Free Escape: A Stepbrother Romance by Jessica Ashe

to be ladies?” Caiden asked, excitedly. “Please, please tell me it’s one of those schools. Vicky could definitely benefit from improving her manners. You should hear the way she screams and curses when she gets really passionate about something.”
    I glared at Caiden, but he just smiled at me in response. I rarely swore out loud and even in my head I usually avoided it in case one day the words slipped out by mistake. Dad had overheard me say shit once as a child and had spanked me so hard I could still feel the mark on my leg. I hadn’t even known what I was saying. It was just something I picked up from one of my mum’s friends, but Dad was furious. Even at school I never swore, even when the other girls were effing and blinding all the time. They teased me quite a bit for it, but I just said I didn’t feel the need to conform with everyone else and that soon shut them up.
    “What is the summer school for?” I asked. “I checked the requirements for my course at Cambridge and I don’t need any specific A-levels or knowledge to take PPE.”
    “It’s not for the benefit of your course,” Dad explained. “I’m very proud of you for taking PPE,” he continued, as if I’d had a choice in the matter. “But it won’t teach you any real world, practical skills.”
    “Then why did you tell me to take that course in the first place?” I sounded exasperated which was about as rude as I ever got when speaking to Dad, yesterday’s little outburst excepted.
    I caught Caiden glare at me and raise his eyebrows. I’d insisted to him that studying PPE was my choice, but the truth was it had been strongly recommended by my father, and when he ‘strongly recommended’ something it generally wasn’t worth the time or effort to argue with him. No doubt Caiden now thought I was even more a daddy’s girl than he did before.
    “It’s a great course,” Dad said, “and it will get you a great job, but to really excel as a solicitor you need more than just a degree from a top university.”
    “I might not become a solicitor,” I said, defiantly. Dad had never insisted directly that I become a solicitor or barrister, but he had mentioned more than once that many people who took PPE at Cambridge became solicitors for big law firms in the City.
    “Maybe not,” Dad said, “but this course will still be useful.”
    “In that case I will take it in the summer after my degree but before I start my career.”
    “It takes longer than one summer to learn.”
    “What is this course you’re making me do then? Or don’t I get to know what it is?”
    Dad frowned to let me know he didn’t appreciate my tone. “You’re going to summer school this summer to start learning to speak, read, and write Mandarin. You will do this every summer until you start your job. I don’t expect you to be fluent in it for a few years, but by the time you are working for a firm—or whatever you decide to do—you should be able to converse in the language.”
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Learning Mandarin was about the furthest away you could get from my plans for this summer, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that. I knew starting a blog was silly and that it would likely never lead to anything, but I just wanted something to show for my efforts at learning to cook.
    More than that, I wanted something I could show to Mum. She’d been the one who taught me to cook in the first place, and my happiest memories of her were times we spent in the kitchen together cooking a meal or baking a cake. I didn’t see or speak to Mum as often as I would like, but if I had a food blog online then Mum could look at it—once she was mentally well enough to use the Internet again—and she’d be able to see me using the skills she had taught me.
    “I don’t want to learn Mandarin,” I said. I looked my father in the eyes and tried to express how serious I was about this, but years of obeying him and doing what he said meant he was