Page 8 of Relentless (The Titans of Founder's Ridge 2)

“Yeah.” I pull my ear buds out and turn to him.

“You were so pissed at me for saving you,” he grins.

“Keep telling yourself that,” I roll my eyes. This is his favorite way to tease me.

His smile drops. “Grace isn’t my girlfriend.” He has the decency to look sheepish.

“You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“I want to give them to you anyway.” He yawns and rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s fine.” It’s not fine, but I want to get some more laps in. “You should go back to bed; you must be exhausted.”

“Yeah,” he says with another embarrassed grin. “Do you want to grab dinner tonight to catch up? Maybe talk through things?”

“Sure.”

“Great, I’ll grab you around six.” He stands and stretches. His sweatpants hanging obscenely low across his hips. It takes all my will power not to stare and drool at his washboard abs and hot as fuck Adonis belt. I didn’t even know guys our age could be built like that.

“See ya later.” I pop my ear buds back in and push off the wall. I feel his eyes on me for a few more minutes until I catch a glimpse of him walking inside when I take a breath.

I wonder what he wants to talk through. I would rather we just pretend the events of his fifteenth birthday never happened. We can just pick back up as friends and find a way to support each other platonically.

I’m not interested in hearing about his sexual exploits. I’m definitely not interested in discussing my lack of dating life the past few years.

I grab my phone to see how long I was down here, and I’m right at an hour. Perfect time to stop. I pull my goggles and swim cap off, and I’m tempted to just float around for a few minutes, but I get out and dry off instead. I stretch out on the same lounge chair Levi was on earlier and watch the sun rise through the trees that surround the property. The grounds are perfectly manicured, right down the diagonal mow lines crossing the yard. White rose bushes and hydrangeas surround the pool. The pool house looks like a miniature version of the main house, all white and modern.

The French doors from the kitchen open up, and when I see who is walking toward me, I have to stifle a groan. My mom prowls toward me in a silk robe cinched at the waist that accentuates her ridiculously curvy figure and shows all her cleavage. She hasn’t seen me in five months, so you would think I’d be given a warm welcome. Instead, she wears the special scowl she saves for me when no one is around.

I search her face for any signs of love or affection. All I see are her dead brown eyes, overly botoxed face, and fake lips. I have to wonder if her hair is graying like my dad’s yet or if she just gets it colored frequently enough no one would ever know. She’s so vain she’d probably put it in her will to have it dyed in the coffin.

“Ivy,” she says my name disdainfully. Her eyes travel the length of my body with a look of disgust. An acid bath would feel better than her disapproving gaze. “I see you are still swimming.”

“Hello to you, too, mother. Lovely to see you.” I lay the sarcasm on thickly. “Thanks for being here when I arrived yesterday. It was so nice of you to give me a tour, so I didn’t meet your new husband all on my own and suffer through the awkward first encounter.”

“Grow up. You have been on your own at boarding school for years, you hardly need me to hold your hand.” She sits down in the chair next to mine, crossing her legs primly. “I had to get you enrolled at Founders Preparatory Academy. These kids are all filthy rich and will most likely be inheriting million- and billion-dollar companies. You need to use the next two years to network.”

By network, she means find a rich boyfriend. I don’t even try to hide my eye roll.

“Ivy, I know you want to make your father proud and you think the only way to do so is by following in his footsteps, but swimming is ruining your body. No boy is going to want—”

“Good morning, Frank,” I chirp, interrupting the hurtful words she’s about to spew.

“Morning.” He leans down and plants a grossly intense kiss on my mother’s lips.

I barely school my face in time for them to pull apart.

He sits down on the end of my lounge chair. “I see you are making good use of the pool already.”

“Yeah,” I nod, “it’ll be good to have for conditioning.”

“Conditioning?” He raises a brow in question.

“For swimming,” I say hesitantly. Obviously, my mom has told him nothing about me.

“Ah, should have guessed. Following in Parker’s footsteps then?”

“Trying, they are big shoes to fill.”

---