She’d had a moment of clarity when she’d been in her early twenties and started looking into ways to kick Elaine and Carla out of the house as they removed every vestige of her father . . . only to find out that she’d inadvertently signed away her rights to the home her dad had loved and cherished.
One day, right after she’d turned eighteen, Elaine had brought a bunch of papers home and explained they were legal documents June needed to sign for her inheritance, now that she was of age.
She’d stupidly trusted Elaine, had signed page after page without reading . . . and had ended up giving ownership of her beloved house to her stepmom without knowing what she was doing.
Without any options, June had stayed. Partly because she had nowhere to go, had no money to rent her own place, and didn’t have any marketable skills to get a well-paying job. But mostly she stayed because this was where she and her dad had been happy.
He’d met Elaine when June was fourteen and Carla was six, and within a year, he was dead. It wasn’t fair, and every day, June missed her dad terribly.
But now, with each year that passed, June’s stubbornness to stay the course, to not leave the house where she’d lived with her dad, was waning. Carla was a bitch, her two corgis were horrible and just as nasty as their owner, and Elaine had a calculating look in her eye that June didn’t trust.
She’d been squirreling money away, bills she found around the house, change in the washer that Elaine and Carla had left in their pockets, and leftover cash from running errands.
It wasn’t enough, not really, but June had finally reached the point where she knew she had to leave. She didn’t have any friends to help her, because Elaine had skillfully isolated her long ago from the kids she went to middle and high school with. And for years she’d been kept busy working, doing all the cleaning, shopping, cooking, and other errands.
When she was just out of high school and still deeply grieving the loss of her father, and when she still thought Elaine had her best interests at heart, June had been glad to help out. To do her part to help raise Carla and keep the house running as smoothly as possible.
But now she realized how stupid she’d been. For too many years, she’d been Elaine and Carla’s slave—and she was done.
She’d miss the house, but the happy memories with her dad had been replaced by humiliation and degradation. The house was no longer a cherished safe space—it had become her own version of hell.
June didn’t know where she’d go or what she’d do, but anywhere would be better than here. She’d been researching the best places in the country to live, the cheapest places, and hadn’t decided exactly where she wanted to head yet. Somewhere far from Washington, DC, that was for sure.
“Juniper!” Carla shouted as she burst into the kitchen.
June hated how Elaine and Carla insisted on calling her by the name her beloved father always had. At first it had been comforting—it felt intimate and was a reminder of her dad. But now her full name on their lips was grating and made her skin crawl.
“Yes?” she asked as she turned away from the pot she was stirring on the stove.
“He’s here! Finally! He’s gonna stay in the room next to mine. You need to get up there and change the sheets. Make sure he has a clean towel—and make it one of the small ones.” Her stepsister grinned with a mischievous glint to her eye. “Because I’m gonna accidentally walk in on him, and I want to see how big his dick is. Can’t do that with a huge beach towel wrapped around his waist. Oh! And spray some of my perfume on his sheets. I want him to associate my smell with being in bed.”
“Right now?” June asked innocently. She wanted to roll her eyes at Carla, tell her she was disgusting and far too desperate, but she knew better. It was much easier to fade into the background, to do what she was told, than to disagree. She’d learned that from experience.
“Of course, right now! Duh! You’re so stupid.”
“Okay, but the dinner might burn if I do,” June told her.
“Shit! That won’t do. Fine, after you serve us, after the appetizers and before the dessert, when we’re eating the main dish, run upstairs and do as I said. Oh, and make sure that door between our rooms is unlocked too. How else will I be able to accidentally catch him naked?” Carla cackled. “Have you seen him?” she asked.
June shook her head. She wanted to ask her stepsister when the hell she’d possibly have had time to spy on their guest when she was busy doing last-minute cleaning, like sweeping dog hair from the entryway floors, taking out the trash, and cooking the four-course dinner Elaine had insisted the prince would be expecting.