for the… date? Meeting? Was I being presented? I wasn’t sure what to call it, or what it would be like. What if this woman disliked me? I’d be out of the house, soon.

It was a long drive from the city to our destination. I was wide-eyed the whole way, my hands folded neatly in my lap. My heart was pounding when Father turned off the road and drove through a huge wrought iron gate, down a stone path towards the biggest house I had ever seen. It looked like a haunted mansion in a movie, not that I’d seen that many. Two wings curling in a huge U-shape, each two floors jutting out from the three story house. It was topped by a cupola and all brick, covered mostly in ivy. Father parked under a tall portico and handed off his keys to a valet, I suppose he was. After Father let me out, the man drove off in our car, to park it somewhere. He put on a smile and touched my shoulder and led me up a wide, tall set of marble stairs to the broad front door of the house. A serving man in white pulled it open from inside.

Mrs. Amsel was younger than my father, short and plump and pretty, with a warm smile and riglets of thick brown hair that she’d tied back behind her neck. When he walked in she rushed over, touched his arms and kissed him. I looked away, feeling my cheeks burn. Father disliked public displays of affection, but I supposed this wasn’t really public, after all. She turned to me.

“You must be Eve. Martin told me so much about you.”

“Yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you…”

“Karen,” she finished. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you,” I added quickly.

“We’ll be eating out on the terrace.”

“Where’s Victor?” said Father.

Karen sucked in a breath. “He’s around. I told him when I expected you.”

Father smiled at her, but his eyes were hard.

Just then I heard the soft thud of bare feet on carpet and looked up.

A sweeping grand staircase lofted to the second floor, and currently descending it was a young man a year older than I was, tall and lean, muscled like a swimmer or a champion weightlifter. He was shirtless and barefoot and I don’t think he had anything on under his jeans, either. They were very low on his waist. I stared at him. He looked like one of the models on the cover of the books my old tutor gave me. Except none of them had tattoos. He did. Feathers lined both of his arms, etched in black into his skin, sweeping over his shoulders to connect to a design on his back while an open mouthed, screaming raven spread across his chest. My eyes naturally followed the V-shape of his body, and I felt heat rising. He had veins bulging out even on his tightly muscled stomach, and v-channels of muscle along his sides that dove down into the waistband of his jeans. They looked like they’d slide down at any second.

He stepped off the stairs with a spring in his step.