Stepbrother Forever: A Stepbrother Romance (41 page)

I
stood on the sidewalk,
frozen in place as Madison Hearst cried into my chest, her delicate shoulders
racked by the sobs stealing from her throat. I wasn’t used to hanging out with
a lot of crying women, but I knew enough to know that these weren’t tears of
pain or sorrow. These were hot, angry tears, tears of rage and frustration held
in so long that the damn had burst, and now they had to come spilling out.

I grimaced before gently placing my arms around her. I’d shed
a few of those kind of tears myself in my life, and it seemed like offering her
the comfort I’d always been denied was the right thing to do, no matter how
awkward it might look to the people surrounding us.

It wasn’t just that Maddy was crying, though I was certain
that was strange enough on its own. What really made me feel like a spectacle
was the fact that we were brother and sister—or at least, we would be in just a
few short weeks.

My miserable fuck of a father was marrying Madison’s shrew of
a mother. They may have deserved each other, but I held onto the opinion that
neither Maddy nor I deserved either one of them. It rendered us stepsiblings,
which I had assumed would count for something, but up until this moment, I’d been
one hundred percent sure that Madison hated my guts.

Everything she’d ever done had practically screamed it. She
looked at me with nothing but disdain, and each time I entered a room with her
in it, the temperature dropped at least two degrees. She only offered me curt,
clipped responses whenever I tried to strike up a conversation, and that was
only if she chose to speak at all. I wasn’t certain what I’d done to deserve
her ire, but whatever it was, I’d been under the impression that there was just
no reversing it.

As a result, I’d given up on having any kind of relationship
with my soon-to-be stepsister. And who could blame me? Yet here we were, locked
in an embrace on the sidewalk of a busy street—and in broad daylight, no less.

Something had to be wrong. I knew she’d worked in some kind
of office nearby, but was she coming to see me? If she was, something had to be
seriously
wrong. It occurred to me
that it could have something to do with one—or both—of our parents.

My breath caught in my throat, but before I could ask, she
lifted her face again and said, “I lost my job.”

I looked down at her, noticing for the first time how very
green her eyes were. If she were any other woman I probably would have been
looking straight down the neckline of her blouse, but something about Maddy’s
face had always struck me as celestial, angelic. That wasn’t to say I didn’t
appreciate her womanly body, those supple curves that made me wish our parents
had never met the very first time I’d seen her... It only meant that those rare
and beautiful eyes were the most breathtaking pair I’d ever seen.

Which was saying something, because I’d looked into the eyes
of
a lot
of women.

I didn’t tell her that. All I could think of to say that
didn’t sound incredibly stupid was, “I’m sorry.” And then, as soon as those
words left my mouth, I realized that they
did
sound incredibly stupid. No wonder she hated me.

But instead of fixing me with that frigid stare she’d
inherited directly from her mother, Maddy shook her head and said, “Don’t be.
It’s my fault. It’s all my fault…”

That thousand-yard stare she was sporting made me uneasy. I
didn’t know a lot about her job, except that she’d worked as an administrative
assistant for some rental company, but I got the impression that Maddy definitely
didn’t have a lot of money. She’d never said as much, but her mother sure as
hell had implied it. It was almost as if that woman wanted her daughter to
fail, like she got no greater joy in life than watching Maddy flounder. It
seemed a little wrong when she was spending her days milking my father for
every dollar he was worth.

I shifted uncomfortably. Maddy suffered a hardship I’d never
known. I came from money, and lots of it. In fact, if it weren’t for being the
sole heir to the Harvey fortune, I wouldn’t have had to work a day in my life.
But Dad insisted, and when he made his mind up about something, there was no
changing it—not even if it made everyone else around him miserable.

Hell, especially
if it made everyone miserable.

“I was just on my way to a meeting,” I said, and that was
mostly true. Jane, my personal assistant, had texted me to let me know she was
running hot, as usual. That woman was crazy in the worst ways. Maybe I was
stupid for sticking my dick in psycho, but I was a hedonist—and a glutton for
punishment. Especially when it came at the hands of a buxom redhead in a
leather cat-suit… She knew it was over, but that wasn’t stopping her from
blowing my phone up with one filthy picture after another today. Part of me
wondered if I was meeting up with her to affirm it was over, or to fuck her
sideways…

Maybe both.

Thing was, though, my escapades with Jane were beginning to
take their toll on me. What started in unpredictable and unlawful ways had
started to get dangerous. Suddenly, she wanted more. Maybe it was all the
pressure she was putting on me to meet her parents and take her up to the
Hamptons for a “romantic getaway.” It was her way of trying to make us
something official, but we weren’t, and no matter how many times I tried to
explain that to her, Jane just didn’t seem interested in getting it.

That was probably some kind of red flag. I probably should
have cut things off with her a long time ago. But if it was all going to end
messy anyway, what was the harm in drawing out the good parts a little longer
than I should?

Maddy was staring at me. The little flame of hope flickering
in her eyes died, snuffed out by my careless words. I scrambled to regroup, to
find something to say that didn’t sound like I was brushing her off.

Because honestly, I would rather have spent the day with my
distraught stepsister than deal with the crazy shit that my crazy secretary was
doing in my office. It was weird to admit it, even to myself, but it was true.

“Okay, let’s start over.” I took the Bluetooth earpiece out
of my ear and thrust it into my pocket so the steady stream of notifications I
was getting from Jane couldn’t interrupt me. “You’re clearly having a bad day,
and there’s a café I like about a block from here. Let me buy you lunch.”

She opened her pretty mouth, and for a moment, I was sure she
was going to deny me. But then she nodded, lifting her fingers to her face to
brush away the tears still brimming in her eyes.

“I
am
hungry,” she
admitted softly.

I smiled. Realizing we’d been holding one another in the
middle of the sidewalk for several minutes now, I released her and swept her up
beside me, pressing my hand into the small of her back. Maybe that wasn’t an
appropriate brotherly reaction, but it was instinct and I was new to this whole
stepbrother thing. Besides, I’d touched my share of pretty girls that way.

One thing was different with Maddy, though. When I touched
her, I felt something stir inside of me, something like tectonic plates moving
and shifting under the surface. And below that, there was something flowing and
hot, something that made me notice suddenly the smell of her hair, the
smoothness of her skin, the way her ass just barely brushed the side of my hand
as we walked, the fabric of her stylish pencil skirt clinging to both those
ripe, gorgeous swells above her shapely calves and thighs.

Those heels, too—my God. If they didn’t scream “fuck me,” I
wasn’t sure what did.

But those were just thoughts. Silly thoughts. The kind of
thoughts that came to a man at inappropriate times. Like when he was hanging
out with the one girl in the entire world that was completely off limits.
Totally normal.

Right?

Either way, I needed to get rid of them. This was probably my
only shot at actually getting my stepsister to like me, and I wasn’t about to
let my traditional male stupidity fuck it up.

It didn’t take long to reach the place, and I was already
starting to relax as I led Maddy in through the front door. Without saying a
word, the hostess had noted our arrival and ushered us in to my regular booth.

“I thought you said this place was a café?”

I looked around. I’d been to this place dozens of times, but
somehow it seemed as if I’d never really looked at it before now. The walls
were paneled in dark cherry wood with accents of crimson damask paper that
looked like it had been imported from Europe. I’d have bet that if I’d touched
it, it would’ve felt just like silk. The gold highlighting the pattern was
probably genuine too, and looking at them now, I had no doubt that the amber
crystals adorning the chandeliers were Swarovski-made, or similar.

I shrugged, handing one of the menus our server had provided
over to Maddy. “It is. Just a ritzy one.”

She looked around at the tables surrounding us and fingered
the neckline of her blouse. “I feel like I’m underdressed…”

“You’ll be fine,” I assured her. “You look fine. I mean,
beautiful. You look…” I ground my teeth, trying to regain my composure. “You’ll
fit right in.” Then I opened the menu and buried my nose in it, inwardly
kicking myself for how utterly stupid everything I’d said today had thus far
been.

“What should I order?” Maddy said, and I realized she
probably had no idea what half the things on the menus were. I set mine down
and began to unbutton my blazer to drape it over the back of my chair.

“If you like lighter fare, anything with chicken is a good
bet.” I finally freed myself of the constraining jacket and sighed in relief.
Finally I could feel my biceps again. “If you’re more in a dinner mood, there’s
always the beef bourguignon.”

“I think I had the TV dinner version of that once,” she
laughed, her eyes flitting over the myriad of items listed for her. “Um… I’ll
go with that, I think. Yeah, that sounds good.”

I smiled. It felt good to see her without tears in her eyes.
“And some wine?”

“You pick,” she said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t even know
where to start.” She slid her menu over to me and I took it, stacking it on top
of mine.

“You can start by telling me what happened with your job,” I
offered. Even though it was mid-day outside the mood lighting inside cast
shadows over Maddy’s face, shadows that seemed even darker when I mentioned the
dreaded j-word. “I mean, if you want to, of course.”

“I do,” she said. “I’m just so embarrassed…” She took a sip
of her ice water. When she pulled the glass away, I marveled at the tiny beads
that had formed on them.

She licked them away, and I watched the progress of her
tongue, hoping she mistook the intensity of my stare for interest in her story.

“It wasn’t a good job,” she said, meeting my gaze. “But it
was all I had. It paid the bills and the rent… and frankly, not much else.” She
laughed again. This time, it sounded bitter. “That was enough for me, though.
At least until I found something better.”

I nodded, parroting what I’d heard others say. “It’s hard out
there right now.” I had no real idea about any of that, of course, and Maddy
called me on it.

“Yeah. Not all of us can have an in with the CEO of one of
the world’s most profitable companies.” But then she swallowed her anger, even
though it lit up her face in a very sexy way. “Well, anyway, I’d been putting
up with a lot of shit over there. More so recently, though the past few years
hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, either.” She looked at me. “Do you know
that the first day I was there, the receptionist who was supposed to train me
left for lunch and never came back? I had four hours’ worth of training before
they threw me to the wolves.” She shook her head in amazement. “It’s a wonder I
survived my first six months, let alone four years…”