Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
Kent grits his teeth, uncomfortable with the potential answers to this question. He knows that he wants her on a physical level god, every day he’s confronted with that horrible fact. But this other feeling, this…protectiveness. He shakes his head, unwilling to delve into it just yet.
Instead, Kent stands up straight from his spot at the stall door and walks towards the riding rink.
The lesson is coming to a close, the instructor talking eagerly to Fay, who smiles down at him from her place on the gelding’s back. When Kent comes to lean against the rink’s fence, the trainer gives him a warm smile.
“She’s a natural!” the trainer says, resting a comfortable hand on Fay’s knee. Kent glares at the touch and the trainer, grimacing a little, quickly removes his hand. Fay doesn’t notice.
“See!” she says to Kent, laughing. “I told you I had a natural seat!”
“I didn’t doubt you for a minute,” he says simply, giving the trainer a stern look. Knowing his boss, the trainer says a gracious goodbye to Fay, promising to see her again next time, and then heads back to the barn.
“He’s really nice,” Fay says, nudging her horse so that he walks over to Kent.
“You just like anyone who gives you compliments,” Kent jokes, reaching out a hand to stroke Heathcliff’s neck.
Fay’s eyebrows raise, almost disappearing beneath her helmet. “A joke!” she laughs. “Kent Lippert made a joke!”
He laughs with her, perhaps a little surprised himself. “Don’t get used to it,” he says quietly. “It’s not a common occurrence.”
“No kidding,” she says in response, smiling indulgently at him.
“You enjoyed it?” Kent asks, nodding towards the ring and indicating the lesson as a whole.
“Yes,” she says, definite and happy. “Can I come back tomorrow?”
Kent nods, pleased at the big smile she gives him. “Come down now,” he says, gesturing towards her. “Heathcliff has earned his rest.”
“Um,” she says, biting her lip, suddenly concerned. “He didn’t…teach me…how to get down.”
Kent laughs and ducks under the rail of the fence, coming close to Fay’s left side. “Feet out of the stirrups,” he says, and she obeys. He puts up his hands towards her. “Now just swing your right leg over the back of the horse and slip down to the ground.”
“What!” she says, appalled. “You just want me to jump down!?”
Kent laughs at her, entertained. “Well, you can always stay up there forever if you want.”
Fay gives him a dirty look.
“I’ll catch you,” Kent says, enjoying himself. “Come on, let’s go.”
Fay narrows her eyes at him a little and then takes a deep breath, swinging her leg back over the horse.
Kent is as good as his word, catching Fay by the waist, letting her fall back against him instead of sliding her body down against the saddle. As he lowers her slowly to the ground, Fay puts her hands on top of his for balance, her back running down the length of his chest and stomach before her booted feet hit the ground.
A little thrill echoes in his stomach at the feel of her against him. Kent clenches his jaw, trying to keep himself under control.
They stand like that for a moment, his hands on her waist, she leaning back against him just an instant, really, before she pushes away and loops her horse’s reins over his head, using them as a lead.
Fay smiles innocently at Kent, silently thanking him for the lift, and the two head back towards the stables.
“Last night,” Kent says quietly after a moment, his hands again in his pockets. “Before…everything…”
Fay looks up at him, a little wary. Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it. Still, he presses on. “Did you enjoy it? Meeting your family?”
“Oh,” she says, surprised. Then she laughs a little. “Honestly, I kind of forgot about that part of the night. Well, yeah,” she says, looking forward again. “It’s surprising, really. I never knew I had such a big family.”
Kent nods as they enter the barn. “It’s pretty standard for us,” he says. “We, in this world, we tend to come from large families. I don’t know what a family gathering looks like with less than eighty people.”
“Wow,” she says. “So do you have lots of siblings?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m a rare lonely child my mother could only have me.” When she frowns up at him, he adds, delicately, “complications at my birth.”
“Oh,” she says, frowning as she leads Heathcliff into his stall. Kent follows her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Fay adds softly.
“It’s all right,” he says shrugging. “My parents were each one of six. I grew up with lots of cousins who felt like siblings.”
Fay laughs at that. “Yes, apparently, I have lots of those too. I met a few last night second cousins, even.”
“Yes,” Kent says, leaning against the post by the stall door and watching her. “You’ll have so many of those that you’ll lose track of them. Until they need something,” he adds, a little ruefully.
“Oh!” Fay says, remembering something as she loosens Heathcliff’s girth and slides the saddle from his back.
. “I heard something funny last night,” she continues, carrying the saddle over to hang it over the stall door. “I was talking to my second cousins over at the bar, they called me ‘baby Fay,’ just like Fiona does, and they said that they have a sister named Fiona. Is that for real? Has she been my cousin all along, and you just never told me?”
Kent blinks at her for a moment, standing perfectly still. Then his mouth falls open slightly as his brain begins to whir, processing thinking through
His face falls, then, into a dark expression. “Leave the horse,” he says, grabbing Fay by the arm. She drops the reins in shock, her face going pale.
“Wait, what happened?” she asks, confused as he pulls her out of the stall. “I can’t leave Heathcliff like this “
“The grooms will handle it,” Kent growls, pulling her towards the front of the stables, snapping at a groom as they pass and pointing back towards Heathcliff’s stall. The groom instantly understands, heading towards the back.
“Kent!” Fay says, still shocked. “What’s happening?!”
But he doesn’t answer as he hauls her to the car, dropping her arm and climbing into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him.
Kent doesn’t say a word to me the entire ride home.
I twist my hands in my lap, looking over at him a few times, noting that his face is growing increasingly angry with every passing mile. I shrink back in my seat, wondering what the hell I said what I could have done wrong
I trace his anger back when had it started? I guess when I mentioned my cousins, the conversation about Fiona
But that’s just a coincidence it has to be there’s absolutely no way that Kent wouldn’t have thoroughly background checked every person he lets into his life
If he didn’t know…
I worry about it the whole way home, but I’m too scared to say anything. What would it do, anyway?
After we pull into the garage, Kent quickly climbs out of the car and slams his door, not saying a word to me as he storms into the house, past one of the guards that came to the door to greet us and report. The guard Jerome, I see stares after Kent in shock and then turns to me with a curious expression.
I just shrug and shake my head as I climb out of the door, letting him know that I have no idea.