Trick - A Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

Alex sighed and cast a disappointed look at me. “Don’t you think it’d be easier if you just made up with her? I mean, I get that you want her to hate you for what you did back then, but if you’re gonna be working and living together, I think you should try to bury the hatchet.”

I shrugged. “Easier said than done. I wrecked her life. Even if I apologize, I don’t deserve her forgiveness. It’s just too late.”

“It’s never too late to apologize,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t have to forgive you. She doesn’t have to like you. But if you at least start with an apology, it might help you both move on from all the shit that went down back then.”

I looked out the window, watching as we zipped past the trees lining the road. It was smoggy as hell today, although for L.A. that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. As Alex sped up, I thought about what he’d just said. Maybe he was right. By being a dick to Lucy all this time, maybe I’d actually been making it harder for her to move on from what I’d done. Then again, I still didn’t want to risk bringing it all up with her. She’d probably punch me in the face.

Not that I wouldn’t deserve it.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Alex nodded. “Good. How about we go get a drink?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Don’t worry, I know a place where no one will recognize you,” he said with a wink. “Gotta protect that image now!”

I rolled my eyes. Of course. My soon-to-be squeaky clean image. It was bullshit. No amount of good behavior in the media was going to change anyone’s mind about me. I’d probably be booted off the new show within three episodes, and I honestly doubted I’d even care if that happened. If it did, I’d have more time to concentrate on doing other shit. Maybe I could take some online courses or something. Better myself a little bit, for real.

For myself, not for anyone else.

Alex and I sat sipping on beers twenty minutes later in some backstreet dive bar, and he’d been right –hardly anyone gave me a second glance. It was mostly patronized by older guys who didn’t give a shit about teenage heartthrobs, and the only flicker of recognition I noticed was in the female bartender’s bright blue eyes. She eyed me up a couple of times after we sat down, but I wasn’t having any of it. The only woman on my mind right now was Lucy, as much I was trying to stop thinking about her.

As we drank, I mulled over what Alex had said some more and finally decided against trying to make things up with Lucy. It really was too late, and it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. No matter what I said or did, she’d never want to be friendly with me, and honestly, I didn’t want to be her friend either. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she was a decent person, it was more along the lines of ‘I still wanted to fuck her’. You can’t be friends with someone you want to fuck. I was pretty sure the world just doesn’t work like that.

And speaking of worlds, having Lucy back in mine when she looked the way she did…that was going to be one hell of a problem.

CHAPTER FOUR

LUCY

“Where do you want these skirts? In the closet?”

I glanced over at my best friend, Claire, and shook my head. “Nah, just throw them in the drawers over there. Thanks again for helping me move, by the way.”

“No problem-o,” she said, winking at me as she scooped up an armful of skirts from one of the many bags sitting on the floor of Dad’s guesthouse along with a pile of boxes.

It was a beautiful guesthouse, and big too. It had a cream stucco exterior and was situated right near the pool and hot tub out the back of Dad’s mansion, and I hummed an old tune as we unpacked everything I’d brought with me.

“Hey, you know where I haven’t been in a while?” Claire asked a moment later, peering out from the closet.

“Where?”

“Serpentine Falls. We should go there for a picnic soon!” she replied.

“Ooh, yeah, good idea. That’s a nice place. I’ll find out what my schedule is like for the next few weeks and we can plan something.”

I’d met Claire over in South Africa when we’d been volunteering at the same animal sanctuary. As soon as we’d met and realized we were from the same city, we’d gotten along like a house on fire, and after we were done with our work at the sanctuary, we’d both gone to the orphanage and worked there together for the remaining four months of our trips.

She was tall, beautiful and model thin with waist length blonde hair, but she didn’t have the bitchy, entitled attitude that so many other stunning girls did. She was always pleasant and sweet, and I counted myself as lucky for having found a friend like her. After spending so long in high school with no friends, it felt weird to finally have people to hang out with again – people who accepted me for who I was without ever mocking me. Weird in a good way, though.

It finally felt like I was leaving my old self behind. I didn’t hide under baggy clothes anymore, I’d ditched my glasses for contacts over a year ago, and I had a boyfriend…well, as much as I could really call Jimmy a boyfriend, anyway. He’d offered to come and help me move my things into the guesthouse today, and then he hadn’t shown up or answered any of my texts. Luckily Claire had come to my rescue and offered to help instead.

She yawned and stretched a moment later, and I felt a brief pang of envy as her tight tank top rode up, revealing her taut stomach and slim hips. Damn, I wish I looked like that. She was a model nowadays, so it was her job to be thin, and I had to admit that she worked damn hard to maintain her figure. She rarely drank alcohol or anything sugary like soda, and she avoided dairy, carbs and red meat whenever she could. I might be able to drop down to a lower weight if I tried as hard as she did, but honestly, I loved my white hot chocolates and medium-rare steaks too much to give them up. Besides, no amount of dieting would make me grow eight inches in height to give me that same long, slender look that she had going on.

“I’m so jealous of you,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. “Look at your abs!”

She grinned and poked at her stomach. “I don’t have abs! You make it sound like I’m a professional wrestler or something, with a big old six-pack.”

I feigned an innocent expression. “Wait, you
aren’t
a wrestler?

She laughed and threw a cushion at me, and I ducked and squealed. As I grabbed something to throw back at her, a deep masculine voice startled me.

“Well, well, what’s going on in here? If you’re going to have a pillow fight, at least strip down to your lingerie for my viewing pleasure.”

I jerked my head up to see Patrick standing in the doorway of the guesthouse, and I narrowed my eyes. Ugh.

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice at a much higher pitch than I cared for it to be.

My pulse quickened as I gazed at him, and little moth wings of nerves fluttered in my stomach. Even after all this time, he still affected me like this. His eyes lingered on Claire for a moment, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Of course. He’d come to check out my hot friend.

“Came to give you the alarm codes for the main house in case you didn’t already know them,” he said. “You’ve already got a key, right? And you know the gate code?”

“Uh-huh. Well, um…thanks.”

“I wrote them down just in case,” he said, holding out a piece of paper. “Where do you want me to stash this?”

I nodded towards one of my white bedside tables. “Just in that top drawer will be fine.”

“Cool.”

I turned my attention back to unpacking, and Claire’s eyes widened as she sidled up close and looked at me. “He’s even hotter in person,” she whispered, and this time I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.

She saw my expression and backtracked. “Oh, crap. Sorry, Lucy. I know he’s a total prick. I just love his show.”

I sighed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to hate him just because I do.”

I turned around to see Patrick shutting the bedside table drawer. “Um, Patrick, this is my friend, Claire.”

He grinned and headed over to us, extending a hand to Claire. “Nice to meet you. I’m the evil stepbrother.”

Claire gave him a tentative smile as she shook his hand, and I could tell she was partly nervous about meeting the star of her favorite TV show and also partly nervous about upsetting me. I knew she thought that if she was nice to him, I’d be angry at her, but honestly, I didn’t mind all that much. She was a smart girl, and she knew what was good for her. He wouldn’t stand a chance with her no matter how nice either of them were to each other.

“So you guys need some help?” Patrick asked, training his eyes on me. My face felt hot all of a sudden, and I shook my head.

“We’re okay.”

“Aw, c’mon, there’s still a million boxes lying around. It’ll go a lot quicker if I help out.”

Without waiting for me to reply, he grabbed a box of shoes and headed towards the walk-in closet. I shook my head and glanced at Claire, and she shrugged. I knew what this was really about. Patrick was pretending to be nice, but deep down he was as selfish, conceited and shallow as his outward appearance suggested. He was only helping out as a means to try and get in Claire’s pants. Prick.

But he’s such a hot prick.

A stupid voice in the back of my mind started up, and I tried to push the thought back down. Unfortunately, I couldn’t deny the appeal he had. There was no shaking the unwelcome tingles I felt as I glanced at him, my eyes tracing every contour of his muscles and admiring the rippling abs beneath his plain black T-shirt.

He helped for an hour before glancing at his watch. “Sorry, ladies. Gotta go to the studio to do an interview.”

Claire smiled at him and waved, and I managed a choked grunt as he headed out the door.

“Maybe he’s changed,” Claire said, staring after him. “He doesn’t seem all that bad.”

“Believe me, he is that bad. I think he’s only being nice so he can try to sleep with you, because you’re pretty much the perfect girl for him.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Ew. If he actually thinks I’d ever sleep with him after what he did to you…I mean, come on. Even if he has changed, I still wouldn’t go near him. In fact, I don’t think I’d go near any guys right now.”

I pressed my lips into a rueful smile. I wasn’t the only one who’d had shitty experiences with guys recently. Claire’s most recent boyfriend had dumped her for a precocious seventeen year old Estonian model he’d met at one of her magazine photo shoots a few weeks ago, and I’d spent several days at her house, holding her while she sobbed and feeding her Ben & Jerry’s. It was literally the only time I’d ever seen her eat junk food.

She’d sworn off men for the time being, but it was only a matter of time before she found someone new to focus her attention and affection on. Hopefully someone decent this time.

She had to leave at around six to go to the gym, and I finished putting my toiletries away in the bathroom before heading into the main house for dinner. There was a little kitchenette in the guesthouse, but my Dad had insisted that I eat dinner in the house with him and the others. All part of his ‘getting the family closer together’ scheme, I imagine.

Patrick was already back from the studio by the time I entered the main dining room, and he was sitting in a chair with his feet up on the table, a glass of whiskey in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He was probably texting one of the many girls he kept on the side to join him for a quick romp later, and I rolled my eyes and hissed at him.

“Dad will kill you if he sees your feet up on the table like that,” I said. “You know we have to eat off that, right?”

He arched an eyebrow. “So you’ve never heard of plates before? Where I’m from, we don’t eat directly off the table.”

“Oh, shut the hell up. You know what I meant.”

Dad entered the room a second later with Julia on his arm, and the Irish housekeeper trailed behind them with a tray of covered dishes. She’d introduced herself as Penelope earlier, and she seemed nice enough.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” she said. “Just need to get the rest of the food.”

“Thanks, Penelope,” Julia said, flashing her a sweet smile as she brushed her dark hair behind her ears.

Julia was a small, fragile slip of a woman who seemed perpetually scared of her own shadow, and I wondered what had happened to her to make her like that. It was definitely nothing to do with my Dad. He’d been madly in love with her since the moment they met, hence the quickie wedding after only a few weeks of dating. I couldn’t blame him. She was a lovely woman, and it was hard to imagine how she could have given birth to such a massive tool like Patrick.

“Penelope and I went and picked up some South African foods for you,” she said, taking a seat across from me. “We found some boerewors at a gourmet butcher, and there’s even peppermint crisp tart for dessert. I thought you might be missing some of the foods you had while you were on your trip.”

“Oh, wow, thanks,” I said, my mouth watering at the thought of boerewors. It was a type of South African sausage, and it was better than any other sausage I’d ever tasted.

Julia smiled at me, and I returned the expression, grateful that my Dad had found someone so nice. He’d had a rough time after he and my Mom divorced, mostly because he’d found it difficult to trust again. Mom hadn’t physically cheated on him, but she’d had a brief emotional affair with a man she met online, and that had been the death knell in their relationship. She’d claimed it was because she never saw him, which made her crave attention elsewhere, and while I would never condone cheating in any capacity, I could see her point. He’d always been so busy with work that he’d hardly ever been around for her or me when I was young, and I couldn’t count the amount of school events he’d missed because of his job. He’d even been late to my graduation.

My parents had accepted that they’d both been at fault for their marriage falling apart, and they were on fairly amicable terms now. They both seemed a lot happier with their new partners. Julia didn’t seem to mind the long hours Dad worked, and Adam was a good match for my Mom, seeing as he was retired and thus had a lot more time to spend with her.

I cut off a piece of boerewors and chewed on it, savoring the delicious meaty flavors, and my Dad looked at me.

“All settled in, Princess?” he asked.

I swallowed and nodded. “Uh-huh. After dinner I’m going to start writing up ideas of things we can do to fix Patrick’s media image.”

He nodded. “Good, good. Let’s not talk about work now, though. How’s that boyfriend of yours doing?”

As I replied, I saw Patrick out of the corner of my eye. He speared half a sausage with his fork and held it right up to his lips before opening his mouth and licking the tip of it in some sort of parody of someone giving a blowjob. Julia and Dad were both looking directly at me and didn’t seem to notice, and I tried to ignore it.

Penelope brought some more food in a few minutes later, and while my Dad and Julia were distracted by talking to her about some sort of wine they wanted to try, Patrick leaned forward.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see me,” he murmured.

“Oh, don’t worry, I saw you practicing your technique,” I replied. “I always did get a gay vibe from you. I’m happy for you. People should feel free to accept their sexualities.”

He chuckled. “Nah. I was just showing you what you’ll be doing to me later.”

“You wish,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

God, what the hell was his problem? Obviously he was mentally all the way back in high school, considering the way he always treated me. Immature jerk. I guess some people just never grow up.

I completely ignored him for the rest of dinner, and when I was done gorging myself on some decadent peppermint crisp tart, I yawned and stood up.

“I better get to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“Yes, you must be,” Julia said. “Have a good sleep, hon.”

“Night!” I called out as I left the house and padded back outside to the guesthouse.

I thought about taking a shower, but I was too tired. Instead, I quickly changed into some comfy purple satin pajamas and collapsed onto my bed. Grabbing my cell phone to set an alarm for the next morning, I was suddenly reminded of the alarm codes Patrick had left in my drawer earlier. It was probably best if I save them in my phone in case I ever lost the piece of paper.