Page 13 of Vicious Little Games

But it’s too late to do anything but take a few steps away from his door heading in their direction.

Vanessa appears first, dressed in a white dress much more conservative than mine, followed by my father in his typical black, perfectly tailored suit. They both glance down the hallway briefly in our direction before their gazes jerk back a second time.

“Cole?” Vanessa squints at him then covers her gaping mouth with her palm. “What…how?” She looks to my father who smiles down at her.

“Surprise,” my father says. “Cole flew in today and is staying with us for the entire summer.”

“The entire summer!” I can’t help but voice my outrage. I thought he was only here for the weekend. The entire summer means weeks. Months. Dammit, now my father is looking at me, at the hem of my skirt.

“Cass, what the hell are you wearing?” he asks as Vanessa jogs past me in her heels to throw her arms around Cole’s neck, my dad and I temporarily forgotten.

“A dress,” I mutter.

“What are you even doing down here? Oh, I bet I can guess,” he grumbles. “Sweetheart, you need to get off Cole’s dick.”

“What?” I exclaim. Oh god. He knows! Eli or a guard must have seen us. And if he strings Cole up to torture him in the basement, there’s nothing to stop Cole from running his mouth about his assumption of who I’ve been fucking to make the beating stop.

My father scrubs his hand down his face, his eyes looking heavy and exhausted when they drop. “That came out wrong. I meant, leave the boy alone. At least for a few days. You can give him hell after he’s settled in, because if you run him off before the weekend is over, Vanessa will be very upset.”

Oh, my god. He didn’t mean for me to literally get off Cole’s dick. It was just a very unfortunate, and incredibly accurate, choice of words.

“I don’t want anything to do with him,” I assure my father. “Why are you letting him stay in the penthouse? Before he would just stay in a hotel room.”

Lowering his voice, he steps closer to me to say, “Cole is Vanessa’s son. He’s my stepson and your stepbrother now, Cass. You will behave like siblings, and only like siblings. I’ve warned him that if he touches you or Sophie, he’ll fucking regret it.”

“You wouldn’t actually murder your wife’s only son, would you, Daddy?”

Straightening the sleeves of his suit jacket, he says, “If I did, I sure as hell would do it in a way that kept my hands clean.”

Wow. He’s basically telling me that if he finds out Cole touched me that he’ll have someone else kill him and make it look like an accident.

I knew it.

Cole should be very scared of my father finding out we fooled around in the pool. While I may have been the one humping him, he had two handfuls of my ass, and left bruises on my wrists. That was another reason for the long-sleeved dress tonight.

My father glares down the hall. Glancing back at Cole, I see Vanessa is still hugging her much taller son, but his arms are still hanging by his sides. At my father’s persistent stare, he reluctantly lifts a hand to her back.

“I’m so glad you’re home!”

“This isn’t my home,” Cole replies while eyeing me and my father. “But I’ll stay here until the fall semester starts.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see your handsome face. I didn’t think you would ever speak to me again. I know you’re still upset…”

Gently pushing her an arm’s length away, Vanessa wobbles in her heels as Cole says, “I’m starving. Is it time to eat?”

I knew Cole hadn’t been around much the past few months. He didn’t come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, which obviously made Vanessa so sad I saw her crying half a dozen times. But I had no idea he missed the holidays because he was angry at her. He didn’t know who she really was until we got back from the island and our parents told us that Yuri Petrov, Cole’s grandfather, was dead. I could see being upset with my father if he kept his entire previous life and name a secret from me.

So why did Cole decide to come back to Vegas now?

My father must have manipulated him into staying here since Cole doesn’t act like he’s forgiven Vanessa yet.

Giving the mother and son a moment alone, I slip past my father to head into the dining room where perfect Sophie is already sitting.

Fuck.

Did she sneak upstairs while Cole and I were arguing? Did she see us or hear anything we said? Everything that was said? God, this is why I told Cole not to talk about it!

“How long have you been sitting in here?” I ask my sister.

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