The Girl Next Door Read online Jennifer Sucevic

Categories Genre: College, Romance, Young Adult Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 479(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
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“I’ll see you later,” she mutters, swiping her purse from the credenza near the front door.

“Yes, we’ll definitely—”

The sentence isn’t even out of my mouth before she slams the door behind her, leaving me to my own devices.

I wave a hand at the empty doorway. “No, no, that’s all right, I’ll stay here,” I call out, raising my voice to add, “thanks anyway for the invite!”

With a sigh, I allow my body to sink into the chair before staring at the ceiling. I need to figure out how I’m going to handle the situation with Beck. No matter what happens between us, I need to apologize.

There’s a knock on the door as my phone chimes with an incoming text. I jump from the chair and glance at the message. It’s from Alyssa.

Heads up.

My brows slam together.

Could she be more cryptic?

I need a decoder to figure it out.

Or maybe I can buy a vowel.

I pad to the front door and pull it open. My heart stutters before beating into overdrive at the person I find standing in the hallway.

“Dad.” My fingers bite into the handle. I’m so tempted to slam the door in his face. Especially after the lunch with Mom. “What are you doing here?”

He’s the last person I expected to find knocking on my door.

Make that the second last.

Looking strangely nervous, he shrugs and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I thought I’d stop by so we could talk.”

“Oh…I wish you would have called first.”

His lips ghost into a thin smile. “Maybe if you would have answered my calls, stopping by unannounced wouldn’t have become necessary.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, “I guess.”

When I don’t budge from the doorway, he says, “Are you going to invite me in?”

Begrudgingly, I step aside, giving him room to pass. Once he’s inside the tiny entryway, I close the door and head into the living room before dropping onto the chair. He follows me in, settling on the couch across from me.

He looks around the room, taking in all the little details that have been added. Both of my parents helped me move in, but he hasn’t been back to see the finished product.

“I like what you’ve done to the place, it looks nice.”

“Thanks.” I shift on the chair as an uncomfortable silence settles over us.

We both fidget, looking everywhere but at each other.

This is beyond awkward.

What sucks is that my father and I have always had a close relationship. He’s the one who introduced me to tennis. When I was a kid, he would take me to the courts, and we would spend hours hitting balls and working on my serve. I have a lot of great memories of my dad that revolve around tennis. It’s difficult to swallow that he blew it all to shit with one traitorous action. I’m not sure if it’s possible for us to get back to that place again. The man sitting across from me doesn’t resemble the one who filled those memories.

Nerves stretch tautly across my skin as he releases a sigh before dropping his gaze to his clenched hands.

“I’m sorry, Mia.”

“For what?”

Now that the shock of his visit has dissipated, fury rushes in to fill the void. I can’t stop dwelling on my lunch with Mom and the anguish and humiliation he inflicted upon her.

“For lying,” he says, “and hurting you. Most of all, I’m sorry you found out about my affair the way you did. I should have handled the situation differently.”

My eyes narrow. “So…you’re sorry for hurting me and that I found out the way I did but not for cheating on your wife and breaking up our family.” Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but that’s too damn bad. I refuse to make this easy on him.

His shoulders slump under the weight of my words and suddenly, he looks much older than his forty-eight years. “I’ve been in love with Mandi for a long time.” He searches my eyes before admitting, “And now that we don’t have to sneak around, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Everything is out in the open and I’m no longer stuck…”

Did he seriously say that?

It’s only after his voice trails off that I realize my eyes have widened and my mouth is hanging open.

“Wow.” Slowly I shake my head. “I guess it all worked out for you, Dad.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, attempting to backtrack. “It’s just a relief not to be living a lie. The last two years have been stressful.”

I bet.

His words are like a punch to the gut.

“You’ve been sleeping with this woman for two years?”

He jerks his head into a nod.

“That’s it then?” I stare at him as a fresh wave of shock washes over me. “You’re not going to try to fix your marriage?”


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