Free Step Brother: Off Limits by Jayna King

going on. Either my dad and Tina were trying to avoid paying taxes on some of Dad’s money, or Tina was stealing money from my dad.
    The trouble was, I didn’t know how to figure out which scenario was the truth. I needed some help.
    I picked up my cell phone, realizing there was only one person I could call, and I hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
    “Stanford Boyle, at your service,” he said when he answered my call on the very first ring.
    “Hey, Stanford, I hate to bother you, but I need some help. Any chance you’re free for lunch?”
    “For you, dear Tatum, I’d move heaven and earth. Let me make a phone call and bump an appointment, and I’m all yours.”
    Gack. He was just over the top, but I needed him. There was no other way. “Sounds great. Meet me at my place?”
    “Oh, absolutely,” he said, sounding far more thrilled than I wanted to hear. “Can I bring anything?”
    “No. I’ll just make us an omelet or some sandwiches, if that’s okay. Mostly, I just need to bounce some things off you, and I don’t want to do it in a public place.”
    “No problem.” He still sounded excited, even though I hoped he realized there was no way in hell I was going to sleep with him.
    “See you in half an hour?”
    “Perfect.”
    I was pretty sure we had enough food in the fridge to whip up something for lunch, so I headed straight home. It wasn’t until I was halfway there that it occurred to me that I could have called Reed. We were halfway through the month he was supposed to be gone, and we’d actually only talked a couple of times. With the time difference and the fact that every photograph of him in the tabloids showed him having the time of his life, I was starting to have less and less faith that things were going to work out between us. We hadn’t recreated the super hot phone sex, and I could hear women in the background the last time we’d spoken.
    Tina was his mother, though, and I knew better than to accuse her of stealing from my father or sheltering money illegally without more proof. I decided I’d figure out what was really going on, and then I’d make the call to Reed. I just hoped Stanford would help me. He seemed so close to both my dad and Tina that I wasn’t sure I could really trust him.
    I rushed around the kitchen and got things prepped for an omelet—ham, spinach, cheese, and mushrooms were chopped and in bowls by the time I heard Stanford at the door.
    “So what’s going on?” he asked as he watched me pouring the eggs into the skillet.
    “I have some questions, and I’m hoping you’ll answer them honestly. You need to know that I have my dad’s best interests at heart, here, so even if things don’t make sense, you have to trust me.”
    “Okay…” he said, drawing the word out.
    “Are Dad and Tina having any problems?”
    “Do you mean like marital problems?”
    “Marital, financial, anything.”
    Stanford studied me for a minute without speaking. “I don’t know how much I should say, Tatum. I really like and respect your father, and I believe with all my heart that he’s the right man to lead this city. I don’t want to say anything that could jeopardize that.”
    “But what if he was doing something wrong, something illegal?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t think he would.”
    “He did before.”
    “I know. And the heartache it caused you is why I don’t think he’d do it again. Tatum, he knows how hard he made your teenage years. He’s a proud man, and he’s not going to talk about it much, but he feels terrible for what he put you through.”
    “He’s said he’s sorry. Talk is cheap.”
    “But that’s just it. It’s not just talk. I don’t think there’s any way in the world he’d do something illegal. Not even to win the election. He really has changed, whether you see it or not.”
    I was suspicious. “How do you know so much about this?”
    “Can I trust you? I mean really trust you with a secret you can’t tell?”
    “Of