Page 15 of Dream Girl Drama

Abruptly, Chloe pushed back from the table, upsetting her silverware.

“I think I’ll go pack.”

Sig popped the pancetta and pear puff into his mouth, speaking while he chewed, and Chloe found that lack of mannersdelightful. “Don’t forget your toothbrush.”

WHAT THE FUCKare you doing?

Sig followed a buoyant Chloe to his truck with her haphazardly packed bag thrown over his shoulder, awestruck by the way she bounded around in the moonlight, smiling at him as she danced in a circle, a princess who had been freed from her ivory tower.

But he was no valiant knight, was he?

Nope.

He shouldn’t have done this. Shouldn’t have forced them into a situation where they would be spending an untold amount of time together. Not when they were going to be stepsiblings in eight months’ time. Not when he wanted to touch her, drive himself inside of her, make her his home. He had to be out of his mind volunteering to show her the ropes in Boston. Stark raving mad.

And yet, there hadn’t been a chance in fucking hell he’d have left there without her.

Simple as that.

Chloe was his responsibility now and he couldn’t imagine life any other way.

What had life beenbeforetonight? He could barely remember.

“Sig,” Harvey called from the doorway, forcing him to stop and turn around. To wait for his father to come storming out after him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Harvey asked through his teeth, a vein throbbing front and center in his forehead. It wasn’t lost on Sig that Harvey was echoing his own thoughts, but probably for a far different reason. “Are you deliberately trying to ruin this for me?”

Yup.

Very different reasons.

“I’m sorry,” Sig said, keeping his voice low. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you in the middle of ripping off another wealthy chick.”

Harvey blanched, rocking back on his heels. “Oh, right. That old chestnut.” For several seconds, he remained quiet and studied Sig. “You never fail to let me know exactly what you think of me, do you?”

“I only know what you did to my mother.”

“Jesus, you think you know everything.” There was something curious in his tone. Like a message Sig couldn’t decode. “You were anewbornat the time, I’ll remind you.”

Not for the first time, Sig wondered if he was missing an important part of the story when it came to his parents. How their relationship had ended in disaster and why. After all, Harvey had never offered his side of the story, no matter how many times Sig asked. But didn’t the truth lie in the fact that his mother had ended up poor, unable to afford basic necessities for them?

“I grew up with the effects of what happened,” Sig rasped, the pulse in his neck racing. “How she had to scrape by while you used her money to trap your next target.”

“Look, I’ve made mistakes, but I’m different now. I’ve changed.”

“And yet your taste in women has stayed exactly the same. Rich.”

“Yeah? Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Harvey split a look between Sig and Chloe where she stood waiting at the passenger side of his truck. “Listen to me, I’m marrying her mother. That’s the situation.” He studied his son hard. “If you have some kind of romantic interest here, you better think again. Her mother would disown her before she weathered a scandal like that. Is that what you want?”

Sig wasn’t sure why he denied what happened... or was happening between him and Chloe. Nothing about it felt remotely wrong. But that comment about the apple not falling far from the tree had fucking stung. So had the threat of Chloe being disowned. Because of him.

“I’m only helping her out. She wants to go to Boston and I know Boston. That’s all it is.”

“You better hope so.”

“And you better hope you’re marrying Sofia for the right reasons,” Sig said, taking a step into Harvey’s space, rocked byprotectiveness for Chloe. If Harvey swindled Sofia, he swindled Chloe, by association. “Or we’re going to have a big problem.”

A glint shone in his father’s eyes. “Noted.”

Sofia appeared in the doorway behind Harvey, fresh drink in hand.

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