Climb on My Stepfather (Ashley and Alex)

Chapter 67

Chapter 67

19: Lia.

I'm never leaving my bedroom again.

Maybe I'm not ready for adulthood or college or big decisions. Maybe I'm just a stupid, eighteen-year-old kid. What was I thinking, trying to scheme Tristan into a relationship? He doesn't want a child for a girlfriend. Sex is one thing, but going public when his persona is so important to his multi-billion-dollar company? I was naive to think that was ever a possibility.

Still wearing my bikini, I roll over and bury my face in a pillow. It's wet from my tears and I dive headlong into another crying jag now, the sound muffled.

I miss Tristan.

I love him so much.

Even now I could be carrying his baby. What a scandal that would be. I'm sure if I'm pregnant, it'll be kept hush hush and I'll be shuttled abroad somewhere until I can deliver the baby, passing it off as a distant relative or something.

Or maybe Tristan will want full custody. Who is going to fight him when I'm the teenager who tricked him into sleeping with me? Into..everything. He never cared deeply about me. It was all in my eager imagination.

And I deserve this. To be alone and humiliated.

I lied to him.

I manipulated him into a sexual relationship with me after he explicitly said no. But I just thought...I swore if we just had some time together as adults, the love inside me would be contagious. It's so big and mighty. How can it not be?

While Tristan was away on his business trip, I started to doubt my dreams. I started wondering if being with Tristan, as his real girlfriend, was far-fetched.

It made me so depressed, so nervous, I stopped answering his calls-and then when I saw him at the country club, I immediately called myself a moron for not spending every single second possible with him, in any capacity I can get. But the consequences of those lies were beginning to come to a head, making him doubt my intentions. Making him doubt me. I waited too long to tell the truth and there is nothing I can do to fix the damage I've done.

He must hate me.

Or he's laughing at me, thinking my love is nothing more than a crush.

And worse, I've made things awkward between Tristan and my father, to say nothing of how I'll ever look my father in the eye again after he caught me and Tristan having sex. Eric will probably hate me and who can blame him? I've let my infatuation, my obsession with this man turn me into a liar. A girl who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

I bolt upright in bed when my phone starts to vibrate on the bed beside my hip. Reaching down, I pick it up, wincing when I see Eric's name on the screen. I'm definitely about to get an earful, but it's going to happen sometime, isn't it? Might as well be now.

With a blown-out breath, I answer the phone. "Eric...I'm sorry. I—"

"Can you come downstairs?"

"So you can

a quiet

bed and slipping a white summer dress over my bikini, sliding my feet into sandals. I catch a glimpse of my tear-stained face in the mirror on my way out, but no amount of makeup is going to fix it. There is no one waiting in the foyer,

"Hey," I say miserably.

a hard gleam in his

a crush on your dad, but then it just...snowballed. And then I couldn't breathe unless I saw him at least

Look, is he the reason you're friends with

disbelief. "What?" I reach

my God, of course not. You're my best friend because I adore you.

really. I just had to make sure you love me

"I do."

way than you love my father." He shakes his head. "It's

have to get used to anything.

on my shoulder and squeezes. "Don't be so sure." He tugs me toward the steps where his car is waiting below. "Come

sputter in confusion.

simply opening the passenger side door and gesturing for

be if Tristan isn't on the other side of this car ride. Still, without any keys or even my phone, I move as if in

the city,

outcome than I deserve. I'm trying to suppress any more dangerous hope from rising to

are you taking

me a cheeky look, he doesn't answer. But then he parks in front of Wonderbluss. The art installation center I took Tristan to

wildly in my ribcage,

I

that's a

and relieved whimper, I throw myself out of the car and go running. I start to open the door of Wonderbluss, but someone opens it for me first. It's my...father? And my mother

And they're dressed up.

a suit and tie, my

mess of things," I say, haltingly. "I

know that better than anyone," my father sighs, his mouth

"I'm sorry you saw...what you

stopping when he jerks his head at the velvet curtain separating the entrance from the

happy, watery laugh, I give my parents hugs and dash toward the curtain, throwing myself through it into the hallway. I don't bother trying to smooth my hair or get the wrinkles out of my dress. I only care about getting through the orange door. To Tristan. I

on me,

standing on the

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