“By the way, this house is freaking amazing! You’re so fucking lucky!”
My friend gushes looking around what can only be described as opulence.
“To be honest, Nic, I kinda miss the little house on the beach we stayed in until last summer.”
She shakes her curly blonde hair.
“You can’t be serious! That was a shack compared to this mansion!”
“Yeah but you were right next door. We wouldn’t have met if I’d been staying here three summers ago.”
She’s totally right; the small house Mom had rented had two bedrooms and a small backyard with a low fence and a rickety wooden gate that led directly on to the white sand of the beach.
But the house was cozy and Mom and I had real quality time together, it was our fresh start.
A fresh start after she divorced my daddy when she found out that he’d been cheating on her with his commanding officer.
Nic must know where my mind went because she takes my hand, squeezing it supportively.
“Did you hear from him?”
I shake my head, immediately feeling a familiar lump forming in my throat.
“No. He’s on a deployment. Nine months in the Gulf. Kuwait mostly.”
That was the part that hurt Mom the most: after years of sacrifices for Dad’s career in the navy, after virtually raising me alone due to his constant absences, he dumped her and asked her for a quickie divorce to marry his commanding officer who he had gotten pregnant.
So I have a baby half-sister that I don’t see much and neither does Dad. He’s repeating the same mistakes he made with Mom all over again.
Not that Mom has got any time to even care about it anyway.
Our summer in Star Cove changed everything for both of us: she met Dustin, a rich guy who was here for a sailing event.
Dustin had just bought most of the empty space by the marina and built a huge sailing school and he began organizing a regatta that became immediately famous worldwide. He normally builds any type of sailboats and catamarans, that’s how he made his fortune and he’s obviously into the sport aspects of sailing.
Mom met him at the inauguration of the sailing center and it was love at first sight. The pair was engaged by the end of the summer and married by Thanksgiving the same year.
My mom marrying a billionaire completely changed our lives: I got sent to boarding school after she quit her job as a history teacher and began following her new husband on his world travels.
I’m not mad at her, she deserves some happiness at last and I see how Dustin looks at her, so I know that he loves her the way my dad never did.
I’m getting the best education money can buy at the most prestigious all girls boarding school in Manhattan and I miss seeing Mom every day but her and Dustin spend all the school breaks with me. So even though I don’t have the family life I’ve always wanted, I’ve come to appreciate Dustin and I definitely have a better relationship with him than with my own father.
“Any word on the whereabouts of the step-hotties?”
My hands immediately close into fists at the mention of the twins.
Chase and Reid are Dustin’s sons from his first marriage. They’re three years older than me and the only way I can describe them is ‘hot assholes’.
They were here that first summer and I admit to crushing on them at first, before I got to know them better.
Or more than know them, I should say ‘observe them better’ because those two barely even acknowledged my existence, after being initially friendly.
I was only fifteen and they ran with an older crowd, breaking hearts everywhere they went and if the local gossip is anything to go by, sleeping with every hot girl in sight.
“No. Honestly, Nic, I haven’t seen them since the wedding two years ago. They started at Bridgeport U the summer after our parents got married and I guess Europe or Hawaii are more interesting than Star Cove in the summer.”
“Aww. So you think they won’t show up? Not even this year?”
