Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
I was on track for a full ride to my university of choice, but there were other expenses that wouldn’t be covered, and I wanted the full ride with all the extras, and my parents were going to do that. They had backed me into a corner, but I don’t think they realized that they had given me a weapon as well.
When I saw Lacey that day at school, she was all smiles and cocky confidence. The first thing she said to me was, ‘I told you.’ I think that’s the moment I started hating her. I’d seen a side to her in the last few months that I didn’t know existed.
For the next year, I became an even better boyfriend than I was before, but there was still no sex before marriage. It was easy to get away with that because I showed no interest in other girls while she carried on her sexcapades behind my back.
Even if I wanted to have a fling with someone else, she’d turned me off from the opposite sex for a while, which was a blessing in disguise because it kept me focused on what mattered most to me.
Before, I always wanted to be able to stand on my own two feet while still having my family behind me to cushion the fall if it came, but now I knew that I would never trust or rely on them for anything ever again, so I needed to be wise in all my pursuits.
When I got into college, that started another dispute because Lacey couldn’t get into my school. She’d applied to one of my choices, which I convinced her was my first choice, but everyone knew the school I’d chosen was the better choice for my future prospects.
I made a big show of wanting to join her Dad’s company after college and was even thinking of interning there during the summers to get the experience. This seemed to waylay their fears that I was trying to pull a runner, and even though Lacey kicked up a stink, for once, things went my way.
I even reminded her that the school she was going to was only two and a half hours away from my school, and we would still see each other often. I think the close proximity where she could keep an eye on me added to the realization that if we went to different schools, she could carry on with her life the way she had been, and I would be none the wiser is what got her to cave.
The summer before I left for college, I talked my Dad into signing over my account to me under the guise of wanting to play the market. He and Mom were so pleased with the results of my debasing myself that they went all out with expenses for my college dorm, the new car, and a hefty allowance as long as I kept up my grades.
I left their house with everything I needed to make a clean break sometime in the future while smiling in their faces and pretending to be their obedient lapdog. They saw the boy they had raised. I was the man they had made grow up too soon.
It was my third week on campus when I met her. She was in one of my business classes, and I heard her name called. She had the same last name as my Dad’s boss, Lacey’s Dad.
I didn’t approach her right away, but I scoped her out for a week before making my approach. “Hey, do you know Evan Sinclair?”
“Yes, he’s my dad.”
“Your dad?”
“Yes, why, do you know him?” I asked her some more questions to be sure we were talking about the same person and was blown away that not only was he the same guy, but she had spent every other weekend at his home for a while and even knew of me.
To say I was stumped is an understatement, but she wasn’t in the mood to answer my questions that first day, of which there were many, but promised to fill me in one day soon.
Lily Sinclair, if she’s telling the truth, is the complete opposite of her sister. Lacey is blonde and blue-eyed like her mother, while Lily has jet-black hair and what I call panther-green eyes, stunning and unusual. She also looked more like their father with her olive complexion.
I did some digging on my own and found out that she was telling the truth, but I still didn’t know the story behind her existence or why I was only now meeting her after knowing her Dad and stepmother for most of my life.
For the next few weeks, we’d run into each other on campus, but nothing more was said, and we’d just wave and go about our business, which was the only change in our relationship until one day, she sat next to me at the end of one of our classes and said, “You ready for that conversation?”