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And that's just what Drake has done to me right now.

See, he made mistakes. He just admitted he made mistakes.

"Drake," I say slowly. He looks at me. "You made a lot of mistakes."

Drake nods his head. He doesn't grimace, but he's quiet.

"I want you to know, I loved Meredith," he says to me. "I loved your mother with all my fucking heart."

I don't say anything.

"After she died, I don't know what happened, but I should've never married Linda," he says to me. "I know you didn't approve, but I didn't care."

It's not that I didn't approve.

Fuck.

Could it be that I didn't want to share?

Did I maybe want Drake to myself?

"I can't fault you now for marrying Linda, man," I say to him. "Otherwise, I would've never met Natalie."

That makes us both pause.

Natalie Vanderhill.

The girl with the beautiful face. The gorgeous fucking body. That tight heart-shaped ass. Those slender legs. That flat stomach. Those luscious tits.

And the dirtiest fucking mind I've ever seen in a woman.

"Natalie is...special," Drake says, choosing his words. I understand where my stepdad is coming from. It's a loaded fucking subject. "Hell, she's the reason we're in this room today talking to each other as civilized people."

"When you married Linda, there was a lot of hurt," I tell Drake, going back to my epiphany. I think I almost have it to put into words.

"But that hurt wasn't because I thought you were forgetting about Mom," I tell him. He's nodding, and looking at me now. "That hurt was because I thought you were forgetting about me."

"I wasn't close to even trying to be a good dad, Sloane," Drake says shaking his head.

"That's not it," I say to him and Drake looks at me.

What is that in his eyes?

He's my stepdad. All it can be is concern.

"I think, yeah, I needed a father," I tell Drake slowly. "But I think I was jealous of Linda because she was going to be your lover."

Drake is quiet.

And that's the fucking rub, isn't it.

I was jealous of my stepmom, not because I didn't want a new family coming in.

Because on some deeper level, I was attracted to my stepdad.

It's been an attraction that I haven't been able to reconcile all this fucking time.

So what did I do instead?