Page 26 of Bad Girls Don't Marry Marines (Rock Canyon, Idaho 3)

She was done being manipulated.

STANDING ON THE front porch of her childhood home, Val was awash with the memories of good and bad times, although with the mood she was in, the worst ones seemed to be at the forefront of her brain. She burst through the front door and hollered, “Dad!”

Theresa, the family housekeeper of twenty years, came running down the stairs of the refurbished farmhouse and scolded, “Valerie May, keep your voice down. Your father is working and asked not to be disturbed.”

“I don’t care what he’s doing, I want to talk to him. Dad!” Val rushed toward his office, leaving the sound of Theresa’s protests behind her. As she threw the door open, Edward Willis raised his piercing dark eyes, frowning at her.

“Daughter. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Kyle Jenner sat across from her father and gave her one of his slimy smiles. Her father had asked Kyle to join his law firm after college, though she’d always wondered why he hadn’t joined a large firm in the city instead of the small potatoes of Willis and Associates. Kyle was handsome in a metrosexual way, with blond hair gelled to the point of looking fake. His cool, pale blue eyes and Cupid’s-bow mouth should’ve made him look like a sexy cherub, but Val knew better. He was like one of those frogs in the Amazon: beautiful to look at, but when you got too close, he was toxic.

Kyle had been a pig since the minute they’d met, but it wasn’t until her freshman year in college that she’d learned what he was capable of.

“Hello, Valerie,” Kyle said, standing up and smoothing his tie. He held his hand out to her and added, “You’re looking well.”

“Fuck you, Kyle.”

The asshole had the audacity to look amused.

“Valerie, apologize,” her father barked, and Val snorted.

Kyle’s grin spread. “It’s all right, Ed. I should give you two some privacy. We can go over these briefs later.”

Kyle gathered up his papers and briefcase, and when he turned to pass Val, he brushed against her. She reacted instantly, pushing him so hard, he fell back into the bookshelf against the wall and knocked something off, the sound of glass breaking ringing through the otherwise silent room.

Val was disappointed that nothing fell on top of his head.

“That’s enough! What has gotten into you?”

Val ignored her father, her attention on Kyle’s furious face. Straightening up, he left the room without touching her again, and when she faced her father, he snapped, “Why is it every time you run into Kyle, you break something?”

Val looked dispassionately at the bookcase and saw Kyle had knocked one of her father’s frames onto the floor. She picked it up and flipped it over, the broken glass inside distorting her mother’s face in a group shot. Her heart contracted, and she hoped the photo wasn’t scratched.

She handed it to him. “Sorry, but he provokes me.”

“How? He is always polite and respectful—”

“You really don’t see it? He knows I can’t stand the sight of him, and then he rubs up against me like a cat marking its territory.”

“He did nothing of the sort,” her father said, shaking his head. “I just don’t understand why you can’t put your differences aside and—”

“You know why. I’ve told you why. What I don’t understand is how you can believe him over me.”

It was a constant point of contention between the two of them. Where Kyle Jenner was concerned, her father was blind. Even after she’d told him what he’d done to Natalie, her college roommate, her father hadn’t believed it. Val thought it had less to do with actually believing Kyle and more to do with the power and influence Kyle’s father held.

“He was never charged with a crime and I like to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Just because he wasn’t charged doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” Val argued, pointing at her chest. “I saw him do it.”

“If that were true, we wouldn’t continuously have this conversation, would we?”

But she had seen something; she’d just been too late to do anything about it.

When she’d met Natalie the first day of school, she’d been a beautiful girl from North Dakota who wanted to experience everything college had to offer. Val had liked her, and they’d just started to become friends when they’d bumped into Kyle, who was a junior, on campus.

Val hadn’t liked the way he’d looked at Natalie, but when he’d invited them to a party, Natalie had been determined to go. Val had wanted to stick together, but the minute they got there, Kyle attached himself to Natalie. After a few drinks, Val tried to get Natalie to leave, but she’d wanted to stay.

Val lost track of her and when she went looking for her, she’d come upon a bunch of guys standing outside a door, snapping pictures. When they finally let her through, Kyle had been coming out of the room with his hair mussed. He’d zipped his pants and smirked at her. “She’s all yours.”

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