She snapped her head up, and anger darkened those blue-green eyes to a stormy grey. “It was for both our families. Don’t you dare put what happened on my shoulders. I’m only here because of family, but I intend to make this work.”
“You’re going to beg to go back to your father’s house sooner or later,” I told her. “I doubt you’ll even last the week.”
“I have to last. I don’t have any choice.”
“There’s always a choice, sweetheart.”
“No there isn’t, not when my father makes up his mind about something.”
I licked my lower lip and dropped my gaze to the front of her body, lingering on her tits. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”
Clearly self-conscious, she wrapped her arms around her chest, and I smirked. If me looking was all it took to embarrass her, she was going to get one hell of a shock.
But she lifted her chin. “You’re wrong. Family means everything to me, and if you’re going to be my family, too, that also applies to you.”
I shook my head at her. “You’ve got your head in the clouds, little girl. You and I aren’t family. We never will be.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m twenty-one. I’m not a little girl.”
“I guess I’ll find that out soon enough, won’t I?”
Her cheeks coloured prettily, her gaze slipping from mine once more. Maybe I was going to enjoy this after all.
Chapter Five
Hallie
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TAM CORNELL WAS WITHOUTdoubt the most intimidating person I’d ever met.
It wasn’t just the size of him—though I was hardly short myself at five feet eight—but more the atmosphere around him. Most men would be intimidated upon meeting my father, but Tam had barely blinked. In fact, he’d seemed completely at ease, especially considering he was taking Marlon Wynter’s only daughter under his roof. I thought back to all the boys, and later, men, I’d met as I’d been growing up. While, as a pre-teen and younger teen, I’d been a gangly redhead with braces that boys had completely overlooked. Once the braces had come off, and I’d finally developed a decent sized pair of breasts, they started to notice me. By sixteen, plenty had shown me interest, and there were some I’d liked as well, but when they realised who my father was, they’d run for the hills.
Tam clearly wasn’t fazed in the slightest, but then I guessed he’d grown up in the same business. It was different for boys, though, wasn’t it? They were expected to be tough, to take control and fight, where I’d always been made to feel as though my job was to sit pretty and be protected. I didn’t like it, but I lurked in the background, mostly unseen, learning whatever I could about my father’s business. Whatever my father thought, he wouldn’t be around forever, and I’d always figured things would come to me one day. Of course, I hadn’t anticipated being married into another crime family. If anything happened to my father, would it automatically become Tam Cornell’s once we were married? Or would everything go to Jayden now, even though I was the eldest, and was the one who had my head screwed on right. This was an important discussion we’d need to have before it came to that.
My stomach twisted with nerves. I didn’t want to be left here in this big house. I wanted to go home. But I didn’t voice my thoughts.