Chapter 29: : Chapter 29

1 WEEK LATER

“That was only seventy percent awkward, which was better than I expected,” Nate mused. “I think in a few years, we can knock it down to fifty.”

Kris rolled her eyes and bumped her hip against his. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“C’mon. You’re telling me you weren’t expecting another bombshell or three to drop during dinner?”

He had a point. They’d just finished dinner with Roger and Gemma in Koreatown—L.A. had some of the best Korean food in the country—and Kris had been waiting for yet another box of secrets to spill for the entire meal. Luckily, nothing unusual happened, except when one of the other patrons recognized Nate from his three-episode guest arc on a popular crime show a few years ago. The woman, clearly a tourist, had asked for a picture and an autograph, which Nate delighted in giving. It’d been his first-ever autograph.

“Fine. You’re right—this time,” Kris conceded. They entered the boba shop near their dinner spot. She was stuffed from Korean BBQ, but she could always make room for bubble tea. “Did I tell you Gemma’s moving to Seattle? She’s an artist, so she can work anywhere. She won’t be living with us, but she’ll be close by, and my dad already told his assistant to halve his travel days going forward.”

Kris flashed back to her and her father’s conversation in his office last week.

“I didn’t think about how my absence affected you, and I’m sorry,” Roger said, weariness and regret evident on his strong, proud features. “You’ve always been so independent, and I never expected business to take off the way it did after you were born. It’s no excuse, but I honestly thought working long hours and providing for you was the right thing to do.”

“I am independent.” Kris rubbed her thumb over a tiny chip on one of her nails. She’d have to get that fixed later. “But it’d be nice to feel like I’m part of a family. A real one. Like, we don’t have to have to eat dinner together every night, but maybe once a month? Or something.”

That seemed like a fair compromise. Up to this point, Kris and her father had shared maybe three, four meals together in a calendar year. She didn’t count events or dinners with her father’s friends and business associates, which were basically work gatherings disguised as social get-togethers.

“Counteroffer,” Roger said.

Kris sighed, recognizing her father’s negotiation voice. “Proceed.”

His mouth quirked up in a small smile before he grew serious again. “Dinner once a week when we’re both in the city. Flexible days, to account for our unpredictable schedules. And…” He paused. “I’ll cut back my business travel to 180 days each year, max.”

Kris’s mouth parted in shock. Roger’s terms were the equivalent of her willingly giving up her Porsche convertible in Seattle and her favorite limited-edition, hand-painted Dior handbag.

From dinner once a quarter to once a week? That was a lot.

But as she gazed at the man with whom she’d lived all her life but whom she didn’t really know, she surmised once a week might be perfect after all. Daily would be too much; bi-weekly or monthly too little.

Trust Roger to strike the ideal balance on his first try.

“Deal,” she said. “As long as neither of us has to cook.”

“That’s great.” Nate squeezed Kris’s hand. “You deserve to get to know your parents—especially your mom—better.”

“It’ll be a long time before I call her Mom. It’s too strange. But one day…maybe.”

Kris still needed to work through her feelings about Mariana. Even though the woman wasn’t her biological mother and had been a part of her life for only two years, she’d lived in Kris’s heart and imagination for far longer than that. Roger, too, needed to work through his grief. Kris imagined that, while he hadn’t loved Mariana the way he’d loved Gemma, his complicated feelings toward his ex-wife mirrored her own. Gemma had told him about Mariana’s death and why she’d left all those years ago, and his reaction had been a similar mix of shock, anger, and sadness, peppered with guilt. It would take time for the Carreras to heal from their past, but they’d get there.

Meanwhile, Kris and Gemma took tentative steps toward building a relationship and

crammed in a coffee date, a shopping date, and a spa day together in one week. Kris was pleased to discover that Gemma had excellent taste in footwear, agreed that deep tissue massages were better than Swedish massages, and harbored an everlasting love for teen movies from the 2000s, including the iconic Mean Girls (all hail Regina George) and Bring It On (despite the irritating perkiness of Kirsten Dunst’s character).

“How are things with your dad?” Kris asked after they placed their boba tea orders.

“Same.” Nate raked a hand through his hair. “I mean, in the sense that we’re working through our issues and taking it day by day. It’s getting easier, though, and Sky’s happy.”

“Good. I’ll miss her,” Kris admitted.

“Really? Who else will you miss?”

She picked up their boba from the counter and handed Nate his drink while shooting him a sardonic look. “You are the world’s most obvious fisher.”

“I don’t know what you mean. It was just a question.” His mouth curved with mischief.

Kris smirked, but a tangle of dread knotted itself in her throat. It was Saturday night. Her flight left for Seattle Monday morning, and classes started Tuesday.

They had a little over twenty-four hours left together.

Thanks to the whole Gemma drama, it had been easy to push thoughts of her and Nate’s imminent goodbye to the side, but there was no denying it: their time together was running out, and Kris, who’d never been the sentimental sort, was devastated.

Her father had reinstated her access to her cards and bank accounts, but she’d kept her job at Alchemy until Nate’s co-worker with the sprained ankle returned to work on Thursday. She had, however, moved back into her family’s house after Roger kicked Gloria to the curb. Nate, Skylar, and even Michael had insisted she was welcome to stay through the end of the summer; while Kris would’ve loved the extra time with Nate, she didn’t want to impose any further, even if she had been paying rent.

Besides, she and Nate spent every night together anyway—she either slept over at his place or he slept over at hers. Usually hers, given she had her own wing of the house and they could make as much noise as they wanted without worrying about someone hearing them.

“That’s not a conversation for tonight,” she said as they stepped back out into the muggy evening. “Later.”

Like in the next century.

Kris didn’t want to say goodbye to Nate. Ever.

His face softened. “Kris—”

“You bitch.”

Kris’s straw froze halfway to her mouth. She narrowed her eyes at the speaker and wiped the surprise from her face when she saw it was Gloria.

What the hell was she doing here?

The ex-Stepmonster flaunted head-to-toe designer, but her red hair was messier than usual and dark circles shadowed her eyes. She stood on the edge of the sidewalk, glaring at Kris and Nate, her hand strangling the strap of her handbag.

It was sort of sad.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Kris asked. “You kind of look like someone who tried to weasel her way past a prenup and into my father’s millions but was dumb enough to cheat on him with her personal trainer, of all people. Talk about cliché.” She took a loud, purposeful slurp of her taro bubble tea. “Anyway, you can’t be her, because while she was a total bitch, she had the decency not to wear Louboutins from three seasons ago.”

Gloria’s lips flattened into a thin line. “You think you’re so smart. Once your father finds out what you did—and he will find out—he’ll never forgive you.”

“It seems your memory has degraded as much as your fashion sense,” Kris said coolly. “My father already knows about the contract with Nate.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Gloria hissed. “I’m talking about the bogus phone with the texts and pictures. I don’t know how you got your hands on those photos, but your efforts to frame me are pathetic.”

Kris’s brows drew together. Call her crazy, but Gloria sounded like she was telling the truth about the phone. Either that, or she was a world-class actress. Kris wouldn’t put it past the other woman.

“It’s not my fault you weren’t more careful,” she said, watching Gloria’s reaction closely. “Plus, considering the wedding is off and my father wants nothing to do with you, I’d say my alleged ‘efforts’ aren’t so pathetic.”

Gloria’s cheeks flushed until their color matched her hair.

Part of Kris was tempted to taunt the ex-Stepmonster further, but honestly, she was over it. The woman was out of her and her father’s lives, and she had little desire to waste more of her precious remaining time in L.A. battling a defeated opponent.

“Since you’re still here in L.A., I assume you’ve either been shacking up with your trainer or staying at a hotel in hopes of getting my father alone and making him change his mind. Friendly tip: he won’t, so stop wasting your money. I also assume, given your appearance here tonight, that you’ve been following him or me. Again, stop wasting your money and time and move on. We have.” Kris smiled. “Have a nice life.”

She tugged Nate down the street, leaving a speechless, sputtering Gloria behind.

“Perhaps we should walk faster in case she snaps and tries to mace us,” Nate whispered.

“Good idea.”

Kris waited until they rounded the corner before she broke into a run and a laugh, with Nate close on her heels.

She’d stewed in resentment and hate for so long she hadn’t realized how much they weighed her down until she was freed of them.

She was still laughing when they reached his car, and she replayed Gloria’s stunned expression in her mind.

There was, however, one thing she wanted to confirm.

“Nate?”

“Hmm?” He pulled out of their parking space and onto the main road.

“You know anything about the allegedly ‘bogus phone’?” She’d been focused on Gloria during the confrontation, but she’d noticed Nate’s mouth quirk up at that line.

“Nope.” There went that mouth quirk again. “Why would I?”

Kris tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the car door armrest. “Too bad. I had a fun reward in mind if you had.” She shrugged. “Oh, well.”

“What kind of reward?” Suspicion tempered Nate’s tone, like he was sure he was walking into a trap but couldn’t help himself.

She smiled sweetly. “Did I ever tell you I have basically no gag reflex?”

She’d given him BJs before, of course, but she’d been saving that fun little tidbit for a special occasion.

The car swerved to the right before Nate corrected it. “No,” he wheezed.

“Well, I don’t.” Kris feigned a yawn. “I used to experiment with all sorts of things to see if they’d trigger the reflex—bananas, cucumbers, carrots. But nope. I can take them all.”

Nate’s grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Are you trying to get us killed?” he growled.

“No.” Kris upped the saccharine in her smile. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this ‘bogus phone’ deal.”

“You don’t play fair.”

“Fairness is for losers.”

Nate huffed out a laugh. “Fine.” He glanced at her quickly before refocusing on the road. “I planted the phone with Risa’s help. Turns out she’s not a big fan of Gloria—said something about Gloria insulting her roasted chicken and making off-color comments? Plus, she likes me and felt bad about what happened between you and your father. Anyway, she caught Gloria and her trainer arguing one day when Roger was out of the house. From what she could tell, they really had been hooking up, but Gloria broke things off after Roger arrived and the trainer was pissed. She’d been ignoring his calls, so he showed up at the house and Gloria freaked. Risa didn’t catch any of this on camera, but she called me—”

“Wait.” Kris held up her hand. “Why does she have your number, and why did she call you instead of me?”

“We bonded over her banana bread, and she knew you were already in trouble for our, er, earlier scheme so she didn’t want to drag you into another mess.”

“You exchanged numbers because of…banana bread?”

Nate shot her a slightly affronted look. “Yes, it’s very good banana bread, but that’s not the point. The point is, she called and told me. We didn’t try to wait for evidence again, because we didn’t have time, so I asked Teague for help. Apparently, he’s an amateur hacker—the guy has way too many hobbies—and he doctored the messages and included a few photos that were on Gloria’s real phone’s camera roll. Not naked photos. Just, uh, suggestive ones that go with the fake messages, because we couldn’t find any actual messages between her and her trainer.”

Kris was speechless. It was happening more and more frequently, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. But this… “That is so underhanded and evil. I love it.” Then she frowned. “Wait. Teague helped you? When did you speak with Teague?”

A sheepish expression took over Nate’s face. “I may have looked up his contact info and paid him a visit to talk.”

“To talk.”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

“About him never touching you again unless he wanted me to break his fingers,” Nate said casually.

“Nate Reynolds!”

The guilt morphed into a smirk. “He got the message. He’s not so bad—as long as he’s not touching you.”

Kris groaned. “You’re insufferable. He’s my friend.”

“He can be your friend without pawing you like he did at Sky’s soccer game.”

“We’ll discuss this later. The conversation is not over.” But there was a more pressing issue at hand. “Why would you, Risa, and Teague do that? Help me with Gloria, I mean.”

Nate, she understood, but Teague had no dog in the fight, and while she and Risa were on good terms, they weren’t friends or anything. Plus, if Risa got caught, she’d be out of a job.

To think they’d gone to all this trouble to get rid of Gloria for her…it was unfathomable.

“Because we love you,” Nate said. “Okay, I think Risa did it out of hate for Gloria—proving you should never, ever insult a woman’s food or, you know, make racist jokes—but Teague is your friend and I’m your boyfriend. Who loves you most,” he added. “Just so you know. I’m up here and everyone else is down here.” He punctuated his explanation with the appropriate hand gestures. “Gloria was right when she said the phone and messages were bogus, but she really had been cheating on your dad. You’d been on the right track with your plan, but since it fell through, I figured I’d pick up where you left off. I just didn’t tell you since I wanted you to have plausible deniability if it blew up in our faces.”

Kris’s stomach fluttered in a way that was possibly unhealthy. Some girls swooned over roses, some girls swooned over jewelry, but Kris? She swooned over guys who hatched diabolical plans to get rid of evil stepmothers-to-be.

“Pull over,” she said.

Nate looked alarmed. “We’re on the freeway.”

“Take the nearest exit and pull into the first empty parking lot or side street you find.”

Something in her voice must have gotten to him because he did as she asked with no further protest. Fifteen minutes later, they parked in the lot of a closed shopping mall.

“Are you okay?” Nate asked, concern etched on his face. “Do you—holy fuck.” He hissed out a breath when Kris made quick work of his belt and zipper and freed his hardening cock. “What are you doing?” His voice had dropped several decibels and was strained beyond belief.

She flashed a mischievous smile. “I’m giving you your reward.”

Then she showed him exactly what a girl with no gag reflex could do.