I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

52

Tess

Irushed into the tower lobby late Friday afternoon. I needed to change, then we had to go to Ethel’s house. I vowed to try not to embarrass myself this time. Maeve had helped me buy a new outfit online. I was going to wash my hair. I even had a list of polite discussion topics memorized.

Belle was at the front concierge desk talking to Vera.

“I just think we need a snack table out here,” Vera was saying.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” I added.

Belle raised an eyebrow. She was tall, like, super tall, and was giving me Game of Thrones vibes.

“Er, I mean, if you’re taking suggestions.”

“We should tell Greg since he’s going to be the new president,” Vera said.

Belle scoffed. “Those Svenssons are the worst.”

“Beck’s not that bad,” I protested.

Belle shook her head. “Just as a word to the wise, don’t trust Svenssons. They only look out for themselves.”

I headed to the elevator. Beck didn’t seem that way. He had been nice to me, well, aside from firing me those three times. But we had reached an agreement. Plus, he was amazing in bed. It wasn’t like I was trying to marry him or anything. But would a wedding in Central Park be so bad?

My outfit that I had ordered online was waiting for me in the condo. I had chosen a Chanel suit because Ethel seemed like she would like it. I had found a website that was selling gently used suits, and the picture looked amazing. There was no way I was spending six thousand dollars of Beck’s money on a dowdy suit.

It wasn’t until I opened the box that I realized that fifty dollars for a Chanel suit had been a big red flag.

The fabric was some sort of cheap polyester that felt sticky, and instead of the actual brocaded tweed pattern, the pattern had been stamped on, and not very well. Some of the colors were off.

I cursed as I inspected the suit.

“Tess?” Beck called. “Are you ready?”

I hastily flipped through my closet. I could wear what I was wearing right now except that it had a chocolate stain on the front of the shirt. I didn’t have any other clothes. I hadn’t done laundry—in fact, I was wearing swimsuit bottoms instead of underwear because I did not have my life together.

“Tess!” Beck called.

I threw on a cleanish pink sweater, shrugged on the polyester knockoff suit, grabbed my bag, and ran out to the hallway.

“You look like Lizzie McGuire,” Annie told me.

Beck opened his mouth then shut it.

“I made a severe miscalculation on my shopping purchases.” I grimaced. “It’s either this or I have to borrow one of Vera’s dresses from the eighties.”

I inspectedmy reflection in the glass sides of the double front door of Ethel’s mansion as we waited for the butler.

My outfit looked pretty bad. But maybe I could play it off like I had meant to put these two items together? Shoot, there were a lot of ugly outfits that were sent down the runways. Who knew, maybe I could pretend my clothes were from some up-and-coming designer.

“Good evening,” the butler said, opening the door and ushering us inside. “The family is in the sitting area for drinks.”

The family?

It better not be Cressida.

I cringed when I heard her braying laugh.

Now I wished I had just sprung for the Chanel suit, hidden the tags, then returned it.

You can do it!I pep talked myself. Stand up straight. If you make it through the evening, I’ll buy you Chinese—crab rangoons, lo mein noodles, and egg rolls. You’ve managed to deal with Cressida before. You can handle it.

Except it was worse than Cressida, and Chinese food was not going to cut it. Because there in the sitting area, sipping on high-priced alcohol, was my stepfather and my stepsister, the two people that were at the very top of my hate list.

Shannyn blew me a kiss. My stepfather didn’t say anything at all, just looked at me and made a dismissive noise.

“Isn’t this a nice surprise!” Ethel was almost giddy. “My son and my granddaughter are here on a visit.”

Her son and her—what the fuck?

Then it hit me. Ethel and my stepfamily had the same last names!

It wasn’t as if I had ever met my stepfather’s parents. He had loved to remind me that they were not my grandparents. Whenever huge boxes would arrive for Shannyn, it was made clear that those toys, clothes, and presents were not for me, and I wasn’t supposed to touch them. Yet of course, Shannyn could go in my room and take and destroy whatever of mine she wanted to.

Calm! Be calm! Think about the Chinese food. We’ll order pot stickers and chicken wings too. And fried rice.

“What a small world,” my stepfather drawled. He was just as greasy and manipulative as ever.

“The esteemed Mr. Svensson.” Alistair stood up and offered Beck his hand. “And my stepdaughter.”

Beck looked at me in surprise.

“She didn’t tell you?” my stepfather said with a thin smile.

“I don’t understand,” Ethel said, confused.

“You remember that woman Dad shacked up with? The obnoxious one who kicked the bucket?” Shannyn said to her grandmother.

“Oh yes, the one with the daughter who you said no one liked in school.”

I seethed.

Shannyn pointed. “That’s her.”

“Good gracious!” Ethel downed the rest of her drink.

“No one liked me because you spread lies about me in school,” I said hotly.

“You did always tell me she had some mental issues just like her mother,” Ethel said, seeming to see me in a new, wholly unflattering light.

“I am perfectly fine, mentally speaking,” I said then remembered what I was wearing.

Right. Maybe not the best advertisement.

“Honestly, Mother,” my stepfather drawled, “I can’t believe you are allowing Tess to raise my nieces. She is a terrible influence. You should have met Tess’s mother. We can’t have Enola and Annie end up like her.”

I was trying not to lose it any more than I had. I went to the snack table to grab a shrimp cocktail in a little crystal cup.

“I agree,” Cressida said. “Tess makes questionable choices, and Beck makes even worse ones.”

I almost choked on my shrimp. Cressida was going after Beck? What the fuck? Did she have some sort of a firing wish?

“Sleeping with his assistant,” she continued, “taking the girls out of school. That is not the type of environment two girls from the Goodman family should be raised in. A former homeless teen and a cult leader’s son? It’s like a bad Lifetime movie.”

“You’re on thin ice, Cressida,” Beck warned.

She gave him a cold glare. “Go ahead and fire me. I’ll let everyone know that I was illegally dismissed for calling you out for breaking company policy. Have fun with that lawsuit.”

I gaped at her.

“I told you,” Shannyn said to me. “Cressida’s no competition. She made a move on him, and Beck dumped her to the curb.”

Oh shit.

“And for good reason. Is this some sort of payback?” Beck barked at Cressida.

“No, my boyfriend and I—” she rested a hand on my stepfather’s shoulder, which caused me to choke on another shrimp “—talked about it and agreed that we would take in the girls. It’s going to be best for everyone.”

“That will never happen,” Beck snarled.

“It’s up to Ethel,” Cressida said.

“No,” Beck countered. “It’s up to the courts.”

“Right,” I added, “and they’re going to see that Beck is a billionaire and has a nice house, while you—with the way you and Shannyn were spending—probably blew through all of my mom’s life insurance money.”

Alistair’s nostrils flared. “I told her to take on a bigger policy.”

“You don’t have any money?” Ethel asked her son in disbelief. “But what about the inheritance your grandfather left you?”

“He burned through all of it!” Shannyn said angrily. “He was trying to show off to all his rich friends. He only paid for my college and only bought me a house and a car, and I didn’t get anything else. All my other friends from private school get payments from their fathers every month, but I get nothing.”

Spoiled much?I wished I’d had a dad who would buy me a car and a house and pay for college.

“So you’re going to adopt my sisters and what?” Beck growled. “Live in a box?” He huffed a laugh. “Good fucking luck getting a lawyer to argue that. Oh wait, you don’t have the money to pay for it.”

“I will,” my stepfather blustered. “You’ll see!”

I knew from experience that he hated to be mocked. But Beck was not the least bit intimidated by Alistair’s posturing.

“I’ll have the trust fund that Dad left for our sister,” my stepfather retorted. “In the will it said that in the event she hadn’t fully detoxed from the cult, the funds will go to support her children. Which is me. I’m supporting her children along with Cressida, who is a descendant of Alexander Hamilton.”

Ethel was wavering. “Beck has done well with the girls,” she said slowly.

“But Tess hasn’t,” Cressida argued. “Look at her. Where did you buy those clothes, a thrift shop?”

“You do seem to be struggling with fashion, dear,” Ethel said.

“Tess isn’t the problem,” my stepfather stormed. “She’s useless and irrelevant. She’s probably being manipulated by him!” Alistair pointed at Beck. “He is his father’s son. You can’t let the girls grow up in that type of environment. They need to be around people of their own social class and stay far away from the desert cult. Who knows? Maybe Beck’s just priming them to be married off, and we’ll never see them again.”

“Do not,” Beck said, voice icy, “insinuate that I have anything except for my sisters’ best interests in mind. Ethel, I allowed the girls to see you as a formality, to try and keep the transition process as smooth as possible. However, I see now that is a mistake. You can consider our Friday-night dinner agreement over.”