Page 7 of Until I Own You

Solomon blushes. Like actually blushes. I can only hope that one day I’ll be able to have the woman of my dreams that makes me blush like that well into my fifties.

I look over at Bridget and immediately feel my stomach curdle. I’m suddenly not very hungry.

I’ll never be able to have the woman of my dreams. That much has been clear for ten years.

“Well, I should just show you.” Solomon pushes himself up from the table and scurries into the room off the kitchen, his office, which is more like a workshop. He’s not yet retired, but in his free time, he certainly acts like a retiree. From the woodworking and the puzzles and the–

“Ta-da!” Solomon returns, holding a bottle with a model ship inside.

Bridget gasps. “You made that, Dad?”

“You bet your ass I did. And it was like hell getting it in, god almighty,” Solomon says as he sits back in his seat with a heavy sigh. He turns the bottle back and forth. “A brigantine in a bottle. Who would have thought, huh?”

Bridget smiles, corners of her pink lips pitching as high as they’ll go. Makes me warm in the chest. She’s never smiled at me that way. Never will, in all likelihood.

“That’s amazing.”

“See? Amazing, Sol.” My mother points her fork at him.

“Anyway…” Solomon places the ship in a bottle in the middle of the table like a centerpiece. “Now that you’ve all heard about my very exciting day–”

I chuckle, “Can’t say I’ve ever accomplished something like that.”

“I’ll show you!” my stepfather says with eagerness. “I mean, that is, if you want. You know. If you have time. You’re busy. Which reminds me, what did you get up to today?”

I push at my side of mashed potatoes, wishing I could stomach eating another bite so I wouldn’t have to respond. “Not much. Work. Work is work. You know how it is.”

Bridget giggles. My eyes shoot to her. What the hell was that?

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Bridget?” My eyes are square on hers.

Her cerulean eyes dare to stay on mine, twinged with fear at the corners, and her smile falls. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

The table settles into another silence, one we’re very good at.

I chew on my lip as I watch Bridget. I know she knows I’m watching her.

After all these years, I know she’s come to disdain me for watching. Thinks I’m controlling, overbearing, maybe a freak. If only she knew how I fucking can’t help it. Haven’t been able to since she was sixteen years old, and I felt like a total creep lusting after her. Too young for me. My stepfather’s daughter. I refuse to think of her as my stepsister.

“What about you, Bridget?” I take my glass of wine and swirling it in the crystal glass. “What’d you get up to?”

Her eyebrows rise, dark like her flowing locks. “Nothing. Just some sketching.”

“At the club?” I offer.

Her eyes flash.

I bite back on a laugh.

She’s so cute when she’s annoyed with me. Perhaps that’s why I can’t help pushing her buttons all the time.

Solomon looks her way. “You were at the club today, pumpkin?”

“Yes, weren’t you, pumpkin?” I say with a teasing lilt.

Under the table, Bridget’s foot makes contact with my shin. Harder than I anticipated. I grip the bottom of my seat to keep from reacting to the pain.

Bridget lifts her chin, maintaining her good girl persona. “Yes, I was visiting Sonia.”

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