Page 16 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy
I couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to think that she was some kind of stalker.
Without meaning to, I found myself sending small glances her way throughout dinner as everyone talked and the two of us pretended like we’ve never seen each other before. I didn’t ever go back to be with a woman a second time, but looking at her made me think I would.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she’s made it blatantly clear how little she wants to do with me.
Regardless, I could imagine pinning her up against this table and fucking her senseless.
“Thank you so much for joining us for dinner,” Charles said again, as he and Nia prepared to leave. “We have to go open up shop, but we’ll be in touch. Bye Kandy-Kane, love you.” They left, hand in hand, leaving just me and Kandis.
“I heard what you said in the boutique.” Her voice was quiet but deadly, as she peered at me.
“What?” She doesn’t mean…?
“You’re just here to try and take my grandfather’s company away from him.” So, she had heard that. I inhaled deeply. “If you think I’m going to let you do that then you’resadly mistaken. You need to stay the hell away from me and my family because all you do is bring trouble with you. I know your real intentions, and I will tell them if you don’t heed my warning.”
She scooted past me. “When he’s ready to pass his company down, it’ll be to me, not some power-hungry fool from New York. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”
Crystal.
Chapter seven
Kandis
“You should come,” Mila stressed over the phone, forcing me to remember what it was like to be friends with her before I ever stopped coming to visit my grandparents. In the short time that I’ve been here, Vineyard Home, California had become my safe place again. After the New York years, with my mother, it was something I could appreciate. Especially since my grandparents and Mila seemed to be the only people in my corner.
“I’m not really a partier, Mila,” I told her again. “The last time that I went to a party, I caught my boyfriend cheating on me.”
“Well, you’re single and men suck, so that won’t happen again.” I could imagine her smile on the other end of the line.
“Easy for you to say.”
My phone started vibrating against my ear, so I pulled it away, shocked when I saw my mother’s name on the top. She never called me unless she needed something, so I doubted it’d be anything good.
A cruel part of me didn’t want to answer. Why should I be there for someone who had made it clear on numerous occasions that she cared more about a beer bottle than she did me? At the same time, she was my mother, and it was a primitive instinct that made me want to hear her voice even when I knew I shouldn’t.
“Mila, I have someone on the other end. Can I call you back later?” Probably not until the end of the day. I’d noticed a pattern that whenever I ended up having to deal with my mother, it threw me off for the duration of the day and put me in a bad mood.
She sighed. “You better not be trying to talk your way out of going to this party.”
“I’m not, I’m not. Really, I’ll call you back. This is important.”
“Fine. Talk to you soon.”
I ended the call and answered my mother’s thankfully before it could ring for the final time. There was quite a bit of white noise going on in the background and shuffling around. “Momma?” I called her name, not knowing what to expect.
It was silent for a while before her voice popped up on the other end. “Kandis.” Her voice was shaking as if she’d been crying. “Oh, my dear sweet baby, how have you been?” It always started out like this. She started out acting as if she was an affectionate mother just wanting to check in on her child when she was anything but.
“Momma, is something wrong?” Over time, I’d become the only person she could call when she got into trouble, a fact that the both of us knew extremely well.
“Oh, Kandis…” There was yelling in the background. “Momma needs to ask you for a favor, alright?”
Of course.
“What is it?”
“Momma lost her job baby, and Sean, he’s being a rat’s ass and refusing to pay for anything. All I need’s a twelve pack and some cigarettes. Maybe fifty dollars? Really, that’s all I need and then I won’t bother you again, I promise you.”
Fifty dollars was such an insignificant amount of money, and to be honest, it wouldn’t bother me financially to give it to her, but hearing what she was going to use it for? That was what made me uneasy.
