Chapter
One
MINA
Dry, passionless, and boring sex would be preferable to watching my father marry a woman who was my age.
“You look like you just smelled something awful,” my best friend Cambry—and my plus-one for this shit show—said, standing beside me at the bar but clearly not feeling half as uncomfortable as I was.
“I’m currently smelling and looking at something that makes me want to gag.”
Cambry chuckled. “So dramatic, Mina. It’s not that bad.”
I glanced at her and gaped. “Not that bad? This is the worst fucking thing!” My voice had risen, and a few people standing close to the bar looked at me with nasty expressions. “Not only is Amber a year younger than me, Cambry. But every time I go to visit my dad, she all but mauls him.” I covered my mouth with a hand, feeling bile rise. “She does that shit on purpose.”
“Why would she do it on purpose?”
I shrug and take a long pull from my champagne flute. “She’s petty and jealous. Pretty sure she’s afraid my dad loves me more than her or something. She’s obviously used to being the center of attention.”
“That’s weird.”
I nod. “Tell me about it. Evidently, she doesn’t know loving your daughter and loving your wife is really different.”
“Oh God,” Cambry said and scrunched up her nose.
“You have no idea how nasty it is seeing her make out with and all but dry hump my dad five feet from where I stand.” I let my gaze travel over to the bride. My new stepmother. A woman who was only twenty-three, whom I’d gone to high school with, and who’d been a mega bitch even then. “I wish the years since she graduated would have been kinder to her disposition, but it’s safe to say she became even more of a bitch in that time.”
Cambry chuckled and brought her champagne flute to her mouth, taking a slow sip as she scanned the crowd. “Your dad wasted no expense on the wedding, did he?”
I glanced over at my best friend. I’d known Cambry for the past five years. We were matched as dorm roommates, and we just clicked. I was pretty sure we were separated at birth, given the fact that we liked and disliked just about all the same things.
She was also the only person I could truly bitch and moan to about Amber. Nobody else would fully understand or tolerate me being so negative.
They would just assume I was jealous of my father’s new bride.
That wasn’t it, though. I just thought he deserved better.
If she were different now, kinder, I wouldn’t even care that Amber was so young. But she wasn’t a good person—at least, not to me—and I remembered she had a nasty attitude in high school too.
Yet… I also couldn’t lie and say she didn’t make my father happy. And as I stared at the happy couple now, I couldn’t deny that he genuinely loved her.
“Listen, your dad is hot as hell—”
I felt my stomach roil at hearing Cambry say that.
“—but he’s also loaded. I mean, maybe she’s just a gold-digger.”
I exhaled and snagged another glass of champagne from a passing server. “Yeah. I thought about that plenty of times. But when I offended Dad by bringing it up, I never mentioned it again.”
I looked around the lavish reception hall. He really had spared no expense, but my father wasn’t stingy with the money he earned. His love language was gift-giving, and as an executive of a Fortune 500 company, he wasn’t hurting for cash. But he also wasn’t frivolous.
“Well, it’s not his first wedding, but it’s his first ceremony.” I thought about what I remembered with my mother.
I knew she and my father had been high-school sweethearts. They’d had a good decade together before my mom went through some kind of midlife crisis and had an affair with one of my father’s business partners.
He became a divorcee who had to navigate life with that cloud of betrayal hanging over him. And he’d been left with a little girl to raise, because apparently my mother’s new lifestyle didn’t include kids.
And I hadn't heard from or spoken to her since.
I’d seen him casually date while I grew up, but he never found anything substantial or long-term. So even if I loathed Amber and found her grossly immature, she made him happy, and that's all I cared about.
My focus went to my father, who stood proudly beside his new bride. I looked at the way he stared down at her, the corner of his mouth tipped up. I wanted a man to look at me like that one day—like the sun rose and set with my next breath.
“She is beautiful though,” Cambry murmured and stared across the reception hall.
“Yeah, she’s beautiful, but that doesn’t negate the fact that she’s a sea witch.”
Cambry laughed so hard champagne sprayed out of her mouth and nose. A few people looked over with irritation and disgust on their faces before moving away.
I slapped Cambry’s back a couple of times as she grabbed a handful of napkins to clean up the geyser that came out of her.
“Mina, she can’t be that bad,” she wheezed out.
I stared at Amber. “She has absolutely zero class when it comes to me being over there and visiting my father. I don’t want to see her grinding her ass against his crotch or thrusting her chest out and asking him if he can see her nipples through her shirt.”
Cambry stared at me wide-eyed. “Girl, no she didn’t.”
“Oh yes, she did.” The champagne started working its way through me, doing its magic as my tense muscles began to relax. “And I know it makes him slightly uncomfortable, because he gives me these embarrassed, unsure glances. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to excuse myself because I thought I was literally going to throw up.”
I finished my second glass of champagne, set it on the counter, and looked around the room eagerly for another server. I definitely needed one more ASAP. My face felt flushed, and I touched my cheek, feeling the warmth coming through.
“I will say Amber’s cousin is a hot piece of ass,” my best friend mumbled.
My gaze moved to Jackson. I’d never officially met him. He was older than me and had already graduated high school by the time I started.
“He’s a manwhore,” I said easily. “Even after he graduated, his reputation for sticking his dick in anything that moved was legendary.”
“Hmmm,” Cambry hummed, and there was a little curl of her lips. “That’s good. Means he won’t expect anything more from me.” She tossed back her champagne, turned to face me, and cocked a perfectly shaped blonde eyebrow.
“Get it, girl.” I leaned back against the bar and watched her smile grow.
She pulled down the bodice of her dress a little, her cleavage popping up, and touched up her lip gloss. I chuckled as she sauntered over to Jackson, her hips swinging so much I was surprised she didn’t knock anyone over on her way.
Watching Cambry flirt was like watching Medusa turn a man to stone. They never stood a chance. Her beauty, sex-appeal, and the way she could reel them in—dangling exactly what they wanted in front of them—made the men putty in her hands.
I could have watched her work her magic all night, but nature called. I turned and wove my way through the crowd, smiling at the people I recognized. Now that I was on the move, the champagne hit differently.