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“Oh, and where would that be?”
“The hospital,” he says simply, his eyes darkening and turning into narrow slits. “I will make sure he’ll never try and do that to another woman, Dolly.”
“Fuck me.” My voice shakes on a beg and he presses his knee between my legs, parting them. I oblige.
Graham looks down at my bare inner thighs, licks his lips and shakes his head, as if resisting me. Then he sits down, pulls me on top of him so I’m straddling his thigh and presses his huge palm to the small of my back. Without even meaning to, I grind against him. His other hand is firm on my hips, stopping my movements.
“Dolly wants her daddy?” His fingers dig into my skin. A moan slips out, and I try to rock my hips again.
“Answer me,” he demands, squeezing my waist so that I don’t move.
“Yes,” I answer breathlessly. He moves to stand, and yanks me up by the arm, setting me on my feet.
“Then you’ll have to wait because today, we have plans. Ones that don’t involve sitting in this house.”
Graham is taking me out? Anyone could see! I fidget with the hem of my nightgown and look down. He sees the panic on my face, I’m sure, because he goes on to explain.
“You know what this is?” he asks. I shake my head and look up, arching one eyebrow.
“A gossip suicide bomb waiting to explode in downtown Princeton?”
Graham almost laughs, I see it in the glitter dancing in his eyes, but his lips remain flat and serious.
“This is me telling the world that you’re fucking mine.” He jerks me into his hard body, and I feel his erection poking my stomach, twitching with excitement. “Not my step-daughter. Not my kid, not my fucking responsibility. You’re my woman, who I fuck every night, who I worship every day, who I am going to spend the rest of my fucking life with.”
“But what about my mom?” I stutter, and again, hate myself for how insecure and out of my element I am.
“She’s getting the deal of her lifetime. A free apartment and to walk out of this marriage after spending my hard earned fortune. Annabelle will be fine. She’s got Julio to keep her warm at night and enough cash to buy another three Julios if he ever gets tired of her.”
“This is harsh,” I sigh.
“Yes, that’s how you know that it’s the truth. It’s necessary. Come on. Dress up. We’re going out.”
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten all morning. It’s noon. You’re going to eat.”
“Everybody’s looking.”
“That’s because we’re two hot motherfuckers.” Graham takes a sip of his Americano completely at ease, sprawled on a chair in front of me in the coffee shop we sit in. It’s a small place full of hipsters just across from Princeton University. I can see the lush grass of the campus from across the road and my heart pinches when I think about the fact studying in an Ivy League university is not something I’ll be able to do. Throughout my teenage years, I was so focused on just trying to get by and making sure my mother was off drugs, that studying was a luxury I didn’t have much time for. Of course, some will say it’s just a poor excuse but for me it’s the truth. I couldn’t multi-task. On days Graham was at work, which was always, and I heard my mother throwing up in the bathroom, knowing exactly why she was sick, I couldn’t focus on anything else other than the fact that I needed to make sure that she’s okay.
Sure, she’s a lot better now, but I didn’t know she would be.
“Maybe people just assume that we’re having lunch as a father and daughter,” I mutter, trying to distract myself from the fact that everybody is looking at us, they know our sob-story, the poor stripper who married the wealthy NYC-based businessman, and wonder how come we’re together without my mother. Graham and I have never seen together before in public. Hell, mom and him were never seen together before, either.
In response, Graham reaches from across the table, the BLT sandwich he ordered for me and our two, hot and sweet coffees, tugs the collar of my lacey baby-blue shirt and jerks me until my nose meets his. He places his big palm on my cheek, brushes his nose across mine and plants a wet kiss on my lips. When our warm lips touch, I gasp, and he uses this opportunity to insert his tongue into my mouth, deepening our kiss. After a few seconds in which I feel everything tingling, he breaks the kiss. I stare at him breathlessly while he brushes his dress shirt with his palm, unfazed.
“Yeah, well, if they thought we were having lunch as father and daughter, I fucking doubt they still do.”
I look around me and feel my face reddening to a point I can barely breathe. Everyone is now blatantly staring at us, some of them with their mouths agape. A group of senior girls I don’t know very well from my high school are texting furiously while chuckling, I saw them at my party, I can’t believe they don’t even wait until I look the other way, and two preppy women in their fifties, with bleached blonde hair and pastel cardigans, whisper loudly. Something about morals and how the rumor mill has always said that our family brings shame to the neighborhood.
“I need to get out of here,” I push the BLT sandwich aside, I never touched it anyway, and swallow the gulp of shame in my throat. Even the kiss tastes bitter on my lips, and it’s Graham’s kiss. They usually light me up and make me feel alive. He grabs my hand and drags me closer to him, my chair scraping the floor noisily. The chatter in the coffee shop stops, and other than my pounding heart, the silence is almost deafening.
“These people”—he lifts his free hand, pointing at all of them nonchalantly—“they never gave a shit about you, Dolly. These people frowned when you moved into my house because your mother had to work as a stripper to pay for your bills. These people talked behind our backs even before they knew our names. These people don’t matter.” God, he says that loud enough for them to hear, and I see eyes widening and hear gasps that don’t belong to me.
And I get him.
