High stakes

ACT 3 -nine.

Once again, Lando and I got dressed up to go to the worst thing possible: a family dinner that wasn't really a family dinner at all.

We were standing in front of the huge mansion of my dad, Lando squeezed my hand a little, he probably noticed how nervous I was.

"You ready?" he looked at me. "No" I laughed. "But we have to"

"It will be okay, baby" he tried to comfort me. I nodded, but I knew it wasn't gonna be fine. Not at all.

"Look who it is" Stacy said as she opened the door. "Our power couple"

She looked at Lando, up and down and back up to his face. "Hi I'm Stacy, the pretty one in this family" she said as she held her hand out for Lando to shake it.

But he didn't. He just raised his eyebrow and looked at her.

"It's pretty obvious that I'm standing next to the pretty one"

My sister was nailed to the floor, I never saw her speechless before. I chuckled and pulled Lando with me, passed her, inside of the mansion.

My dad was already sitting at the dinner table, with his phone is his hand. No time to waste, he wanted to start this business dinner as quickly as possible.

"Lando, Rae, good to see you" he said as he pointed to the chairs in front of him.

We both sat down next to each other, my sister next to my dad.

The cook brought the dinner to our table, which made Lando look up in surprise. My dad never cooked one day in his life and my sister didn't either.

"I guess you have a cook as well, Lando?" my dad looked at him. "Well, no, not really"

His trainer prepared his meals during the season, but that definitely wasn't the same thing as this clown show.

"You should hire one, Rae is not gonna cook for you, she can't even boil water" My dad and my sister both started laughing.

"And you can?" Lando looked at Stacy. "I don't need to cook, I'm rich" she grabbed her glass of wine and winked at him.

But Lando wasn't faced at all. He was handling it like a pro. "Yeah? What do you do exactly?"

"I-uh-" she stuttered. Once again she was speechless, because she did nothing. She was older than me, but dad didn't even trust her to manage one hotel.

My dad cleared his throat, to change the subject from the tension. "So it's great to see that Mclaren and Hilton are partnering up"

He looked at the both of us. Did he mean the hotels and his team or did he mean us? Our relationship.

I looked at Lando for help, he was owning it tonight, so I bet he had a good answer to his question but he was staring at his plate.

I quickly looked at mine as well. Fish.. My dad served fish.

I grabbed his plate and put the fish on mine. I guess it was only vegetables for him tonight.

"Uh- yeah it was all Rae's idea." Lando said as he looked at me with a smile and put his hand on my thigh.

Like I said... the perfect answer.

"Yeah, when she actually had to be in Monaco to save the hotel" Stacy rolled her eyes. "Is she a fireman or something?" Lando protected me once again.

But I was so used to this, it never was good enough. I was never good enough.

And for once, my dad wasn't getting involved, he just looked at Lando with a smile on his face.

"How's the hotel doing by the way?" My dad asked as he looked at me. "Good, we are renovating the whole hotel in the meantime. It should be done in a month"

He nodded. "Very good"

Did he just... praise me?

The dinner went pretty good after that. My dad talked to Lando for most of the time, but nothing about business, just about his races and stuff.

It was as if he was actually making an effort.

My sister on the other hand, was eyefucking him the entire evening.

My dad got up, probably to go smoke or something. So it was only Lando, my sister and I left.

"Lando, if you ever want someone to actually make you feel good, text me" My sister said as she gave him a little piece of paper.

Did she really give her number to my boyfriend while I was sitting right here?

I wanted to intervene, I wanted to punch that bitch in the face but Lando put his hand on my thigh, squeezed it a little and looked at Stacy.

"You know Stacy, I am attracted to classy women with ambition" he said as he leaned a little closer to her and looked at the number on the paper. He smiled and nodded at him.

He looked back at her, crumbled the piece of paper and let it fall on the table. "And that's definitely not you"

I started laughing and put my hand on his. She was getting put in her place all evening, she was so not used to this.

"You're gonna regret this" she said as she got up. "Dad, Rae is being an asshole" she yelled as she walked off, trying to find dad.

I bit my lip as I looked at Lando who just shrugged his shoulders with a smile on his face. "You're so getting a blowjob after this dinner" I whispered in his ear.

"Oh let's finish this dinner quick then" he smirked. "but can we first stop at McDonald's or something?"

I nodded. He can get everything he wants.

I guess my sister was right after all, we were a power couple. When I felt at my lowest, he was there to pick me up and protect me.

And I was gonna upgrade him.