I smiled and squeezed her hand in return. “I like to think our loved ones have a sense of discretion.”
“You didn’t know my mother,” she said smiling, before turning back to face the gravestone. “I wish you had been able to meet him. He’s, well, he’s different from Dad. I think you’d have liked him though. He’s leaving in a few weeks, but that can’t be helped. I still cook all the time and I’m even developing my own recipes now. I think you’d be proud of me.”
“I know she’d be proud of you,” I said. “You’ve become a phenomenal woman.”
“This isn’t really goodbye,” Vicky said. “I’m still going to keep coming here and talking to you, except this time I won’t be doing it as a crazy person. Bye Mom.”
We walked home hand-in-hand, not realizing or perhaps not caring that Sheri or Vicky’s dad could drive by and see us at any moment.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
“About what?”
“Us. The future. I could come and study here. They give out visas to students like candy.”
“Do you mean it?” she asked excitedly. We stopped talking and she looked up at me wide-eyed and with a huge smile on her face.
“How can I resist that smile? We have to wait a year though. I meant what I said before about it being too late to start university this year.”
“That’s fine, the year will fly by. And you can visit a few times and I’ll go to California over Christmas and Easter when we get breaks.”
“It will still be difficult, but you’re right, time will fly by when I have you to think of.”
I felt delirious on the way home. I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing, but if this was the wrong thing then it felt so good I didn’t care. Everything was different now. This wasn’t just a summer fling. This was a relationship. It scared me less than I thought it would. Instead of panicking, all I wanted to do was get home and figure out what I had to do to go to an English university. I had friends who’d done it, so I knew it was possible and if there was any chance of making this work then I had to do it.
Gemma was waiting at the house when we got home. She looked terrified and I knew she expected Vicky to hate her. Gemma stood up as we came close and Vicky ran to her, throwing her arms around her for a hug. I walked inside and left the two of them to cry and talk things through.
I opened my laptop and started researching SAT prep courses. That was the first step in the journey to being with Vicky long-term. I’d never been so excited to take a exam.
The realization of Mum’s death didn’t send me into a downward spiral like I half expected it to. When I initially found out about her death almost three years ago I’d been so devastated that I blocked it out and created a new reality. This time things were different. I had Caiden beside me and I was ready to deal with the truth. I was ready to escape from that fiction and embrace life.
I told Caiden that it felt a bit like waking up from a dream, but that wasn’t entirely true. I had a friend at school food who suffered from depression for a number of years. After therapy and antidepressants she moved past the worst of it and one day I’d asked her what it’d been like being depressed for all those years. She explained that it was like having a constant fog clouding your brain. Even when you knew you should be, or were expected to be, happy your brain would feel heavy as if it were surrounded by a negative force stopping happy thoughts developing. I think my fantasy was a bit like that.
My life wasn’t perfect now—not by a long shot—but I did have the confidence to control things. Before, my life had been a daze. My father told me where to go and when and I followed his commands. Caiden had certainly changed things, but I still hadn’t felt free. Perhaps part of the fiction I created was a life where I didn’t have any free will at all.
I knew it was silly, but I felt under more pressure to please my mum now I knew she was dead than when I’d thought she was alive. Why hadn’t I tried to make her proud when I thought she was alive to see it? I guess that was all part of the fantasy. Life was easier when someone else made your decisions for you and as much as I hated those decisions, my dad had been more than happy to make them all for me.
Today was the last day he would be making my decisions. Today was the day of his wedding to Sheri and I decided to let him have a small victory. He insisted on having me by his side on the altar like a best man.
I’d refused at first and told him I didn’t want to be anywhere near that wedding. He didn’t know about my hatred for Sheri so he just assumed I didn’t like the idea of him getting remarried. In the end I relented. It was his wedding day and I would be off to university in little over a week.
I still rebelled a little bit by refusing to wear his choice of dress. His selection would have looked overly conservative in a church in Victorian England, less alone in the twenty-first century. I had something a little more exciting to wear. Still suitable for a wedding, but something that Caiden would at least get some pleasure out of.
The morning had been chaotic enough with Sheri and Dad both running around trying to get ready. They weren’t bothering to make things overly traditional by turning up at the church separately, but they ended up getting in each other’s way and my dad probably wished he’d stayed at a hotel for the night before.
I blew on my nails to dry the polish and checked them for any bumps or missed spots. They looked good and the dark blue was a perfect match for my dress. The noise from downstairs had been constant all morning, but suddenly it got louder. At first I thought Dad and Sheri were having an argument. They sounded furious and for a second I hoped the wedding would be called off.
I opened my door and tried to hear what they were arguing about. They were both mad, but they were mad at something else. A third party.
“My career is over,” Sheri screamed. “I’ll never come back from this. How did this get out?”
“I don’t know,” my father snapped back. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”
With everything that had happened in the last week I’d completely forgotten about the emails I sent out to news websites about Sheri’s fraudulent behaviour.
I quickly pulled out my phone and searched for Sheri’s name. The top result was a news article from one of the websites I sent the evidence to. I opened the article and smiled as I read the story about how Sheri had been stealing recipes for years.
My emails weren’t the only evidence they had. The delay between me sending out the emails and the story being written up must’ve given them time to get hold of sources from other websites. One source even broke a non-disclosure agreement she had signed to reveal details of the settlement she’d reached with Sheri. It was out there. I’d done it. She was doomed.
I heard Dad on the phone downstairs. “Have you seen this?” he asked. “There has to be a leak at the firm.” He paused for a few seconds. “No, there’s no other way they could have got that information. We have a leak at the firm and you’d better find it.” The man on the other end spoke for about thirty seconds before my dad interrupted him. “I don’t care if it is a Saturday. I’m the fucking managing partner and I’m telling you I want the leak found. When you find out who it is, call the police. I don’t know what happened, but at the very least there should be a case for fraud or theft. You can be damn sure I’m going to find other criminal charges to add to the list as well.”
He made a few more calls along similar lines. He called other partners and told them to call the associates and make everyone come into the office or work from home. I felt guilty for ruining all those weekends, but I couldn’t exactly own up to it. Thank God I’d used a public Wi-Fi connection. I doubted Dad’s somewhat antiquated law firm would be able to track down cyber activities like that, but the extra precaution helped me relax anyway.
I hadn’t even noticed that Dad had been made managing partner. He’d probably told me at some point, but I’d long since stopped listening to him. The only important people in my life at the moment were C
aiden and Gemma plus the memory of my mother. My dad’s job title couldn’t have been less important to me.
Within minutes, social media and other websites began picking up on the news about Sheri. I followed lots of food bloggers and people in the industry so my feed was full of people commenting on the news. A minority stood by her and said we should wait for her comment, but most were suitably furious.
A few bloggers, like me, had worshipped Sheri and seen her as some sort of mentor or person to emulate. Others were coming out of the woodwork after finding out that Sheri had stolen their recipes as well. My dad was going to have his hands full over the next few years dealing with all these new cases.
Caiden’s door had been shut all morning so he probably hadn’t heard the news yet. Last time I’d spoken to him he said he was going to the wedding, but I hadn’t even heard him use the shower yet so I decided to go and chase him up. If he wasn’t going to be there, I at least wanted him to see me in my dress. That would give him something to think about until he could take it off in the evening.
---
“So, what do you think?” I asked Caiden, giving him a quick twirl in my dress.
“I think I wish I was going to the wedding just to look at you wearing that all day.”
“You’re not going then?”
Caiden was sat on his bed watching TV on his laptop in shorts and T-shirt, so at this point he probably couldn’t go even if he wanted to.
“No, decided against it. Sheri didn’t really want me there anyway and Roy sure as hell didn’t. Everyone’s going to assume I just don’t like the idea of my mum getting remarried, but it’s not that at all. The whole thing just seems fake to me. My mum’s just marrying your dad because of his ability to help keep the smell of shit off her and your dad’s marrying her to improve his image.”
I opened my mouth to tell him about the news on Sheri, but decided against it. I didn’t want Caiden to know it was me and if I told him there was a good chance I would give the game away. He had a habit of spotting my lies.
He would be mad at me if he found out what I’d done. Not because it destroyed Sheri’s career—he would be thankful for that even if it meant he had less money—but he wouldn’t have wanted me to do it and risk my future.
Caiden stood up and ran his fingers down my back. “Are you really going to make me wait until tonight before I can take this off?”
“Yes,” I replied, turning and slapping his hand away. “It took me long enough to get into the damn thing. I don’t have time to take it off and put it on again.”
Caiden sat down on the bed and grabbed me behind the knees. His hands moved up the back of my thighs until he found my panties.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “We don’t have time.”
“You said you don’t have time to take the dress off and put it on again,” he replied, as his thumbs hooked under the waistband of my panties before pulling them down. “So I propose we leave the dress on.”
He quickly pulled down his shorts and boxers and tore off his T-shirt so he was sat naked on the bed with his hard cock looking up at me.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” I said, as I kicked my panties off from around my ankles.
“I wouldn’t want you to go to the wedding unsatisfied.” Caiden reached over to the drawer by his bed and pulled out a condom. I stared at the packet as he pulled the condom out and rolled the rubber down his shaft.
“You were always safe, right?” I asked. “With sex and everything I mean?”
“Of course,” Caiden replied. “I’ve never had sex without a condom and I still get tested regularly anyway.”
“I was a virgin when we met and obviously haven’t slept with anyone else.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” I nodded. “What about—“
“I’m on the pill. I have been for years because they help with my time of the month.”
“Are you sure?” Caiden asked.
“Yes, they make it more regular and less painful.”
“I meant, are you sure about having sex without a condom?”
“Oh,” I said with an embarrassed smile on my face. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been wanting this for a while. Every time you finish inside a condom it just feels like such a waste. I want you to fill up my pussy when you come. I want to feel your flesh on mine.”
Caiden rolled off the condom and threw it to the floor. He pulled me towards him and lifted up my dress so his tongue could get at my wet pussy.
“There’s no time,” I said, pushing his mouth away from between my legs. “And trust me, I don’t need it. I’m more than wet enough as it is. Lie on the bed,” I commanded.
I straddled Caiden’s naked body, lifting my dress up as I hovered over his stomach. I reached around with my hand and grabbed his cock, then guided it towards my pussy.
Caiden moaned the second his tip touched my wet lips. “Holy shit, this is going to be amazing. I might not last long.”
“Good, because we don’t have much time.”
I moved my arse back and Caiden’s shaft slid inside my sex with ease. Without the thin layer of rubber between us I could feel every pulse of his shaft inside my wet pussy. I rocked my hips back and forth aggressively, lifting the dress up so Caiden could see his cock covered in my juices. I’d soaked him. His pubic hair glistened with my wetness, and his cock shone more than when I’d been sucking and slobbering over it for ten minutes.
I’d never been in such a rush for Caiden to finish. We didn’t have much time, but the real reason was I wanted his cum inside me. This time it wouldn’t be on my chest, in my mouth, or in a condom. It would be inside me. I felt connected to Caiden in a way I didn’t think was possible. The most intimate parts of our bodies were completely connected now. There would be no going back from this.
I could see Caiden was close, so I reached a hand down and started rubbing my clit furiously so I could come in time with him.
“I’m close,” he groaned. “Oh fuck. I’m going to fill that tight little pussy with my cum.”
His words sent me over the edge and I stopped rocking on him as I came hard, letting Caiden watch more of my essence drip down his cock. He closed his eyes just before he came. I felt the eruption inside me as his cum shot forth from his shaft. He shook a few more times and then I collapsed down on top of him.
Eventually, his cock softened and reluctantly I let it fall out of my pussy. I quickly rolled off of him and onto my back before any of his spunk could fall out.
“What happens when I stand up?” I asked naïvely. “Is it all going to fall out of me?”
Caiden laughed and turned onto his side to face me. His fingers slipped under my dress and started playing with my breasts. “Some of it, yes. But your panties are always soaked anyway, so I’m not sure you’ll notice much difference.”
“Knowing how much of that stuff you shoot out, I think I’m going to notice somehow.”
I wanted to lay here and fall asleep, but I had to get downstairs to leave for the wedding. I carefully grabbed my panties from the floor and slipped them on before I stood up. I cringed as some of his juices slid out of me.
“Now I really wish I was going to the wedding,” Caiden said.
“Why?”
“Because I want to see daddy’s little girl standing next to her father while my cum drips down the inside of her leg.”
I bit my lip to suppress a smile and slapped him playfully on the chest. I hated it when he called me daddy’s little girl, but I had to admit, the thought of standing there full of Caiden’s cum while my dad married his mum was a decent bit of revenge for the way Dad had treated me over the years. That and completely fucking up Sheri’s career. All in all, this hadn’t been a bad morning. Now I just had to go watch my dad get married.
Three days. I only had three days left until Vicky left for college and I flew back home to the States. I wanted to spend every second in bed with Vicky, but her dad was home most of th
e time now so we had to be careful. I didn’t care whether he found out at this point, but Vicky still didn’t want him to know. We had to tell him sooner or later, but Vicky decided that would be best when I’d moved over to the UK for college.
The day of the wedding had been rather eventful, although I’d missed most of the drama. I didn’t realize until the day after that Sheri’s life had come crashing down just before the wedding. I really should’ve gone. It would have been hilarious to see her stand there and get married knowing that she was screwed. She deserved it.
Roy had instigated a massive search of the law firm that included bringing in cyber security analysts in an attempt to find out who leaked the information. It was probably some disgruntled associate at the firm. Roy must have made someone work late on one too many of Sheri’s legal matters and he or she wanted some revenge.
My only regret was that I didn’t do it myself although I was applying for a student visa now, so I had to keep my nose clean and avoid a criminal record. Still would’ve been worth it though.
I went downstairs for breakfast to find Sheri and Roy arguing. Sheri was blaming Roy for the leak, insisting that it must have come from his firm, and Roy was yelling at her for stealing other people’s work in the first place.
“If you’d just developed your own recipes none of this would have happened,” Roy yelled.
“Do you have any idea how difficult that is?” Sheri screamed back.
“It’s just fucking cooking,” Roy moaned. He didn’t swear often but this situation had him on edge.
I looked over at Vicky who was noticeably offended at her dad’s comments about cooking, but she didn’t say anything. We’d had a few minor arguments over the last couple of days. She still insisted on going to university and studying for a degree that she wasn’t even interested in. She claimed it was the best thing for the short term and that in the long term she would figure out a different career, but I worried she would fall into the same trap as her mom.
Escape: A Stepbrother Romance Page 20