Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

Were my ears deceiving me?

My mouth dropped. I quickly snapped it shut to hide my astonishment, my anguish, my pure, unadulterated rage.

My dickhead of a father did not just offer my inheritance on a silver fucking platter after years of treating me, his own flesh and blood, as a parasite to be disposed of as soon as I turned eighteen!

I felt angry enough to draw blood.

For years, while I struggled to come to terms with my existence as an unwanted complication in his sterilized, pristine life, my dad had simply looked the other way.

For years, while I busted my ass at school to pave a way for my lonely, uncertain future—pinching dollars like a pathetic squirrel hoarding acorns for winter—my dad hadn't lifted a finger to ease my fears.

Yet, all of a sudden, the asshole was volunteering to add me to his motherfucking will?

White-hot indignation crackled through my veins.

I wanted to cry, to scream, to laugh. I realized how ridiculously blind and stupid I had been this whole time. It seemed circumventing the clauses on my dad's divorce agreement with Madeline had always been possible. He simply hadn't wanted to act on my behalf. Until tonight. The fucker was only willing to take action now because I had barged into his study, and he likely suspected that I had been poking around for something other than a fucking flash drive.

Lily's words from the charity ball came back to haunt me.

They know each other from way back when the investigation was going on at Wyman & Rimmel. My daddy and your daddy worked together to put Zachary's daddy in prison.

I felt more than convinced that my dad had to be guilty of something involving the conspiracy against Mr. Mazur. There were no way the man's hands could be clean if he was willing to dole out such a big fucking carrot. He was trying to lure me away from Zac. At this point, his reasons were unknown and nefarious in nature. I needed to find out why the fuck he was so determined to keep me away from Tim Mazur's son.

What was he hiding?

I smiled faintly at the gray-eyed man standing before me—a stranger to me, really—who had inseminated semen into Mamma almost seventeen years ago. That was all he was to me. A sperm donor.

"Deal," I said to him without any hesitation. "Set up a bank account for me. Add me to your will. And I'll break things off with Zac."

There was no way in hell I was going to walk away from Zac, not for a million dollars, not for all the money or houses or cars the sperm donor might be able to afford me, but the fucking sperm donor didn't need to know anything about my true intentions. He simply needed to be appeased and set in a less guarded state of mind as Zac and I continued to investigate all the secrets and lies he was trying to hide from the world.

My sperm donor smiled. "Good, Cate. I knew you would be reasonable. I assure you, getting too close to that Mazur boy will only bring you harm. I am doing this with your best interests at heart, you know."

"I know, Dad," I murmured as I reverted back to being the obedient daughter of old. "Thank you for looking out for me."

"You're welcome, Cate. Do not tell your siblings, but you have always been my favorite child."

His words turned my blood cold. The sperm donor never said shit like that to me.

Damn.

His ass had to be guilty as fuck.

***

I told Zac to meet me early in the school parking lot on Monday morning. He was already parked and waiting for me by the time I pulled up. I got out of my Civic and climbed into the backseat of his black BMW. He slid in beside me. We began to talk.

"Damn," he cursed as I finished telling him everything that had transpired between the sperm donor and I from the night before. "This shit is getting so fucking real. I never thought your dad would have anything to do with my dad's case."

"I know, right? It's crazy. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything."

Zac pulled me to him and planted a kiss on my forehead. I laid my head against his chest. "Also, we need to pretend to break up."

I felt his body grow tense beneath me. "What?"

"Otherwise, my dad won't leave us alone," I explained. "Don't worry, we can still meet up at your place and hang out in secret, but, like, at school and in public... we shouldn't act like a couple anymore."

Zac's hand immediately reached for mine. He lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss into my palm. "I get where you're coming from, but I don't like it. I don't like it one bit."

"I know. I hate it, too," I agreed with a sigh. "But I promise it'll only be temporary. Once we get to the bottom of all this fucking nonsense, we can go back to normal."

To reassure Zac, I kissed him along his jaw, his cheek, his lips. His arms wrapped around me in a tight embrace. He nuzzled my head with his nose and whispered into my hair, "I already miss you, babygirl. I don't wanna let you go. Even though I know it's just for show. I don't want to act like you're not mine, and I'm not yours."

I glanced up at him with a small smile. "You know what might make you feel better?"

He gazed down at me with interest. "What's that?"

"I'm ready. Whenever you are."

Zac furrowed his brow. "Huh? Ready for what?"

The space in the back of his BMW was tight as I shuffled around Zac's long, lean body to straddle his thighs. I encircled my arms around his neck to pull his face close to mine. Our eyes met. Hazel on amber.

With slow, sensual motions, I began to roll and glide myself across his lap. I leaned towards his ear and whispered, "I wanna go all the way with you, baby. With the crazy shit that's going around us, I need something good to keep me afloat. To keep me sane. I want something for us to look forward to."

His face broke into a face-wide grin. "Well, shit! Why didn't you come out and say so? I've been waiting to hand you my V-card since that night I rescued you from Aleah's party."

I giggled with glee as Zac proceeded to rain sweet, celebratory kisses all over my face. He nibbled along my neck. His hands roamed over the fabric of my school uniform. The lightness of the moment evaporated the moment he found my breasts. Zac undid the top buttons along my crisp white dress shirt. His fingers slid inside my bra to caress my curves and play and pinch at my nipples.

I exhaled pleasurably and squirmed to get even closer. I yanked at Zac's clothes, untucking his top from his trousers. My hands slid inside his dress shirt to touch the hard male muscles hiding underneath. In response, Zac's hands moved across my bare legs, sliding under my skirt to tease the sensitive skin around my inner thighs. His fingers kept creeping tantalizingly close to my core.

Our lips met fiercely in a series of rousing kisses. Zac's pierced tongue invaded my mouth, and I readily surrendered to him. His palms and my fingertips flitted shamelessly across our exposed skin and flesh. Our bodies clung and moved in tandem together, panting and gyrating in mounting levels of passion. The friction between his hot solid maleness to my softer feminine curves sent my hormones into a state of intoxicating mindlessness.

As I stayed perched on his lap, my body moved unwittingly to grind against the now very apparent tent in his pants. A groan of desperation escaped Zac as he responded to my excitement by rubbing his hardon brazenly between my thighs.

Our uniforms were in complete disarray, and, at this rate, Zac and I were going to be late for first hour, but I didn't care. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in the beautiful boy who was melting me into a puddle of liquid desire. I didn't want to obsess over Lily or my dad anymore.

Reason and logic flew from my mind. It made me reckless. It set me free. I longed to give myself to Zac, to release all my pent up, fucked up, stressed out emotions from that past few days. Zac seemed to have fallen into a similar state of dissolution.

In a husky voice, he growled, "Fuck it. Let's get outta here, babygirl."