I Sat on My Stepfather's Lap All Match, and Mom Was Filming novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Not a Summer

I did not let my voice shake.

"Mom gave it to me," I said. "Nico wants old family photos for his film. I'm putting them on his laptop."

"Is that so."

"Ask her."

Dale smiled, and it was a smile with no warmth in it at all.

"Sweetheart, I know exactly who you are."

He set the phone down and leaned both hands on the counter, so his face came close to mine.

"I know what you've done with your stepfather for four days. I know you sat on his lap on purpose."

"I didn't know about the seat."

"You didn't mind it, though. I've watched all ninety-three minutes."

My throat closed.

"The seat was my idea," he said quietly. "Rosalyn wanted to catch him with a stranger. I said use the girl. She said you'd never. I said every girl wants the thing she's told she can't have."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm right. And so is the video. Whoever sees it sees a grown woman grinding on a married man with her mother six inches away. They don't see a trap, Lainey. They see you."

The bar on the laptop screen had been frozen behind the lid for a full minute.

I had no idea how much was copied.

He reached out and pulled the cable out of the phone with one finger.

"Now," he said. "Be a good girl and go back to your film."

The kitchen door swung open.

Gabriel stood in it with his shirt sleeves pushed up to the elbow.

He had been in the den with the camera on him for twenty minutes, and he had come to get water, and he had heard the last of it.

I knew by his face.

Dale straightened, and the smile came back.

"Gabriel! Just dropping off the lawyer's second copy. Rosalyn's looking radiant in there."

"Get out of my kitchen," Gabriel said.

"I'll go. Of course. We'll talk Sunday."

He set a folder on the table and picked up his keys.

At the door he looked back at me, and winked.

Then the car started in the drive, and he was gone.

Gabriel did not say a word.

He crossed the room in two steps, took my face in both hands and looked at me.

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