Page 63 of Broken Princess

Dad’s in his study when I get the littlest McKays off to bed. “You’re spoiling them.” He says without looking up from his screen.

“I know. But with them off at boarding school, sometimes I think this is the only time they get be kids.”

“Their mothers decided boarding school was best, and the compromise was they’d stay local instead of being shipped off to Switzerland.”

He’s not joking. Their mothers don’t agree on much, but out of all the boarding schools they could have gone to, Switzerland was at the top of both their lists.

“They could go to private school like I did and come home every night for the same price.”

Dad finally looks up from what he’s doing. “Yes, but your mother didn’t take it as a personal attack when we discussed changing our custody arrangements, and we both agreed you were old enough to decide where you wanted to live.”

Ava and Hunter are five and eight. So I wasn’t that much older than they are. Something tells me their mother’s wouldn’t let them live here full time at any age. They like having immediate access to dad and they only have that through their kids. Dad’s dated a lot, but my mom, Tabitha’s mom, and the two other exes are the only women he’s still in personal contact with. Everyone else gets routed through his many assistants.

When I was in high school, I’d bring Ava and Hunter home all the time. Living on campus makes that harder, and living up to my responsibilities as king of VDU occupies most of my weekends. Just like I make time for breakfast at the club with dad, I try to sneak in McKay Sibling Days when I know they’re on a break from school. It’s something not even Bella tries to interfere with.

Between our trip to the store and a game of hide and seek, Ava and Hunter could barely keep their eyes open through dinner. I’m glad dad made it home before they crashed. Depending on what he’s working on, this might be the only night they see him. I rarely coordinate their visits with his schedule because we’d all be disappointed. Still, I ask, “Are you around this weekend?”

“I have some calls to make and a quick trip to the city. I probably won’t make it back in time for dinner tomorrow, but I’ll be here on Saturday when they wake up.”

“They’ll be happy about that. Well, I’m turning in.”

“Logan.” He calls out when I reach the door to his study.

“Yeah?”

“Is everything okay, son?”

“The twerps are fine.” Kids can’t hold water and I fully expect Ava might blab that I snuck her candy. In fact, I hope she does, because I can’t stand the idea of her mother trying to make her into a perfect princess. She just turned five, for crying out loud. She shouldn’t be learning anything about prenups and NDA’s. Her biggest takeaway in life should be that eating too much cake and ice cream makes you sick.

“I meant with you. I sensed some discomfort between you and Tabitha at your birthday brunch.”

“Um, I think you were picking up on the weirdness between Simon and Tabitha.Mydiscomfort came from sitting across from Claire.”

“You know our families are old friends and at one time…”

Not going there. I cut him off. “At one time I didn’t know what I do now.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re wholly incompatible outside of bed.”

He nods, looking back down at the papers in front of him, before clicking a button on his keyboard. “Alliances have been made on far less. But I trust your judgement and if you feel there was no benefit there, it was good to let that go.”

I step into the shower, holding my hands under the water as I use a nail brush to clean the salt, butter, and chocolate residue from under my nails. Dad casually mentioning Claire is only the beginning. He’s likely ramping up to give me the same old tired marriage by bank account speech. It’s usually a source of amusement listening to him throw names at me, and I’ve had loads of fun test driving the merchandise. Out of all the potential candidates, Claire was the one who handled rough terrain the best. She was partly right. I’d probably still be messing around with her if Jordanna hadn’t come to school.

My mind wanders to all the things I’ve done with other women that I have yet to do with Jordy. Does she trust me enough to give herself over completely to me? What I showed her last semester wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg.

I give my dick a hard tug. My groan echoing off the tiles. Has it only been five days since brunch? Rubbing one out in the shower might take the edge off, but it won’t be enough.

Twenty-Four

Jordanna

“Your paintbrush is awfully quiet today.” Noel says, lowering his paintbrush.

We’re at our weekly tutoring session. I’m supposed to be painting an original piece but my canvas is blank and I haven’t asked him any questions like I usually do. “I know. I’m in my head, ticking off all these things I have to do before this weekend.”

“Are you going home again?”

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