Page 80 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“I’m sorry,” he laughed, “do youwanta stepmother?”

“You don’t have to get married right away, Dad. You could start dating though.”

“Brody, you know-”

“Yes, yes, nobody will ever compare to my mother. I know.” She rolled her eyes. “I just think you need someone to keep you busy when I go off to college.”

“Do you already have plans?” I cut in, since it sounded like I had brought up a discussion they’d had before, “For college?”

Brody shook her head at the same time that Julian replied: “Harvard. It’s a Beckett tradition at this point.”

I was beginning to see why Brody hadn’t clicked with her father’s talk about the birds and the bees. Julian was so much stiffer than Beck, so even if he meant well, he’d always clash with a free-spirited teen like Brody. They probably had a couple of difficult years ahead of them. “Does that mean you went to Harvard, too?” I asked and bumped my knee into Beck’s. His hand dropped under the table, easily catching my leg. Fingers wrapped around the inside of my thigh, he held it in place, lodged against his own leg.

“I did,” he said, thumb circling over my knee, “business and law.”

“Businessandlaw? And you callmea nerd?”

Brody snorted a laugh, but Beck just grinned at me. “I never said I wasn’t one.”

“You have too much muscle mass to be a nerd.”

“The brain is a muscle.”

“It’s not. That saying is commonly misunderstood. The brain is an organ, but you should exercise it like a muscle.”

“See?” He leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to my temple, stubble barely grazing my skin. “You still get to be the bigger nerd.”

Thatwas very much a semi-public display of affection. Actual affection, not desire like at Clandestine. Somewhere in the background Brody squealed, but my focus was solely on Beck whose eyes crinkled in the corners and who kicked his chin up in a quiet challenge. Oh, he knew exactly what he’d done.

I just didn’t know what it meant yet.

* * *

Julian’s huglingered long after the car door fell shut behind us, silence swelling in the back of the limo on the way home. The muscle in Beck’s jaw ticked and he tapped a single finger against the leather seat. It felt like a countdown to the explosion I knew was coming. When we got into the elevator of his building and the number on the display kept climbing, I couldn’t take the cold shoulder anymore. “It was just a hug.”

“Inside, Del,” he thundered the second the elevator stopped on his floor.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

He opened the door to his apartment, only to throw it shut behind us, hard enough for the lock to rattle. “I told you not to let him touch you.”

“What would you have me do? Shove him off me? He’s your brother.”

“You have no idea what he is.” He charged towards the bedroom, and I had little choice but to follow him, since he was so not getting out of this discussion.

“Whathe is?” I shook my head. “Is this about Ashleigh? Did something happen?”

“I don’t give a fuck about her. This is about you. About his stupid ploy to get you into his house, and him putting his fucking hands on you.”

“I don’t understand the problem.” I kicked my shoes off, not caring where they landed. “It was one hug.”

Beck grew eerily still, his breathing flattened, and his gaze hardened on me. It felt like being watched by a lion just before the kill. “Take your dress off,” he growled after a beat of silence.

“No.” Was he serious? That wassonot the mood right now.

“Take. Your. Dress. Off.”

“No.”

---