I rolled my eyes, frustration bubbling up. “Callan, I’m not a kid. I don’t need you to watch me every time I step outside. I’ll be fine. You really don’t have to act like you care all of a sudden.”
He paused, and for a moment I thought he might argue. His expression softened just slightly, but the tension was still there. “I just don’t want you getting yourself into something stupid,” he muttered.
“I’m not doing anything stupid,” I said, my tone sharper now. “It’s just a walk.”
He kept looking at me until he finally gave in. “Fine.”
“Fine.” I shot him another look before picking up my tote bag and leaving without saying another word.
6
Callan
I hated that she had to live here with me. She deserved better. Every daughter deserved better. But her mother never had a single ounce of protectiveness in her, and I didn’t need to read Lana’s script to know it. You could tell by the way she carried herself around my world that it was way different from hers. Lana was quiet, cautious, and careful not to take up too much space, despite this house being huge. Being the way she was wasn’t something you learned in a happy home.
She moved around the house like she didn’t belong—because she didn’t. Lana was always polite, always hesitant. Even when she was laughing or making some sarcastic remark, there was a shadow behind her eyes. She was holding herself back but still tried to seem strong. And I hated seeing it because it made me feel guilty for keeping her here.
Lana’s mother had always been about herself. Selfish, dramatic, full of charm that faded the second she got what she wanted. When I met Eden, I thought she was just a little wild. I didn’t realize she was empty and lacked genuine empathy. I didn’t realize she’d drag her daughter through her mess just to avoid being alone. However, Eden was never really alone. Sheliked male attention, sex, and money. Something I had given her blindly and now regretted deeply.
Lana grew up in Eden’s chaos. She learned early that love came with conditions. That she had to be easy to handle, quiet, undemanding, and grateful for scraps of attention. And now, she was nineteen, living in my house with a sharp tongue and tired eyes, still trying to prove she could survive without needing anyone.
I told myself I was only letting her stay here until she finished college and found her own place to live. But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was, I didn’t want her to leave. It was selfish, and I knew I probably wasn’t giving her what she needed either, but staying here was better than sending her off to some random apartment somewhere. College dorms were an option, too, but I knew what college was like, and I hated the idea of her sleeping in a place where guys always looked for trouble.
I truly had no business being this concerned about her, but because she never had this kind of protection, I felt the urge to be the one to give it to her.
Still, she shouldn’t be here, surrounded by people who had no shame or sense of boundaries, and I was one of those people. I wasn’t a perfect man. Hell, I fucked and made millions with it, and while I treated all the women who worked with me with respect, I never really cared much about them unless they could make me come multiple times a day.
Lately, though, it hadn’t been the same unless I had Lana’s eyes on me.
Half the time, this house felt like a revolving door of idiots. Drunk and self-absorbed people who thought the world revolved around their next paycheck or orgasm. Again, I was one of them. I’d made this place exactly what it was: A house of pleasure.
And yet, Lana still walked into it every day like she could handle it. As if she weren’t disgusted or annoyed. She just adapted like she always had. That was the part that got me the most. She’d been neglected her whole life and still managed to hold her head up.
When I first saw her script sitting on the counter, I didn’t plan to read it. I shouldn’t have. It was personal and private. But I did anyway. I picked it up, told myself I’d only skim a few lines, because, honestly? How good could a nineteen-year-old’s script be?
It was everything.
An emotional masterpiece, telling her story in a real and painful way.
The story was raw and real, and I got emotional reading it because I knew not a single word of what she wrote was a lie. Every line came from experience, not imagination. She wrote about loneliness as if it were an old friend. She wrote about a girl who kept waiting for her mother to notice her, even after she stopped believing she would.
By the time I finished, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Shame. Even if I hadn’t been there when it all went down, I had seen enough in the past year to know Lana hadn’t made anything up. She shouldn’t have had to write something like that. Not at her age. Not with that much truth in it.
As much as I wanted to be good to her, to show her that I truly accepted her in my house, I couldn’t just change overnight. I wasn’t an easy man, and I had shown her that many times before. She always stood up for herself when my behavior got out of hand, and she always showed me that I didn’t intimidate her.
She deserved better than this. Better than me or the noise and constant sex happening around her. But when I thought about her leaving, I felt something twist in my chest. It wasselfish to keep her here, and it was wrong to feel attracted to her. Not just because of how much younger she was, but also because I had made the mistake of marrying her damn mother. Lana was too pure for me, and she was too damn smart to give in to me.
I was a pretty persuasive guy. It was part of my job, and I had fucked many young women who wanted to make a name for themselves in the porn industry. But Lana was nothing like them.
She wouldn’t let me use her, wouldn’t lower her standards, and I hoped she never would.
Still, I couldn’t shake the fucking fact that her face had helped me reach climaxes lately. I had no damn clue what had happened to me, but my body didn’t react to the usual women I had sex with anymore. Nothing did the trick. No blowjobs, no sex, no crazy position. And no number of women.
Lana’s face had been what got me off the last two times, and I was afraid it would keep happening.
That’s why I was being selfish.
I needed her there so my body and mind wouldn’t go blank.
