All I care about in this moment though, is the woman who's looking at me, her mouth open as I approach her.
"You didn't swear once," she says to me, her eyes travelling the length of my body. "Did you mean everything you said up there?"
I cock my head. Is she interested now?
"Why?" I ask.
Simple. Straight to the point.
She shrugs. Her cheeks turn red. It's fucking cute.
Careful. She's you’re stepdaughter. Don't forget that.
"It just seemed so...real," she says to me and I look into her eyes. "So genuine. You really felt what you said."
Those eyes are telling me she's feeling like fucking me.
I've seen it before in countless women.
I know that look.
"Have dinner with me," I tell her. She starts visibly.
"Father to daughter," I say, giving her a smile. "So we can catch up. Nothing more."
Does she want more?
I don't know. But she smiles. And nods her head.
"I'd like that," she says, taking a napkin from the bar and writing her number on it.
"Text me with details," she says. And with that, saying nothing else, she turns away.
I watch that beautiful curvy ass sway as she walks away. I know she knows I'm fucking staring.
What neither of us knows is what's going to happen next.
Because if she keeps flaunting a body like that in front of me ... I dunno.
I might as well give up, because I'm so completely fucked.
7
Penny
“How’s the investigation coming along?” my mother asks me, but my reply comes in the form of a groan. Balancing my body on one foot, my cellphone pinned between my shoulder and my ear, I somehow manage to get the other high heel on my foot.
“It’s coming. These things take time, mom,” I tell her as I look at myself in the mirror. I smack my lips together, satisfied with their crimson color, and then grab my cellphone with one hand and pat the front of my dress with the other.
“Got anything from the gala?” she asks me, and I wait for a very long second as I look for a suitable answer. Yeah, in case you’re wondering, I still haven’t told her that I’m about to have dinner with my stepfather. And I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell her—at least for now. I already know everything she’d say if I told her I’d be having dinner with him, so I figured I could skip that step.
“Well, you know,” I start, grabbing my purse and heading out the door, making sure it’s locked behind me. “He made his speech, and everyone ate it up. The usual. I can’t say I expected to find any dirt at a gala for the NYU’s children wing, you know?”
I look at myself in the mirror as I enter the elevator, once more examining my lips. God, why am I so nervous? It’s just a stupid dinner with a man I hate. A man who’s my stepfather.
“Figured so,” she sighs, and I can almost picture her in her living room, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “But we’ll get him. You can do it, can’t you, Penny?”
“Of course I can do it!” I reply in a heartbeat, trying to pretend that I’m slightly offended. I’m not—and that’s because I’m not so sure anymore if I can (or want) to pull this off.
I hail a taxi and get inside, throwing my purse into the backseat as I prepare to hear my mother the whole ride to Agave’s, the restaurant where I’m supposed to meet Magnus.
“I sure hope so, Penny … a man like him should pay for what he’s done. And you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, mom… he cheated on you,” I sigh, already getting slightly tired from that story. It seems that ever since we decided to go after Magnus that she takes every opportunity to go on a tirade about how Magnus ruined her for love. Yeah, mom, I get it, he’s the Devil.
“He didn’t just cheat on me, Penny! He made me look like a fool… He can’t keep it in his pants, you know? He’d stick it in everything that moved, and while telling me he was busy with work. You don’t do that to a woman—marry her so that you can break her heart and, just few a months later, dump her.”
“I know, he --”
“How many women have suffered at his hands? I don’t even want to think about it. He treats us like cattle. As if we’re a thing!”
I start drifting off after a few minutes, my mind fleeing back to the gala. He sure looked like the kind of man who loves to play the rogue, but as weird as this may sound, he didn’t seem like someone as evil as my mother paints him. I might be wrong, though; there’s probably a road somewhere paved with the broken hearts of the women who believed in the kindness of Magnus’ heart.