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“Hmm-hmm,” he said, lifting my hand and kissing it. “I like your ass. Your back. Your tits. But I gotta say, I think your mouth is my favorite.”
I flushed and shook my head. “You cannot seduce me into a better mood.” Even if I wanted him to.
“Oh, Frankie,” Jake drawled slowly. “I like a challenge.”
“You know, I knew that about you.”
He grinned and some of the bricks on my chest eased up. The more distance he put between me and Maddy, the better.
Chapter Ten
Well He’s a Rolling Stone
Archie
Edward’s behavior shouldn’t shock me. It really shouldn’t. In nearly eighteen years, I’d never seen him at a single school function or darken the door of any school I attended until today.
The hell of it was, he wasn’t there for me.
Go figure.
Frankie’s pallor worried the fuck out of me, but she didn’t back down from her mother once. I never got that phrase ‘so proud I could spit’ until I’d seen her shut her mother down not once, not just twice, but three times.
That last comment though, about not being a doll she just got to pick up and play with when she felt like it, deflated all of my pride and left a hollow place for rage. What the hell was wrong with her mother? No one deserved to be treated that way.
Especially not Frankie.
For a spare second, our gazes had locked as Coop hustled her to Jake’s car. Edward’s car door swung open, and I cut behind them so I could block any approach. Jake was ready to run interference, but I needed him to move.
“Keep going, get her out of here.”
I half-expected Bubba to go with them, but he didn’t. Instead, he faced Frankie’s mom as if he had every intention of bodily blocking her from following. Worked for me.
Expression cool, Edward flicked a look from me, to Frankie’s mom, to Jake’s SUV as he backed out of the slip he’d parked in and then accelerated to leave the park. “Are you proud of yourself, Archie?”
I shrugged. “Most days. Not that you care. Must suck that not everything is going the way you want it to.”
“Do you really want to wage this war with me?” The question almost made me smile.
“Pretty sure my actions speak for myself, Edward. I want you to leave Frankie alone. Period. End of story.”
In an ideal world, he’d leave her mother alone, but that bridge had already been breached, it had been burned, and there was no putting it back up. At least not easily, and after everything we’d learned in the last few weeks, I didn’t want to reconstruct it. I wanted both of them as far from Frankie as I could possibly get them.
That woman didn’t deserve a daughter like Frankie.
“Did you forget who controls your accounts?”
“Nope. Grandpa has a very firm grip on my trust fund. You might control the family accounts, so knock yourself out.” It wouldn’t be the first time he threatened to cut me off.
Probably wouldn’t be the last.
Bringing up Grandpa, however, penetrated his veneer of control. “You are treading on thin ice, son.”
I snorted. What was Edward going to do? Take on his father? He hadn’t managed it in all the years we’d been here. I doubted very much he’d take the fight now. It had taken me a while to figure it out, but I had it now.
He’d moved here to wait for Grandpa to die. In an ideal world, for Edward anyway, that death would occur before I turned eighteen. Then Edward would be the one in charge of everything.
That advantage vanished in about ten more days.
