Dick: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (19 page)

When we stopped on my stoop,
Preston turned to me. The sunlight filtering in past the awning was enough to
make his eyes look green. “Got your keys?”

I held up my cheap ten-dollar
clutch, the only bag I owned, and smiled faintly. “Got ‘em. Thank you again for
lunch. And for driving me. And… well, for listening to me bitch for an hour.” I
forced a laugh.

Preston smiled. “I hope it won’t
be for the last time. In fact, I was hoping that we could do this again. Maybe
after the weekend’s over?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. It was
true that I’d had a nice time with him, but I had so much to worry about now
that I wasn’t sure I could commit to another rendezvous, if that was the word
for it.

“Look, Preston… I know for you,
this isn’t a big deal, but I don’t have any options or money. I’ll be lucky to
find a job before the month’s over. That’s what I have to focus on now. Keeping
this place, as much of a shit hole as it is, and putting food on my table.
Those have to be my priorities. You understand, don’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “Of course I
do. But I do want to see you again, and Monday would be best.”

I put my key in the door to open
it. “I’ll try to find a way.” It was the best I could offer him.

As I stepped inside, Preston put
his hand on the door to keep me from closing it. Then he presented me with an
offer of his own.

“That’s the thing, though, Maddy.
I want to see you Monday in my office. I want you to be my new PA.”

I turned around and stared at
him. I was sure my jaw was dangling open, but the shock of it had left me so
numb that I could have been on fire and would have missed it. “You’re…
serious?”

He nodded, leaning against the
doorframe with another wolfish grin. “Absolutely. You’ve got the
qualifications. You have a great work history, I’m sure. And I’m in need of a
new girl anyway. You can start first thing on Monday after you’ve taken some
time to relax over the weekend. In fact…” He reached into his pocket and took
out a checkbook. “I’m happy to offer you a signing bonus for accepting the job
on such short notice. What do you say, Maddy—how does a bit of good,
old-fashioned nepotism sound to you?”

I could hardly believe what he
was saying. My entire life, family had been a distant notion for me. It was
something I barely entertained as worthwhile, something I’d grown to consider
as simply the framework for one’s genetic identity. My mother hadn’t so much
raised me as reared and resented me, and my father had barely known me when he
took off with some other woman, leaving me in the dust of his memories. I’d
never seen so much as a birthday card from him in all the years he’d been gone.
I had no idea if he was even still alive.

Everything I’d ever wanted, I’d
had to get myself or go without. There were no exceptions. When all the other
kids were having birthday parties, I was sitting at home thankful that my
mother had bothered to prepare my favorite dinner. Presents were few and far
between and came mainly from aunts and uncles, which my mother always derided
as “spoiling” me. The only gift I remembered her giving me was a dragonfly
broach when I was nine, and I’d treasured it fiercely right up until the moment
I’d found out she’d regifted it to me after receiving it from a friend. I was
only worth her trash, her leavings, and after that, the broach had sparkled a
little less for me.

But now Preston, a man I hardly
knew, a brother in name only—and that wasn’t even official yet—was writing me a
check on my stoop and ready to give me so much more than that. He was offering
me peace of mind, prosperity, and a way out of the dismal hell hole I’d spent
so much of my life in. For the first time, a family member wanted to take care
of me, and I had no earthly idea what to do.

Preston must have seen my
confusion, because he handed me the check with his business card attached and
waved his hand. “Don’t answer now. Just come in Monday. If you’re not
interested, at least we can have another lunch together. If you are, we’ll get
started right away.”

“I don’t understand,” I
whispered, staring at the multitude of zeroes tacked on to the check. My hands
were shaking. “You must want something in return…?”

Preston’s face fell. He looked
almost as bewildered as I felt. He shook his head very slowly, looking right in
my eyes as he said, “Just your happiness, Maddy. That is the only thing I could
want.”

Then he left me, closing the door
while I stood in the entryway, still gazing down at the ten thousand dollar
check in my hands. He’d given me a lot to think about.

The
whole drive home, I couldn’t
help but to think about Maddy.

She had looked so utterly
confused when I’d handed her that check, like she had no idea what simple
kindness was. Given who her mother was, I could see why, but it had hit me
harder than anticipated. Had she never had anyone stick up for her before? Had
no one ever helped her up when she’d fallen down?

I couldn’t imagine a world like
that, or at least, not in that sense. I’d always had people around to attend to
every whim and desire, except for my father, who could barely entertain my mere
presence at times. In that way, I knew what it was like to have a parent who
seemingly hated you, who was always disappointed and never uttered a word of
praise. Whenever I did well by his impossible standards, there was only relief
on his face, never pride. I’d given up on attempting to sway my father’s
opinion of me a long time ago, but I realized that not everyone had that
luxury.

Maddy seemed like such a strong
girl. When she wasn’t crying, I could see this fire in her eyes. When she
snapped at me, I could hear that same flame in her voice. There was one hell of
a woman deep down in there, but it was hard to see when she’d had such an impenetrable
cage built around herself.

That wasn’t her fault, of course.
She was the victim of those with power, the ones like my father who chose to
hurt people instead of using his immense wealth to make them better. She’d only
ever been able to spread her wings as far as her circumstances would allow.

But I wanted to change that. I
wanted to set Maddy free and see her full potential. Something inside me told
me that if I did, it would be impossibly beautiful.

It was strange, though, that I
cared so much. I wasn’t a heartless bastard like my father was, but it was rare
for me to get attached to anyone, let alone a woman. There was something about
knowing you could have any girl you wanted that made the whole game feel less
interesting, but something about Maddy was… different. Maybe it was because she
was forbidden fruit, or maybe I really did give a shit about family. Whatever
it was, I could feel her hooks in me. I wanted more.

I thought about her as the miles
ticked by. I thought about her as I waited for the gate to open at my own
house. I thought about her as I walked inside, and I thought about her right up
until the moment I smelled the most amazing aroma drifting in from the kitchen.

I followed that scent like a
bloodhound, my stomach rumbling all the way. Carla, my housekeeper, must have
been cooking. The variety of spices was like inhaling a symphony, and my mouth
watered as I imagined all the meals she might be making. She was a goddamn
artist in the kitchen, and from what I could smell of whatever she was making,
this was her masterpiece. Sure, I’d already ate, but that wasn’t going to stop
me from indulging myself a second time.

I felt every muscle in my body
relaxed the nearer I came to that delicious scent. I tossed my blazer and
laptop bag on the sofa as I passed it, loosening a few buttons on my shirt as I
rounded the corner into the kitchen, already rolling up my sleeves to prepare
for whatever sauce I could hear boiling on the stovetop.

“Goddamn,
Carla, that smells—”

I stopped so suddenly that I was
sure my organs would fly right out of my body. As it was, my stomach had
dropped to my feet. It took several seconds for the sight before me to
register, and when it did, it made no more sense than when I’d first walked in
and seen it.

Carla was, as anticipated,
standing in my kitchen and slaving over a hot stove. She had her dark, frizzy
hair pulled back into a bun and her olive skin was aglow with a light sheen of
sweat. Her apron was stained where she’d repeatedly wiped her coarse, calloused
hands and from the way her back was bent, I could tell she’d had a rough day.

But that wasn’t what surprised
me. What did was the person standing next to her, a person who didn’t belong in
my house, and certainly not when I wasn’t here.

“Jane, what
the hell?”

She turned to me, beaming so
brightly it was almost blinding. She had her long, auburn hair braided down her
back, and under Carla’s watchful eye, she was adding sweet Marsala to a pan.

“Hey, baby,” she said. The very
sound of it made me cringe. “I thought I’d surprise you. Carla’s teaching me
how to cook—it’s veal Marsala. I figured after such a hard day at work, you
needed to come home and have a nice, hot meal waiting for you.”

I caught Carla looking at me out
of the corner of her eye. She didn’t look happy. I knew her pain.

“Carla usually takes care of that
for me,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck in the hope of making my anger
dissipate. “That was a nice thought, though, Jane. I just wish you’d told me
you were coming over. This is… a surprise.”

Jane smiled sweetly. “That’s the
point, silly.” Then she left the stove—and any pretense of learning to cook—and
crossed the room to me, sliding her hands up my shirt.

“When you didn’t come back to the
office, I thought something might be wrong. I tried texting you, but you didn’t
respond. Didn’t you get my pictures?” She looked up at me. “Was something
wrong?”

There was a hint of an accusation
in her voice. Jane wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. I looked at her, gently
taking her wrists in my hands to move her away from my body.

It didn’t work. She only entwined
her fingers with mine, swinging her arms gently as I sighed.

“Yes, actually. It’s my sister.
She got fired from her job, and she needed someone to talk to and drive her
home.”

Jane arched one of her
perfectly-coiffed brows. “Sister? You never told me anything about a sister…”

“That’s because she isn’t my
sister yet. Her mother is marrying my father. We’ll be stepsiblings in just a
few months, though I think it’s fair to start using the title now.”

Jane didn’t look convinced. I
could feel her hands growing cold in mine. “So… you’re not siblings yet. Then
she’s just a woman you drove back to her apartment instead of coming back to
the office to fuck me?”

I looked over at Carla. If she’d
heard what Jane had said, she didn’t show it, and for that I was thankful.

I took Jane by the arm as gently
as I could and pulled her out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I told
her, keeping my voice low. “First, you already know that we’re not fucking
again. Second, Madison is practically family. And unlike me, she doesn’t come
from money, so losing her job is a pretty big deal.”

“Doesn’t she have any friends?”
Jane asked, wrenching out of my grasp. “Someone
else
she could call on instead of her ‘big brother?’_” The way she
put the words in air quotes made me want to break her fingers.

“No. She has no one. Her mother
is… well, her mother is the kind of person who wouldn’t give a burning man a
glass of water. In fact, she’d probably use him to light her cigarette and
complain about the smell.”

I smiled to myself. It was no
wonder my father liked her. Those two had so much in common.

“The point is that I was the only
one she could turn to. Besides, we ran into each other by accident. I had no
idea I was going to see her today.”

“Uh huh,” Jane said, folding her
arms across her chest. The kimono-style top she was wearing left very little to
the imagination, and the pushup bra she had on underneath it ensured that her
cleavage was practically touching her chin. I remembered the first time I’d
gotten a glimpse of those beautiful breasts. It was funny how I couldn’t give
two shits about them now. “You could have told me, you know.”

“Jane,” I said as calmly as I
could, “I know you have expectations of what this… thing we had going on
between us was. But you aren’t my girlfriend. We ended this. I don’t owe you
anything.”

“See,” she said, taking a step
toward me, “that’s where you’re wrong…”

I stepped back into the wall as
Jane approached, sliding her body up against mine like a cat in heat. I could
feel her taut stomach stretching over my abs as she purred, one hand sliding up
over my shoulder as the other delved down between my legs.

“Jane,” I
started, but she cut me off.

“Shh. Easy there, big guy. You’ve
had a rough day. Family drama. I get it.” She rubbed me through my slacks, and
for a moment, a ripple of pleasure pulsed through me. “You’ve had all kinds of
unexpected things happen to you today. How about we make this one a good one?”

She began working my belt, trying
to slip the tongue through the buckle. Despite my own desires—or lack thereof—I
could feel myself hardening at her touch. Jane could feel it, too. She had that
look in her eye, that smugness that always came over her face when she knew she
had won.

Except she hadn’t won. Not this
time. And as she tried to tug my pants down past my waist, I grabbed her arms
again and gently pushed her away. “Stop. Christ, what were you going to do,
blow me right here in the hallway?”

Jane licked her lips and grinned.
“If that’s what you want…”

“It’s not,” I said. “This isn’t
something you can fix by putting my cock in your mouth…” I let her go and set
about fixing my zipper. “We’re not doing this anymore.”

She stared.
“What does
that
mean?”

“It means that you showed up in
my house uninvited, harassed my housekeeper, and then interrogated me about
what I was doing with my sister. You’re not my girlfriend, Jane. You’re not
even my fuck buddy. You’re my personal assistant. This is wildly inappropriate,
and I think you should leave.”

Jane looked at me for a long
time, a longer amount of time than I was comfortable with. Every second that
ticked by, the air in the hall seemed to become thicker, colder, like the
intensity of her glare was sapping the life right out of me. I was sure I’d
find the house plants wilting later when I walked into the living room.

But I held her gaze. Maddy was
right. Jane had crossed a line—again—and things weren’t going to get any better
until I stood my ground.

“Fine,” she said. I hated that
word, especially coming from her mouth. “I’m not your girlfriend.
Whatever.
I’m just the girl you fuck at
your desk when you’re having a bad day, I guess.”

“You drugged my coffee and
handcuffed me to the chair!” I shouted indignantly. Sure, I’d hired her because
I wanted to get into her skirt, but the way it happened wasn’t exactly what I
had in mind.

“I didn’t hear you complaining,”
she replied, the anger evident as she turned away.

She was right, I hadn’t
complained at the time. Hell, I’d liked it. Jane was nuts, but she breathed a
little excitement into my life. Trouble is, she didn’t understand boundaries
and her ever-escalating sexual escapades had started to become even more
dangerous. Sooner or later, our little office romance was going to bite me in
the ass. I was trying to put an end to it for good reasons.

She walked back into the kitchen,
grabbed her purse off the back of one of the kitchen island chairs, and came
storming back down the hall toward me. The sounds her heels made on the tiled
floor were like bones snapping. They gave me the shivers.

She swept past me and toward the
foyer, but not before calling over her shoulder, “I guess you’re only worried
about being inappropriate when there’s other people around, because when we’re
alone, stuffing your dick in my mouth is
totally
fine!
”

“Not when I catch you hiding
under my desk right before a regional board meeting!”

“You could
have stopped me,” Jane said.

“I
am
stopping you Jane, we’re not doing this again. This is over.
This has been over for weeks and the sooner you get that through your head, the
better. I don’t want you in my house, I don’t want you in my bed, and I don’t
want you in my fucking office. We’re done Jane. Don’t bother coming to work
tomorrow, I’ll mail you a severance package.”

Maddy’s words were echoing in my
head as I put the nail in this relationship. She was right, if I was going to
end this I couldn’t leave a shred of hope… even if it hurt.