“Austin!” Celeste spots me and waves. I wave back slowly. “Did you have a good nap?” she asks, and Cole looks over at me. He lets go of the little girl, and she swims over to the steps.
“Yeah,” I say, walking around the pool and plopping down on a lounge chair. I look anywhere but at Cole. What is he doing here? Is he trying to fuck with me? Is he feeling Celeste out to see if I said anything to her? I wouldn’t do that. She would tell my father, and who knows what he would do with me. He’d probably try to help Cole pin it on me so my ass would go to jail. Out of his life.
“You should come swimming with us. The pool is heated.” She lies back on her raft. Her purple string bikini reveals more than lingerie would. Letting the world know that my father paid for most of her body.
I think about saying yes but stop myself. “Not today.” I just got stitches. I’ll have to get those removed before she can see my arm. Plus, I don’t think the chlorine would feel very good on it.
The little girl gets out of the pool and makes her way over to me. “Hi,” she says with a big smile on her face.
“Hello.”
“My name is Lilly. I’m six. Wanna watch me dive?”
This is his sister? They look nothing alike. She has blond hair where he has brown. She has brown eyes to his blue. “I’d love to,” I say with a smile of my own.
“Cole, can I dive in the deep end? Please?” she begs, jumping up and down.
I take a chance to look at him, and he’s staring right at me. My hair is still up in a messy bun from when I slept and pieces fall out down my back and shoulders. His eyes drop to my exposed shoulder and then down my chest. They slowly run down my body to my legs, and I feel them tighten at the look in his eyes.
The man who tried to pin me for murder is now at my father’s house with his little sister, swimming with my stepmother.
He’s up to something. And I need to get ahead of his game. I’m not some stupid little girl who he can play.
“Please, Cole? Just once,” she asks, standing by my lounge chair. Water runs off her bright yellow one-piece and onto the concrete.
“Yeah. One time,” he tells her, running his hand through his wet hair, making it stand straight up, and she squeals with excitement. He swims over to the deep end, passing Celeste on her raft. He comes to a stop and looks up at her. She prepares herself for her dive, takes a deep breath, and falls in head first. He reaches under the water and grabs her, pulling her up and then helps her to the side. She climbs out and comes running back over to me.
“Did you like it?” she asks with that excitement still on her face. I envy it. I wish life was that simple.
“I give it a ten.” I hold up all my fingers, and she bounces up and down. “Perfect.”
She lunges for me, wrapping her arms around me for a tight hug and soaking my shirt and legs. The water feels good. Not too cold but not warm either. She pulls away. “I can dive for rings.” Her face falls all of a sudden. “I can only grab one at a time, though.”
I refrain from laughing at how adorable she is. “I’d love to watch you dive for rings.”
She bounces over to the edge of the pool and tosses five rings in the shallow end. “Cole?” she yells at him. “Cole?”
I look at him to see why he is ignoring her, but when my eyes meet his, he’s staring down at my chest. His jaw tight and eyes glaring with anger.
I look down to see what he is staring at. “Geez,” I mutter to myself. She soaked my white shirt, and I don’t have a bra on.
I hunch over and pull it away from my chest. Standing up, I go to walk away, but Lilly stops me. “You’re not gonna watch me?” She pouts.
Shit!
I reach over and grab a blue towel off the back of a lounge chair and drape it over my shoulders. “Of course, I am,” I tell her, sitting back down and plastering a smile on my face.
I ignore Cole, but I can still feel his gaze on me for a few more seconds before he turns to her and helps her out with diving for her rings.
We spend another hour out in the pool when Cole finally announces that they have to get going. At first, Lilly tried to beg him for another five minutes, but he didn’t budge. He’s better than I would have been because the moment she pushed that bottom lip out, I would have caved. Then she threw a fit. He glared at her, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to swim.
“She can stay out here with me,” Celeste tells him.
“I don’t think …”
“Please?” Lilly begs, interrupting him. She hugs his shoulders while they still stand in the pool.
“Lilly …”
“Let her swim a little longer, Cole. It’ll be dark shortly. She can stay the night. We can have a girls’ night. You kids go have some fun.” She looks at me, and my brows rise. What is her deal with Cole? Does she not know how much he hates me? That he wants me in jail? Or worse, dead?
“Please? Please?” Lilly begs. “I wanna stay. I wanna swim. And have a girls’ night.” She splashes the water around them with her hands.
“Fine,” he says with a heavy sigh. “Just tonight, though. Okay?”
“Thank you.” She hugs his neck, and he pats her back.
“Yay.” Celeste claps her hands excitedly. And it makes me wonder why she and my father never had a child of their own. I’ve never thought about it. And sure as hell never asked. Then she looks at me. “Austin, we have a ten o’clock appointment at the salon in the morning.”
“For what?”
“I figured you’d want to get you hair done.” She shrugs. “Something new for school. And it gives us time together.”
“Thanks.” I’m not really into spending time at a salon, but I’ll give her this. Celeste has been more of a mom in the past twenty-four hours than my mother has in the past seventeen years.
She claps excitedly as Cole hands her Lilly. She bounces on her raft, straddling Celeste’s legs.
Cole goes under the water and then his head pops up in the shallow end. He stands, and I watch with complete fascination as he climbs the stairs to exit. Water drips off his lean body. Shelby had mentioned that he was the captain of the swim team, and I didn’t understand what that meant until just now. His black swim trunks hang low on his narrow hips. He turns to face me, and my mouth starts to water at the defined V that dips into his shorts and his chiseled abs. Thoughts of him pinning me down to the ground last night come back, reminding me of how strong he was. You can still see the faint marks my nails left when I clawed at his chest.
He isn’t overly muscular; he’s lean. But what he does have is chiseled, and my legs threaten to buckle. Good thing I’m sitting down.
“You have my towel,” he speaks, making me jump.
“Oh, sorry,” I say in a rush and yank it from my shoulders and toss it to him.
I look up at him through my lashes when he just stands there in front of me, and now, he’s the one looking down at me like he wants to push me up against the wall. Or down onto the lounge chair.
That’s when I remember why I had his towel in the first place. My shirt is still wet. And my nipples are hard from the wind making me cold. “Excuse me,” I say as I jump up. Turning around, I take off into the house.