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College? I turned to look at Mom, who was watching me with that hopeful look in her eyes. She wanted this for me. She had sacrificed for me since she had been a teenager. Now, she was able to do this, and I knew it was important to her. Accepting it was hard for me though. Garrett wasn’t my father. He didn’t have to do any of this for me.
“I …” I paused. I wasn’t sure what to say. How to say it. I didn’t want to be any more tangled up with this family than I already was. But did I really have a choice anymore? The reason I wanted to stay didn’t want me. “Thank you. The job sounds amazing. I can’t accept that kind of salary though. Not with everything you’re already giving me. It’s too much. But I would like the job. School …” I paused and looked at Mom again. I didn’t want to let her down, but I had to draw some lines. I couldn’t give up my independence completely. “I think I need to save for that. Pay my own way. You aren’t responsible for my education. But I do appreciate the offer. That’s very generous of you.”
Garrett’s eyes were on my mother now. He was waiting on her cue as to how to proceed. I liked that. He wasn’t taking control. He was letting her lead this.
Finally, he looked back at me and nodded. “Okay. If that is what makes you happy. We can lower your salary to one hundred thousand, but that is as low as I will go. If I hired anyone else, that would be their starting salary. I’m not going to pay my stepdaughter less.”
With that kind of money, I’d be paying for my college within a year.
I nodded. “Okay. Thank you,” I replied.
He smiled then, looking relieved. “Good. I’ll get Madeline to order the equipment you’ll need. Give her a couple of days. She will contact you when she’s ready for you to report to her office in the stables.”
“Yes, sir.”
He stood then and walked over to Mom, bending down to kiss her. She touched the side of his face with her hand, the massive rock he’d put on it flashing at me. I turned my attention back to my food. I had a job. I had a plan for college. This wasn’t so bad. It would be perfect … if I didn’t miss Trev. If his absence wasn’t breaking a little more of my heart every day.
Trev
Five Days Since Gypsi Fucked with My Head and Ruined Everything
“You’ve been drunk for four days. Laid up at the house, worrying Trinity and Shiloh. Now, I’ve got you at a damn strip club, and you still look fucking miserable. When are you gonna tell me what the hell is wrong with you?”
Levi’s gaze was locked on me as he waited for an answer while I watched the dancer do things to the pole that should be turning me on. It wasn’t.
I reached for the beer he’d put in front of me. “My stepsister,” I snapped.
He laughed. “No shit. I have that much figured out. But, dude, you knew when you started fucking her that Garrett was serious about her momma. I don’t see how this engagement should send you into a downward spiral.”
I shot an annoyed glare at him and took a drink of my beer. “Let me just watch the naked women and not talk about Gypsi.”
“I would, but you’re glowering at them like you would rather throw darts than dollar bills. You need to talk and get this shit out of your head. You’re too young for this kind of thing. Don’t get all fucked up on a girl at your age. Gage did that, and look what happened to him. Fucking Marines.”
Yeah, but Gage had his girl now. She was in his bed. Same damn girl he had been in love with at twenty-two. Even after five years of not seeing her. One look at her, and he had been done. That shit was scary. No one should have that kind of power over you.
“It’s not that. I’m not like Gage. This is a different situation,” I grumbled, annoyed that he wouldn’t shut up about it.
I was struggling to get a hard-on as it was. He wasn’t helping by talking.
“Doesn’t look like it to me. You carved a man up over her. Looks exactly like Gage’s situation.”
I slammed my beer down and glared at him. “It was about fucking. That’s it. We got along. We had fun. I liked being around her. I loved fucking her. She was the hottest damn fuck of my life. I wasn’t in love or obsessed, like Gage was.”
“She ended the fucking when the parents got engaged?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “No,” I replied through clenched teeth.
