3

MIA

“I knew you would be happy about this.”

Happy? Maybe I would be happy if I had a chance to catch up with what my father is telling me. Right now, I’m too busy trying to understand what he just said. I’m going to Blackthorn Elite. “But I didn’t apply there.”

“You didn’t have to. I took care of everything. Don’t I always?” Yes, he does, and right now, that doesn’t make me feel happy. As usual, I don’t get any say in my life. What a trade-off. I have all the money I could ever want. I never have to worry about anything, but I also don’t get to make a choice. Not even where I go to school.

He’s looking at me like he expects me to be grateful, so I put on a smile. “This is great.” Under the table, though, my nails dig into my palm hard enough to hurt. It’s sort of a habit I’ve developed for when I have to pretend to be happy about something.

I’m not ungrateful. I know how lucky I am. My life could’ve gone in a very different direction if he hadn’t found me. I could be out on the streets or just scraping by while working two jobs. Instead, I practically live in a castle.

Even the most pampered princess wishes for freedom sometimes. I’m not allowed to drive. I can’t go out alone. I don’t get the chance to see friends. I miss my best friend, Blair, so much. Sometimes, it’s enough to make me cry myself to sleep. Anybody else would feel lucky to be in my shoes. Am I ungrateful for wishing I could go back to when things were simpler?

“Only the best education for my girl,” my father says with a satisfied little grin. I know he likes to take care of me, and when I see how glad he is, it makes me feel bad for that first flash of irritation. “Everything is taken care of. I already have your housing sorted, and the furniture will be there in another day or two. You’ll be all set once classes start.”

He even picked out where I’m going to live and how it should be furnished. “Thank you,” I murmur, looking down at my breakfast and wondering where my appetite went all of a sudden.

“I have to say, it will be different, not having you here.” There’s an almost wistful tone in his voice when his eyes meet mine from across the table. “Isn’t that crazy? I haven’t had you with me all these years, but I’ve gotten used to you. Now I wonder how much quieter and emptier this house will feel.”

“I’ll come back for holidays and breaks. And it’s not all that far away—I could even manage some weekends. You’ll be tired of me really soon.”

“I don’t think that would be possible, though you are at an age where a father has to get used to the idea of not having his daughter around anymore.” When he looks at me, he must see how confused I am. “Well, usually a girl either goes to college, or she’s married off. One or the other.”

This isn’t the first time he’s made a comment like that. I never know whether I should take him seriously or not. Do people really still think that way about girls? Like we’re not worth anything other than property to sell off to the highest bidder or forge some kind of business alliance?

At least I don’t have to worry about getting married off anymore. If I’m at school, he won’t expect me to suddenly pack everything up and get hitched. When I look at it that way, this is the lesser of two evils. “I guess I have a lot of work to do. Getting everything together and all that.”

“You know someone around here will do that for you.” He waves a hand, sort of vague, the way he usually is when it comes to planning things. He’s used to staff tending to his every need. I haven’t lived this way long enough to think the way he does. “And once you get there, Zeke can always help arrange things.”

There I was, thinking I didn’t have much of an appetite. Now, it will be a miracle if I don’t throw up all over the table. I have to swallow back the bile that rises in my throat before answering. “Zeke? What’s he got to do with anything?”

My father’s attention drifted down to his phone, but now it snaps back to me. “Obviously, Zeke will go with you.”

“To school?”

“Naturally.” He stares at me, unblinking. “What did you think? That I would let you go by yourself? Do you know what happens at these colleges? Even one like Blackthorn? Granted, you’ll be around the right sort of people there, but I’m not under any illusions. Boys will be boys, that kind of thing.”

I have to bite my tongue over that one. Boys will be boys. When did they come up with that one? When dinosaurs were roaming the earth?

The last thing I want to do is piss him off, which means I have to be careful. “It’s just that Zeke… I mean, what’s he going to do? Come to classes with me? Follow me around? Sit with me when I eat?”

“If I say he does, yes. That’s precisely what he’ll do.” His eyes narrow, and I know I’m dangerously close to the edge of his patience. He has a short fuse—not that he’s ever blown up on me, but I’ve been in the house when he’s blown up at other people. And every time, I found myself glad I wasn’t in that person’s shoes.

“Is the school going to be okay with that?”

“They will if I tell them to be. Besides, I’m sure you won’t be the only girl who’s ever required a bodyguard. Some of the wealthiest families in the tristate area send their kids to that school. I’d frankly be surprised if you were the only one with a detail.”

Sure, but I’ll probably be the only one who threw herself at her bodyguard and ended up crying herself to sleep that night and for a week after. I can barely look at Zeke—now, I’m supposed to let him shadow me everywhere I go at this new school? “He’s not going to live with me in the dorm, is he?”

Dad scowls. “You’re an intelligent girl, Mia. Where is all this coming from?”

“Is he going to be living with me?”

“Well, I’m not going to have you living alone, am I?” He blurts out a laugh like this is hilarious rather than a nightmare.

“Couldn’t I share a place with another girl? Isn’t that usually how it’s done?”

He scowls, and right away, I know that was a stupid question. “Why would you want to share a home with a stranger? Wouldn’t you rather live with someone you know you can trust?” He picks up his knife and fork, shaking his head. “Like I would let my daughter live with just anyone.”

There’s no point in reminding him how he just got done telling me about the higher quality of people I’ll meet at this school. Why is it okay for me to go to class with these people, but God forbid I live with any of them?

Why would he rather have me live with Zeke, a man, than another girl my age? “So it would just be the two of us?”

“Yes, it’s a two-bedroom condo not far from campus. There’s a security guard in the lobby, and an alarm system is going to be installed shortly.” He sounds very pleased with himself. “I’ll rest better at night knowing you’re safe.”

I’m glad he’ll sleep easy. Me, on the other hand? Then again, it’s pretty obvious I don’t have a say in any of this. Why would it matter how I feel about the decisions being made regarding my life?

I have to push food around on my plate for a while to make it look like I’m eating before excusing myself from the table. All I want is to be alone. For him not to see what this is doing to me.

Not so fast, though. “Mia. Are you… that is, has Zeke…?”

My heart threatens to burst out of my chest, and I realize I’m holding my breath. “Yes, Dad?”

“Has he done anything he shouldn’t have? Has he been inappropriate with you?”

“No! Of course not.” What does he know? How much does he know? I wish I didn’t feel so guilty. “He’s always professional. I just don’t think… he likes me very much.”

His smile hardens a little. “He’s not supposed to like you. He’s supposed to protect you and keep you safe. So far, he’s done that job well.”

“Yes, he has.”

“And that’s why he’s the only person I would trust with the thing that’s most precious to me in the world.” Funny, but shouldn’t that make me feel good? All warm and fuzzy inside? Instead, I feel the way I always feel when he says things like that: like I’m an object. Hardly even a person. One more of his possessions.

Still, I manage a little smile before leaving the dining room and going up the stairs. Here I was, finally getting used to living here even if I can’t shake the feeling of being in a cage, and now I find out I’m being transferred to a new cage.

And my keeper is coming with me.

Of all people.

It doesn’t hit me until I’m halfway up the wide staircase that I could have given my father a different answer down there. I could have told him Zeke tried to seduce me or something, and I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this anymore. I would never even have to see him again. I wouldn’t have to be humiliated every time he looks at me with that little smirk of his. Like he remembers what a fool I made of myself and thinks it’s funny. Like my humiliation is worth laughing about.

At least here, at home, I know he’ll keep it to himself. He wouldn’t want Dad to know we were ever in that kind of situation together. He would end up getting blamed for it even though I was the one who made a move. Sure, I might get grounded for a little while or something, but Zeke would lose his job.

At least. I don’t know what my dad does for a living or how he earned all this money in the first place, but there are times when I can’t help wondering if everything he does is legal. It’s enough to make me wonder what would really happen to somebody who crossed the great Bruno Morelli.

I can’t do that. Sure, I wanted to kill Zeke for making me feel the way he did that night, but I wouldn’t actually do it. It’s not his fault he doesn’t want me. It’s not his fault I was dumb enough to think he would.

Even now, months later, the pain is so fresh. My whole body cringes from humiliation when I remember the look in his eyes. Cold and disgusted, like I was nothing but trash. Like he hated me, or worse, felt sorry for me. I’m still not sure what would be more humiliating.

And ever since, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t know for sure he’s thinking about it. The way he sometimes looks at me—or worse, when he won’t look at me at all. I know why he won’t look at me. And it makes me want to die. If there’s one thing I could go back and change, it would be that night at the pool. I’ll never be able to live it down.

I hurry down the hall, my footsteps muffled by the thick rug running down the length of the passage. Only a few of the rooms up here are used, including the suite Dad gave me when I first moved in. It’s basically an entire apartment to myself, and I have to admit, I’ll miss it a little. I’ve done everything I could to make it mine, to add little bits of myself to it. It sort of intimidated me at first, but now it feels like home.

And I’m going to have to leave it in just a few days. No warning, but then I didn’t get any warning about the way my life would change after Mom died, either. I might as well be a leaf that fell from a tree and got carried by the wind, eventually landing on the water. And now, all I can do is float, letting the current take me where it thinks I should be.

“Hey, princess.”

My blood turns to ice the instant I hear his voice. There’s always a snicker to it now, like he’s barely managing not to laugh at me. Even if he did laugh, I know there wouldn’t be any humor or kindness in it, more like bitterness and resentment.

I turn to face Zeke, reminding myself for the hundredth time that I can’t think of him the way I used to. My eyes are in the habit of finding all his best features, though, and they never got the memo about us hating him now. That’s why I can’t help but take in his chiseled jaw and slate gray eyes. Right now, they’re almost stormy, swirling with dangerous energy. His broad shoulders and firm chest. The way his generous mouth ticks upward at the corner, his lips practically begging to be kissed or at least touched. I wonder how soft they would be.

It takes a second for me to snap out of it. This isn’t the sex god of my wildest fantasies—and no matter how much I used to want him, he’s not going to be my first. He will never be anything to me but a jailkeeper.

And he hates me. That alone is reason enough for me to fold my arms the way he does. “I don’t see any princesses around here, so I don’t know who you’re talking to.”

He only rolls his eyes. “Right. Keep telling yourself that, princess.”

“What do you want?”

“I guess he told you. We’re going to be roommates.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“So how would you put it?”

“We’ll be sharing a condo. Separate rooms.”

“If you shared a two-bedroom place with anybody else, wouldn’t you call them your roommate?”

It’s obvious he thinks he’s really clever like he’s got me backed into a corner or something like that. If there’s one thing he needs to learn about me, it’s that I’m never backed into a corner. Not by somebody like him. “You work for my father. You’re an employee. The live-in nanny.”

His only reaction is a twitch of an eyebrow, the slight tightening of his jaw. “I hope you don’t think just because you’ll be away from him that security is going to loosen up any.”

“What did you have in mind? Shackles?”

“Not a bad idea if you try pulling the sort of shit you’ve been pulling all summer. Thinking you can sneak out when you have to know, I’ll be two steps ahead of you all the time.” Now he does lift an eyebrow, his lips curving in a grin. “And if you’re half as depressed about having to go away to school as you looked coming down the hall, I could tell him all about it, and your problems would be over. He’d never let you out of the house again.”

He would do it, too. All for the sake of getting rid of me. If I was always in the house, he wouldn’t have to watch over me anymore. “What are you trying to say? You can’t handle your job? Is that what this is about, you being afraid of how much harder I’ll make things for you when it’s just the two of us at school?”

“I know how your brain works,” he warns in a low voice that sends a shiver down my spine. “I can practically read your thoughts.”

“You should know better than to talk to me the way you are right now. Or else maybe I’ll have to ask my father to assign somebody else to me. Somebody who can actually do the job without whining to me about it.”

“That’s what you think this is? You think I’m whining?” Before I know what’s happening, he backs me up against the open bedroom door. There’s so much of him, all at once. His size, the smell of his cologne, the warmth coming from his body. The fine hairs on my arms stand straight up when his hot breath washes over my skin as he leans down. “It’s a warning, princess. The first sign of any of your shit, and he’s going to hear about it.”

My knees threaten to buckle, but I can’t let that happen. The one thing I’ve had on my side all summer is knowing how much Zeke wants to keep this job with my father. Not that I think there’s any affectionate feelings on either side or anything like that, but more like he doesn’t want to let Dad down. He’s not a guy you disappoint. Zeke can pretend all he wants, but we both know he would be blamed for anything my father found out about. I might get a tiny slap on the wrist, but that’s it.

Which is why I’m able to lift my chin despite the way my body trembles. “Go ahead and tell him. We’ll see how much longer you have a job once you do. I think we both know it’ll be better if you keep your mouth shut and let me do what I want. I’m going to college. I should be allowed to have my freedom.”

“That’s what you think. But the guy who foots the bill has other ideas, and we both know it.” His voice drops to something closer to a growl, one so deep it makes me wet. “Behave yourself, princess. Otherwise, I’ll have to deal with you myself. And you won’t like that very much.”

I barely have time to catch my breath before he’s gone, disappearing as silently as he appeared in the first place.

And I’m supposed to live with this man with nobody around to keep him in check.

Or to keep me in check.

This can only spell trouble.