Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (31 page)

Sheri and I both pleaded with Dad to have his law firm drop the charges, but he refused to budge. Soon after that Sheri filed for divorce. Dad wasn’t exactly devastated about the whole thing. His marriage to her had been more about good publicity for his law firm and that was the last thing she was providing right now.

I visited Caiden in prison soon after his arrest. He made it clear that I was not to do anything stupid like confess to the crime. He said we would both end up getting in trouble, and at least this way my record would stay clean.

I nearly confessed anyway. It wasn’t right that Caiden was in prison while I was heading to university, but he made it clear he intended to take the blame for what happened and had already given a full confession.

After that initial visit, Caiden wouldn’t let me see him again. He removed me from the approved visitor list and refused to appear when I showed up at the prison the day before I was due to leave for Cambridge. I knew what he was doing. He wasn’t abandoning me; he hadn’t forgotten me. He was trying to help me move on. He didn’t want me coming down from Cambridge every week just to visit him prison. I understood what he was trying to do, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

We left something major unsaid. I never told him I loved him and he never said anything to me. I didn’t need him to. I knew how he felt about me and his actions spoke louder than words, but I wish he’d heard them from me. He’d done everything for me and I’d never done anything for him except land him in prison. 

The words nearly came out on my one visit to the prison, but it didn’t seem like the right place. I’d never told anyone I love them before and it felt far too momentous a thing to say when prison guards were listening.

The first few weeks and months at Cambridge were predictably miserable. I didn’t participate in many of the Fresher’s Week events and I developed a reputation as someone who preferred to sit in her room rather than go out drinking.

Fortunately, there were plenty of other people like that at Cambridge, although usually they were studious because of pressure from family to get good grades. I let everyone assume I was staying at home to study, but really I was just wallowing in my own self-pity.

Caiden ended up being sentenced to three years in prison. He’d probably get out after two with good behaviour, but two years was still a hell of a long time for an eighteen-year-old, especially when he hadn’t done anything wrong. It felt like a lifetime to me. The news about Caiden’s sentence nearly sent me tumbling off the edge, but instead it acted as a jolt to the system. I gained a new lease of life.

Caiden wouldn’t want me being miserable for two years. He would want me to do something with my life; he’d want me to do what I wanted to do with my life.

I all but gave up studying. I showed up to lectures and did the bare minimum to get through, but I was practically a part-time student now. I used the free time to set myself up in the career that I wanted. I tried blogging for a few months, but with such limited kitchen facilities at the University I couldn’t prepare any special food. Desserts, which were still my favourite, were particularly hard to prepare in a student kitchen.

Whenever I became despondent, I just thought of Caiden and my mum. They were a lot alike in some ways. They would both want me to live my life and have fun. It was impossible to feel sorry for myself when I had two such positive influences in my life. Okay, so they weren’t around for me at the moment, but some people went their entire lives without having anyone so special. I’d been blessed.

One evening, I’d cooked a meal for the other students in my halls using all the leftovers they were about to throw out. Everyone loved the meal and a few people asked me to show them how to make the dishes. That gave me an idea.

Instead of starting a blog, I decided to go straight for videos and upload them onto YouTube. I was a good writer, but I always came across as overly formal instead of chatty and fun. My target audience was fellow students who wanted to cook meals without buying expensive ingredients. I did a lot of research and realized I needed a persona to use on camera. Fortunately, I already had one. I dressed up in conservative clothes like my knee length skirts, blouses, and a pearl necklace, and then prepared meals on camera in a student kitchen.

My online persona was that of a prim and proper English girl who appeared formal and well-educated until I opened my mouth. I kept the posh accent, but added in a fair few of the words I’d started using since I met Caiden. Basically, I swore like a sailor. People loved it. The contradiction was so unusual that a few popular websites shared my videos and my viewer numbers exploded.

Advertising revenue started rolling in. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to buy better equipment which then improved the quality of my videos. I even paid a few editors to add some fancy techniques and make the videos look a little more professional.

As the first year of university was coming to an end, I knew I had to drop out. I couldn’t make videos fast enough to keep up with demand and each one I released had more viewers than the last. However, there were not many recipes I could make in such a small kitchen so I decided to strike out on my own.

I used the money I earned to rent a one-bedroom flat which was small, but open and therefore had good lighting for the videos, and I didn’t return home for the summer. Dad probably wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t tell him, but eventually I had to let him know I wasn’t going back to Cambridge and he could stop paying the fees.

It was a good job I had my own place, because he wouldn’t let me back in the house. He was furious. According to him, I was giving up my entire career and my entire life over a silly dream. He even tried to bring Caiden into the argument. He said “Caiden went to prison so you could become a solicitor, not a fucking chef.”

There was no reasoning with him and I couldn’t be bothered to try. I’d made my mind up by this point. If the worst happened and everything went downhill from here, I could always go back to university. A year out wouldn’t be unusual. Plenty of students took a year out at Cambridge because the stress got to them and as far as I could tell Cambridge always welcomed them back with open arms.

I kept in touch with the friends I made at university and they were delighted—and perhaps a touch jealous—about my success. One friend said it must be like I was living a dream and I agreed, but I never needed to pinch myself to prove I was awake. If this were really a dream, Caiden and my mum would be by my side to witness my success. I’d done the living a dream thing and escaped from that once already.

I pictured the look on Caiden’s face when I showed him what I’d become while he was in prison. I’d never be able to give him back the two or three years he was going to spend inside for me, but at least he would know his sacrifice wasn’t wasted.

The summer was a tough time. I kept the videos coming, but found it harder to keep up a happy demeanour for the camera. The summer meant it was the anniversary of my time with Caiden last year. It felt like every day I would look at the calendar and see an anniversary from last year. The first time we slept together. The time we got the news of our parents marriage. The first time we slept together after knowing we were to be stepbrother and stepsister. The time we had sex at my old school.

The quality of my videos was suffering, so I decided to take a short break and told my viewers I would be back in a couple of months. I used the time to write a cookbook. It wasn’t all that difficult. I had all the recipes written out already and I photographed most of the food when I was rehearsing for the videos. The content just needed to be put into ebook form. I found a developer who made everything look nice and paid a cover designer for the front cover. I even had a headshot on the “about the author” page.

People loved the cookbook, but it didn’t sell as well as I had hoped. I didn’t particularly need the money, but sales were an indication that I was keeping people happy so I would have preferred the book to be higher up the charts.

I needed to produce a physical copy of the book for those like me who hated making recipes from a computer screen or tablet because of messy fingers. I used a service that produced hardcovers and sales shot up immediately.

I even tried getting the book into bookstores. I wasn’t trying to be greedy, I just wanted to get my name out there and more than anything else I wanted to impress Caiden. I’d achieved so much, but I wanted to do more. The bookstores weren’t really interested in my book. It was self-published and they only sold books by the established publishers.

Requests for my book started coming in from America. My videos had a global audience, but I’d only released the ebook in the UK to avoid dealing with all the weight and measurement conversions. In the end, enough people clamoured for the US version that I decided to go ahead and prepare one with imperial measurements. Shortly after release in the states, a small bookstore in San Francisco put in a large order for nearly a hundred copies. At first, I thought it had been a mistake, but they made repeat orders and eventually a few other bookstores on the west coast of America started picking up the book.

All in all, I’d had a year beyond my wildest dreams, but I would have traded it all in to spend the time with Caiden. There was just one more year to go until he was eligible for release. Caiden didn’t like behaving himself, but I made him promise he would do for me. That should prove suitable motivation for him.

Just one more year to go, I told myself as I fell asleep that evening. Just one more year.

I’d done the right thing. I knew that, but I had to keep reminding myself of it on a regular basis. There were a few scary moments, but it all worked out okay in the end. Thankfully, prisons in England were a lot better than prisons in the US. At least from what I’d heard. I ended up being released after just a couple of weeks. Roy came to speak to me in prison one day and promised to drop the charges on one condition—I stay the hell away from his daughter.

The guy was an idiot. I could have just promised to stay away from Vicky and then gone to see her as soon as I was released. The police wouldn’t take too kindly to Roy going “actually, you know what, I’ve change my mind again and I want to press charges.” He’d be lucky not to get locked up himself for wasting police time.

Regardless, I didn’t go near Vicky after I was released. I met with Sheri and Roy after my release and told them to get word to Vicky that my sentence was three years. That sounded long enough to be believable, but also enough time for her to realize she needs to get on with her life. If she thought I’d be out in a year she would just wait for me and, as much as I wanted that, I couldn’t let her do it.

It hurt like hell, but the way I saw it I didn’t have a choice. She’d already enrolled at Cambridge so she might as well stick it out. I’d been clinging on to the hope that she would have a last-minute change of heart, but in the end she went along with her father’s wishes. I knew it was probably for the best, but I couldn’t help feeling like she had regressed slightly.

I had to leave the UK as soon as I was released from prison. The authorities practically drove me to the airport to make sure I left the next day. My visa had expired, and even though the overstay wasn’t exactly my fault, the circumstances did not look good. I imagined trying to explain on my visa application form why I had overstayed on my last visit. “It wasn’t my fault. I confessed to a theft and was kept in prison. We okay?” It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have at the border.

The second I got home to San Francisco I started financially cutting myself off from Sheri. I conveniently let her make one large deposit into my bank account and then blocked any future money coming in. The lump sum was enough to get me an apartment but rent was so high I needed a job as well.

Growing up with a wealthy family meant I had plenty of connections and they all offered to get me comfy jobs sat in an office doing jack shit all day. The offers were tempting, but I didn’t want to rely on Sheri in any way, and that included taking help from her friends.