The first and last time I met our former housekeeper’s son slithered into my memory.
The way his silver gaze had held mine. Like a gator snapping its powerful jaw down on a bird.
The way I’d shivered for reasons that had nothing to do with me being dressed only in a bikini and having just climbed out of our pool in December.
“Swamp Boy?” I said, recognizing him from the start, even though we’d never met.
I’d stared at him so long and helplessly, I didn’t see my mother coming. Not until she pulled me away from Swamp Boy, who’d come to get the pool in order before the filming of my SuperRich Sixteen Chapter.
When we got back to the house, she’d slapped me like there was a devil on my cheek.
“Stay away from him,” she’d advised with a voice full of icicles. “Boys like him can ruin a good girl with just a few slick words.”
Less than a week after that, Mom had fired our beloved housekeeper and wouldn’t change her mind about it, no matter how much I cried and begged.
And a couple of months after that, my father made me sign the first virginity contract. My own.
But maybe the swamps of Louisiana truly were filled with magic, like everyone from local tour guides to Disney films claimed.
It was just one look. Just one meeting. But sometimes it felt like Swamp Boy had cursed me. Cursed me to want him forever. Want him and wonder why that mysterious, tugging ache never reappeared, even for boys as perfect as Lukas Brandt.
“I don't think that contract is enforceable,” Luk said, abruptly pulling me out of the memory. His eyes were full of teasing innuendo.
No, it probably wasn’t. But…
Luk’s expression suddenly fell before I could finish that thought. All the color drained out of of his face as he looked at someone standing behind me.
And somehow, I guessed who it was, even without turning around.
Crap…
“My father,” I guessed off Lukas’s stricken expression. “My father’s standing right behind me, isn’t he.”
CHAPTER 2
STEPHANIE
Of course. Of course, my father overheard my boyfriend insinuating that we should try to circumnavigate the virginity contracts we’d both signed.
I knew that even before I turned around to find him staring down at me with a thunderous look on his pale brown face.
“Sir, this isn’t what you think,” Luk sputtered. “I was just kidding around. I wouldn’t really…” He dipped his head and gave my father a significant look. “You know that, right?”
My father thinned his lips, as if Luk were a buzzing insect who’d somehow found its way into our pristine house, and directed his gaze toward me.
“There are a few things I need to discuss with you,” he said, ignoring Luk completely and taking me by the arm. “Come with me to my office.”
To get dressed down and lectured about what it meant to be a Perreault. No, thank you, sir. No, thank you.
“It’s just a few minutes before midnight. We don’t want to miss the fireworks,” I pointed out to my father. And just in case that was too subtle, I added, “People will talk if we don’t go out to the balcony to watch like we do every year.”
“Yes, it’s almost midnight,” Dad repeated. “That’s why we must talk.”
He glanced nervously around the party and tightened his hand around my arm.
“Don’t cause a scene,” he advised me. Just low enough that Luk couldn’t hear him.
Alarm bells went off in the back of my mind. Wow, Dad must really be upset. Usually playing the “people will talk” card was enough to get me out of anything—from one of his long lectures to having to wear the same party dress two months in a row.
