Sweet Liar (Dirty Sweet, #1)(18)

She let out a loud sigh, not unlike the teenage sighs I heard often enough from Aaron. “We’re seeing a Broadway show tonight. I’m supposed to meet her at the office around four.”

“Good. That leaves us time for lunch.” I pulled her coat from the cupboard and helped her put it on. “We can work out an arrangement for the, er, the other thing from there.”

She linked her arm through mine and beamed up at me. “Sounds like a plan, professor.”

My trousers tightened at her newest title for me. Daddy? Professor? Did she know she’d hit the bullseye on my hot buttons?

If she didn’t, her naivety certainly added to her allure.

And if she did know, as I expected she did, I had to wonder—what exactly could she possibly learn from me?





“I knew it would happen one day, honestly. He’s a teenager now. He wants to spend his school breaks on skiing trips with his friends and playing marathon sessions of Fortnite, or whatever the game is he’s into at the moment. He doesn’t want to waste half of his holidays stuck in an aeroplane traveling to visit his boring old father.” I paused to take a swallow of my champagne. It was early for alcohol, but Audrey had said the finding of my apartment had warranted a celebration, and as I’d already discovered, it was impossible to deny her whims.

Which was also why I’d spent the last ten minutes waxing on about Aaron. What a boring subject for a young female companion. Nothing could bring out the old man in me like reminding me of my teenager. I knew better than to bring up the topic, but as soon as the waiter had taken our order, she’d asked.

And she was compelling, that one was. She didn’t have to ask twice.

To her credit, she’d remained engaged throughout my indulgent rant, asking questions, adding commentary. “He’s so young,” she said now—ironically, I thought. “This is just a phase of growing up. I remember feeling the same way at that age—not about my father. He died when I was thirteen. And then Sabrina left school to look after me, and I remember feeling so smothered. Like, I knew she’d sacrificed for me, and that should make me more appreciative, but I was a total pain in her behind. I resented her, for some reason. I didn’t want her around. I mean, I did, but I didn’t act like I did. I grew out of it—mostly. Aaron will too.”

She really was lovely. Giving me advice on my son, who I felt more and more out of touch with as the years went by, was not something I expected at all in exchange for my help with her situation.

No, my reward for that was simply being the man she’d chosen as her tutor.

“He will. I know he will,” I agreed. My stepdaughter had been the same way. At the time it had been hard to distinguish whether it was an age-related behavior or if it had been caused by my intrusion into her life. Amanda and I had gotten along well, but a new stepfather is always an adjustment.

I tapped my finger along the rim of the champagne glass. “Why do you think children resent the elders caring for them? Is there some secret club that requires that as an initiation into adulthood that I don’t remember?”

She laughed. “Actually, sort of yes. You hit puberty, and your body is suddenly an adult body, which doesn’t mean you make adult choices yet, but you think you do. And here’s this person who—in my case—isn’t much older than you, and she’s in charge of all the rules, and some of them are ridiculous, and you know that she’s wrong about everything, even if she did set her future aside to be there for you, and how can you not resent that? Then you grow up a little more and realize, oh, fudge. She was right about almost everything.”

She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and brought her point back to me. “In your case, you don’t live with Aaron every day. Yet you still have automatic authority over him, and he has to believe he knows better than you. And maybe he does sometimes, but he can’t possibly realize all the times he doesn’t. All you can do is give him lots of space to express what he feels. And then more space to let him feel it. And all the while you’ll be there, hanging back, but close enough to protect him if he needs it.”

“Sage advice.” I meant it too. She was as wise as she was dear, it appeared. “I hope that’s exactly what I’m doing with buying the flat. I don’t want to force him to be with me, but I still want to be near him, when I can. I’ll come for Christmas and spring break, and I’ll spend as much of the summer as I can over here. It’s only three years until he graduates from high school, and if he decides he really wants to go to NYU like he says he wants to, then he’ll have a place to live that isn’t with his mother. It would be cruel to expect him to live with that monster a minute longer than he has to.”

Usually I wasn’t that awful about Ellen to other people, particularly people who were practically strangers, but Audrey was a good listener, and I was not on the best terms with my ex as of late. The chance to be honest was simultaneously refreshing and concerning.

Audrey’s eyebrows rose. “A monster? So she’s the awful creature that poisoned you into believing you had to be a pessimist to survive the world.”

“I’m not a pessimist—I’m a realist. I’m sure it’s difficult to tell the difference when you’re as unrealistically optimistic as you are—”

“Hey, now!”

I smiled to let her know I was teasing. Mostly. “But I promise you that the glasses I’m looking through are quite clear. There was no poison except truth.”