Her head did this strange bobbing/pivot thing on her neck, which really made her look like a parrot. This of course surprised me, though I successfully fought the sudden urge to burst out laughing.

“You don’t know who I am? What the actual fuck?!” she shrieked.

I took a deep breath and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. I clutched the sheet to my chest as I surveyed her, noting this was definitely one of those occasions where passion served no purpose.

She was tiny, maybe five one, and very tanned. She was also wearing platform sandals that added four or five inches to her height. She also had very small hips and very thin legs. But her boobs were as big as mine, maybe a little bigger, and truly gave her the unnatural proportional appearance of a Barbie doll. Her eyes were pale blue, her hair was bleach—and I mean bleach—blonde; it fell like straw around her shoulders and likely reached her tiny bottom.

She was wearing blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick and there was just something really wrong about her lips and lack of facial expression. Though she was shrieking her face never seemed to alter its expression. It was eerie.

“I’ll tell you who I am, and then you’re going to get the actual fuck out of Martin’s room, leave this house, and never talk to him again.” She sounded angry. Her words told me she was angry, but her dead-face was distracting and fascinating.

She pointed to her sternum, the place between her giant, balloon-shaped boobs. “I am Mrs. Sandeke, Mart-tin’s stepmother…? You see? I own this house and you need to leave.”

I didn’t like how she said his name. It was…possessive, and…creepy.

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Nice to meet you.” I cringed after the automatic words left my mouth, because they would likely sound insincere given the situation; therefore, now flustered, I rushed through the rest of my thought. “Um, well, if you’ll give me a few minutes to get my things then I’ll be out of your—”

“No.” Martin’s voice thundered from someplace down the hall and pulled Mrs. Sandeke’s attention over her shoulder.

He wasn’t running when he entered his room—seemingly careful not to touch her as he slipped past where she hovered at the door—but he sure was walking fast. His eyes held mine as he approached the bed, then he bent down, cupped the back of my head, and gave me a quick, soft kiss.

“Hey, you okay?” Martin looked genuinely concerned, maybe a little panicked, and his eyes darted between mine. I barely had time to nod before he said, “I’ll take care of this, don’t worry about a thing. You’re staying with me.”

“Mart-tin! What the actual fuck?” This time she didn’t shriek. She whined.

Martin’s eyes rolled back and I saw he gritted his teeth as he straightened and stood, turned and faced his stepmother.

“Can you get her to stop saying that? It’s really irritating,” I muttered to his back, hopefully low enough that only Martin would hear.

“Patrice,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “you need to get out of my room.”

Everything became very, very still.

Leave it to Martin to intone so much with slowly and softly spoken words. They dripped with icicles, icicles of hate. I actually felt the temperature of the room drop at least five degrees. I hoped he never spoke to me like that.

“But…but Mar-tin...” Her voice became very baby-like, high pitched. It was weird.

I couldn’t see her because Martin was blocking my view, but I imagined her expression didn’t alter because…dead-face.

“You know you are never allowed in any of my rooms.”

“But,” she sighed softly, like a bird cooing, “you know you don’t mean that.”

“You disgust me. You’re repulsive. You married my father for his money and have been trying to fuck me ever since. Climbing in bed with a fourteen-year-old boy is not okay, Patrice.”

I flinched, and my mouth fell open in shock, my eyes expanding to their maximum aperture. There was family dysfunction, and then there was Martin’s family. This was crazy. This was Jerry Springer meets Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous meets The Count of Monte Cristo.

“Why…what…why…” Patrice huffed and puffed, sounding lost and alarmed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I want Kaitlyn to know. I want her to know what being with me means, what disgusting baggage I carry in the form of family members.”

The room fell silent, and I felt another shift in the temperature of the room; it grew even colder.

“Fine,” Patrice said, her voice now alto, sounding entirely different…like a completely different person.

Instinctively I leaned to the side to see if a new woman had taken her place. It was still her, but her posturing had changed. Her shoulders were thrown back and her chin was tilted stubbornly upward. Other than that, her face looked the same, because…dead-face.

Patrice crossed her arms over her chest and added, “But you should do this skank someplace else, not in my house.”

“This isn’t your house. This is my house. All the houses are my houses. Everything is in my name. Everything was put in my name before my father married you, because he knows you’d divorce him, screw him over in a heartbeat if you thought you could walk away with more than a few hundred thousand dollars.”

What the what? His house?

This statement—or reminder, I was guessing—didn’t make her happy. The room temperature dropped again. I wondered if it would snow.

Obviously feeling cornered and nasty, Patrice decided to go for the personal approach. “You like this type of girl? The chubby ones do it for you?”

“Don’t.” The single word, again softly and slowly spoken, sent chills down my spine. It was more than a warning; it was a threat and it sounded lethal.

She held her hands up. “Whatever. I don’t care. But I will enjoy tearing her to pieces and making her life hell and using your money to do it.”

He chuckled at this. “That’s funny, Patrice.”

She cocked her head to the side as he laughed. “What? What’s so funny?”

“This girl right here,” he motioned to me, sounding proud and coldly amused, “this girl is Kaitlyn Parker, as in Senator Parker’s daughter. You know, potentially the first female president of the United States in the next election cycle? As in the granddaughter of Colonel Timothy Parker, the astronaut. She’s untouchable. She’s a national treasure. You do something to her, the entire fucking world will bring pain to your doorstep.”

I’d never thought of myself in these terms, not really. Nothing he said was untrue, but living the reality of being a perceived national treasure and accepting it were two entirely different states. Therefore, hearing this declaration come from Martin’s mouth—like he had thought about it—made my brain stutter and a spike of alarm shoot up my neck.

Patricia’s eyes slid to mine and, miracle of miracles, her expression did change. The color left her face and her eyes seemed to dim. Meanwhile I sat motionless in the bed, not sure what I should be feeling.

Then Martin added, obviously enjoying himself a great deal, “That’s right. She’s a goddamn national treasure, and she’s my girlfriend, and you need to get the fuck out of my house before I decide to stop being so nice to you.”

CHAPTER 6

Dimensional Analysis

Unbelievable.

That’s the word that kept flying around my stunned brain. I couldn’t even play the synonym game with the word. It was just all completely, totally, entirely, wholly, and absolutely unbelievable.

It was, the entire exchange was, epically unbelievable.

Patricia Sandeke—fourth, latest, and longest-lasting wife of Martin’s father—was…truly a different species. I know it’s not PC to think ill of my fellow females. In fact, one of my life rules is to try to assume the best of people, but—I’m sorry and I’m not sorry—the woman was a miserable excuse for a human being. She was a caricature, the epitome of a scheming, blonde bimbo gold digger.

Maybe she had hidden layers and a secret pain that explained away all her terrible behavior.

Maybe I was being a petulant and judgmental harpy.

Or maybe there were no hidden layers or depth. Maybe there weren’t two sides to this story. Maybe she was a black hole of vapidity and greed.

And Martin…

I tried to swallow. My mouth was dry, and therefore my throat was parched. I hazarded a glance at him but then quickly looked away before he saw my sneak peek.

I didn’t honestly know what to think about Martin.

At present he was staring straight again, the set of his jaw grim, the clouds in his blue eyes menacing. We were speeding away from the house via a fancy speedboat.

I didn’t know anything about boats, but I knew this one was super fancy for a speedboat. It was like a mini yacht. We were in an enclosed cabin aboveboard that looked over the bow; Martin was sitting in the elevated captain’s chair and I was in the co-pilot seat to his left. Both chairs reminded me of splendidly plush, leather barstools with armrests.

The vessel even had a downstairs bedroom with portal windows for undersea viewing. The space was much larger than I’d expected from first glance of the boat hull; it had room enough for a double bed, dresser, desk, bathroom, efficiency kitchen, two closets, and a respectably sized sitting area.