[Invitation to Eden 24.0] How to Tempt a Tycoon (23 page)

“Stop being such a little shit.”

“I will if you stop being the poster boy for perfection.”

“Give it a rest.” While my wrist is firmly shackled in his fist, he turns and starts to drag me toward the car. “Let’s go.”

Digging my heels in—not very effective in flip-flops—I say, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

This is all bravado because the guy is twice my size and three times as strong. All he has to do is tug and I have no choice but to stumble after him. So, I resort to lunatic tactics, something my seventeen year old self was pretty adept at.

“Pervert!” I cry, trying to tug my arm out of his grasp. “Rapist fucking pervert!”

The only indication that Chase is upset by my behavior is the deep flush creeping up from beneath the collar of his shirt.

“Let go of me, you sicko!”

“She’s my little sister,” he explains patiently to a curious on-looker. “
Dramatic
little sister.”

“I’m not your fucking sister,” I shout as he hauls me around to the passenger door of the car, opens it, pushes me inside and buckles me in.

Apparently he’s not taking any chances because he doesn’t go around to his door, rather he climbs right in over me. He’s so big and there’s honestly not enough room in the car for both of us that his whole body brushes against mine, forcing me to feel the heat emanating off him, making the clean, male scent of him—like he’d just gotten out of the shower before being sent by Marcy to find me—so strong I can taste him.

Not that I hadn’t noticed his scent before. Of course I’ve noticed how Chase smells. He’s fucking delicious.

I hate it so much that I spend a good hour in the bathroom after he’s done showering just so I can revel—in dislike and hatred—in his scent while I rub his wet towel against my cheek, using his shaving cream and razor to shave my legs.

He pauses for a second while he’s directly in front of me, his chocolate eyes flashing with patient annoyance, his lips grim.

I’m so mad at him I feel like kissing him just so I can force a reaction out of him. I hate how stoic he is. How good he is. How fucking strong he is. I hate that I can see the muscles stand out along his forearms as he tries to maneuver around me. I hate that my fingers twitch with wanting to touch those muscles to see how hard they are.

“Two more months, Tess. That’s it.” His chocolate gaze drills into my forehead. “After that there are no more social workers. No more foster homes. You’re on your own. You can go where you want, do what you want.” He shakes his head at me before finally settling into his seat, starting the car and driving off before I have a chance to bolt.

Once we’re moving, he glances at me. “Mom would love for you to stay, but you can leave, if that’s what you want. All you have to do is turn eighteen and you can do whatever the hell you want. Is it really so hard to be decent for a couple more months?”

“Yes,” I say like some petulant five year old. I know I’m acting like a little bitch but I can’t help it. Chase brings it out in me. The truth is, I actually really like Marcy. Out of all the foster homes I’ve been forced to live in, she’s my favorite foster mom. She doesn’t try to be my friend, she doesn’t try to be my mother. She just is who she is. She tells me what she expects from me and she means it.

For example, she expects me to come home in the evening, which apparently I didn’t do last night, not that I can remember where I was, probably sitting under the bridge, throwing rocks in the river, counting the seconds until I can get out of this claustrophobic, small-minded town. I figure Marcy thinks I was out partying, drinking and doing drugs with all the other riffraff that she thinks I hang out with.

Which I don’t, but I don’t do anything to persuade her from thinking otherwise. I gave up a long time ago trying to get people to see me for who I really am instead of who they believe me to be. Now I just accept the immediate judgments people make of me. I’m a promiscuous little terror, that’s what people decide within the first five seconds of meeting me.

But with Marcy, things were actually pretty good between us. I mean, I still think she expects the worst from me, but she seems to like me despite that. I thought I could manage living with her until I came of age...until Chase moved back home. Ever since he came back from college, he’s been in my face, in my thoughts, in my dreams. Trying to ‘get through to me’, I guess.

I fucking hate it.

Crossing my arms over my chest, because that’s what petulant five year olds do, I ride back to the house in silence. Once he parks in the drive of the modest bungalow, I get out and storm in through the gate, not holding it for him, letting it crash behind me. Stomping into the house, I let the screen door crash behind me too.

Marcy is sitting at the kitchen table, looking pale, dark circles under her eyes, a cup of untouched coffee in front of her. By the way the cream has gone greasy, I’m pretty sure it’s been there a while.

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

Whereas Chase brings out the fire in me, Marcy makes me repentant. I sit across from her. “I’m sorry.”

“We had a deal, Tessa. Home by midnight.”

“I know. I lost track of time.”

Her hand moves toward me and stops. Not because she’s having second thoughts about touching me but because this is what she does. She expects me to meet her half way. For whatever reason, I do. I pretty much always do. Our fingertips touch and for a second, a nano-second, really, I feel like a true daughter. Like she is my mom and she is touching me not because the state guidebooks on fostering say it’s important, but because she really wants to.

She squeezes and then says, “Don’t do it again, please.”

“I won’t.”

The door opens and shuts and I cringe, pulling my hand from Marcy’s. I do not want Chase to see me holding his mom’s hand.

Chase flops into the chair beside me. “Found her walking up and down Main Street in a trance.”

“I wasn’t in a trance,” I counter.

He drums his fingers on the table. Chase is way harder on me than Marcy. “You get high last night?”

“Yeah Chase. I got high,” I snarl. “High enough to fuck the whole football team without having to feel a thing.”

He cringes like I’ve slapped him.

For some reason, this makes me feel bad.

Marcy gets up and puts her hands on Chase’s way-too-fucking broad shoulders. “Leave her alone. She’s safe now.”

Guilt washes over me. I honestly didn’t mean for Marcy to wait up all night for me.

“You hungry, baby?” Just like that, her anger toward me is gone and my anger toward Chase melts because his mom is so good to me.

The growling of my stomach won’t let me lie even if I wanted to. I nod.

“Bacon and eggs?”

“Yes please.”

By the way Chase is watching me, I know he’s going to say something, but the silence is interrupted by the sound of cries from the nursery.

“That’s DJ. Tessa, do you mind?”

“Course not.”

I walk down the hall, the thwacking of my flip flops on the linoleum is now a penitent sound.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

The door on the left is the nursery. In the two years I’ve lived with Marcy, there have been numerous babies that have come and gone through these doors, but Dillon James has lasted the longest. He’s the only one staying in the room right now; the other crib and child cot remain empty until the state apprehends another baby from some fucked-up parent. DJ is standing in his crib, his arms outstretched for me, his face flushed from sleep.

“Hey buddy,” I say quietly. “How you doing? Did you have a good sleep?”

“Nessie!” He cries, jumping up and down, not sure whether to laugh or cry and ending up with the hiccups.

I pick him up. Shit, the kid is getting heavy. Lifting his butt to my nose—like I’ve seen Marcy do a million times—I say, “Phew! You did a big one, didn’t you?”

“Biggun, biggun,” he chants.

I take him to the change table in the corner of the room and get started on changing the squirming twenty-month-old.

I barely get a clean diaper on him when I feel
his
presence at the door of the room.

“Go away,” I say over my shoulder.

Does he go away?

Of course not.

In direct defiance of my wishes—which is yet another reason to hate him—Chase comes into the room and stands behind me while I wrestle DJ’s overalls back on.

“He’s going home tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

Moving closer, Chase looks down at the squirming boy who’s reaching out for him now, laughing and resuming his chant but including Chase’s name. “Jace, Jace. Biggun. Biggun.”

“Hey little man.” Chase says, reaching for him and letting DJ wrap his pudgy little hands around his finger.

Picking up the boy forces the connection between him and Chase to be broken. I hold DJ on the hip furthest away from Chase. “What did you say?”

“The social worker called this morning. DJ’s mom has been deemed fit. They’re coming for him tomorrow.”

“No.” I shake my head, holding DJ even tighter to me. “She broke his arm when he was three months old. He can’t go back. Marcy has to do something.”

“There’s nothing she can do. The woman’s gone through rehab. It’s a done deal.”

“That’s not fair.”

Emotions flash across his rugged features as he regards the toddler in my arms. “I know.” His voice is low. Scary.

You know what the fucked up thing is? Chase is only four years older than me. Four years. Another reason to resent him except I’m having a hard time finding a resentful patch in my heart as I see him struggling to keep calm around DJ right now. The two of them showed up at Marcy’s house at almost exactly the same time. One big man, one little one.

That means Chase is the only dad DJ has ever known.

Chase’s inability to show what he’s feeling unravels me and I shove DJ at him before he sees me succumb to the emotions that we’re both feeling. I run out of the room and down the hall to my room, throwing myself on the bed and screaming—silently—into the pillow.  The tears that are demanding to be set free will not fall. I won’t let them.

Goddammit!

He’s only a little kid. I’ve seen little kids come and go all my life. Why do I care so much? God!  How many times have I come and gone? This is what life is like in the system. I’ve had seven foster families, if you count the Martins, who were the family before Marcy and basically asked for a teenager in order to have a live-in babysitter for their kids.

At least when my parents abandoned me they gave me to the state and didn’t leave me in the hands of a fucked up foster kid.

While I’m lying on my bed, my pillow so thoroughly mashed into my face I’m on the verge of gagging on it, I realize something...

This is not me.

I mean, this
was
me.

But, I am not this girl anymore.

I take the pillow away from my face and stare at my hands, flipping them over back to front, tracing my life-line and then my heart-line. I can hear the voice of a man from my past—no! Not my past, my future!—telling me there are many breaks in my heart line but that it becomes strong again later in life.

That’s real, right?

That’s not a dream or my imagination talking. It’s real. It happened. I can see his face, his tawny eyes, his dark curls. I met him in Greece. Or...
will
meet him in Greece. His name is Nicolai...

I sit up and look around at the room. My room. The last real room in the last real home I’ve ever had. There’s the small desk in the corner, the faded peach walls without any of the typical teen posters or decorations. There’s a full length mirror, white dresser and closet. It’s my room but it isn’t real. It can’t be because this is part of my past. It’s a memory or some weird vision or fevered dream, that’s all.

It sure as hell feels real.

I get up and move to the closet, opening the door as if there might be something that jumps out at me. The only thing that jumps out is the black grad dress that I never wear...wore. I touch the strapless black satin remembering clearly the day Marcy helped me pick it out. That was a fun day. I’d never done anything like that before.

“I don’t wear dresses,” I’d complained.

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

“Who cares what everyone says. The beauty of life is we get to decide for ourselves what we do and what we don’t do. It’s not up to anyone else.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re an adult.”

She looked at me in that kind, non-judgmental way that was so Marcy. “I know you haven’t had a lot of choices in your life, Tessa. But you are a smart, beautiful woman and believe me, you will go far if you only figure out who you are and what you want. All you have to do is be the person you want to be. And you’re so close to figuring that out already. I can see it.” The look in her eyes was genuine, like she really believed what she was saying.

“Then,” she continued while searching through the racks of dresses, “let every decision guide you toward your goal of being that person.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Why does it have to be hard?”

“Because everyone says it is.”

She grinned. “And you really want to believe what everyone has to say? You really think you have to live a certain way? Be a certain person because everyone tells you that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you, I’ve never met someone as strong as you. You are unique. Since the moment I met you, you have been your own person.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Marcy. I’m a shit and you know it.”

“You’re a teenager. You’re supposed to be a shit disturber at your age. I’ve had enough teenagers under my roof to know. Plus, believe it or not, I was one once.”

“Lies!” I joked.

She twisted her lips to keep from smiling. Another Marcy-ism. Then she pulled a dress from among the masses of discount dresses, the one I’m touching right now. She held it up against me. “Everyone else will be wearing pinks or  reds or purple. You will look stunning in this.”

Except I never went to grad.

I couldn’t. I mean, I graduated and all that, I just couldn’t bring myself to go and Marcy never made me, thank God.