Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (42 page)

And now here I am just meeting him for the first time right here in the driveway of his crazy-ass mansion on the
day
we move into it. No, let me take that back, I’m meeting him for the first time
as my new stepfather
. I’ve met
Joe
before, but it was three years ago as “Mr. McCauley, dad’s boss who’s here to offer his condolences and support.”

Way to comfort the grieving widow, you prick.

So here we are, about eighteen hours after my mom dropped the bomb. “P.S. I’m marrying you your dead dad’s boss; good luck with therapy for the rest of your life” is a pretty fucked up way to start dinner conversation with your son.

OK, so it may have been
slightly
more tactful than that, but
still
; what the actual fuck? I mean don’t get me wrong, I hardly knew my dad anyways since he was always out on some job site drilling somewhere.

But he was
drilling
for Joseph McCauley. Billionaire crude oil-tycoon Joseph McCauley. The very same Joseph McCauley, in fact, who’s standing there with my mom’s hand in his and looking at me like he’s sizing me up; like he’s worried about letting this son of a roughneck - this kid with tattoos and a leather jacket and a motorcycle - into his home and anywhere
near
his daughter.

He should be.

Because as my eyes dart back to her, standing there with her arms crossed tight over her chest and a wild, accusatory look in her eyes as she stares at me, I get a certain notion inside my head. Yeah, I’ve know girls just like this; the uptight, wound-up type. But I also know the wild side that’s trapped behind girls
just like
Paige McCauley. There’s a fierceness and yearning to run free that I can see behind her eyes, and as I stand there grinning right in her stuck-up scowling face, I know I’m gonna
find
that wildness.

And I’m gonna unchain it.

Click here to check out
Crude
!

“Are you
shitting me?!
”

“Language, Chloe!” My mother frowns at me, and part of my brain is trying to process what she’s just said,  but I’m still staring at the tablet she’s plopped down on kitchen table between us. 

The tablet with the news webpage on it, and right there on the cover, a picture of
him
. 

The boy from the exchange program five years ago when we were seniors in high school. 

“Boy”: yeah, right
. Because the
man
smirking at the photographer in the picture on the website is anything
but
a boy. He’s bigger than he was then, even as cut and muscled as he was back then. Bigger shoulders and a broader chest stretching the tight v-neck t-shirt he’s wearing in the picture. That cocky, arrogant, and lopsided grin, and what I know are heart-stoppingly gorgeous dark brown eyes behind those sunglasses. He’s got more tattoos now too, more than he even had back then, when they were all part of his bad-boy image.

The bad boy; the hot, dangerous, and gritty British hooligan covered with tattoos and the mouthwatering accent that drew me in like a moth to flame. 

And there he is, on the front page of some British news article.

“Chloe-”

I jerk my eyes back up to my mom, and suddenly my thoughts jump tracks entirely, back to the bomb she’s just dropped on me. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head before I open them back up and stare at her; “Wait, you’re not
serious
are you?”

“Chloe,” She rolls her eyes; “Of
course
I’m serious.”

“Mom, you’re getting
married?
How the hell have I never known about this?!”

“Oh, lower your voice, Chloe!” 

Mom shakes her head as she walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

“Jesus, mom,” I make a face, glancing at the clock on the wall. It’s noon.

“Oh, relax, we’re celebrating.”

My brain is still shocked by the news, but my eyes also keep darting down to the picture on the webpage. The article headline is something about a new restaurant. That’s right, he cooked or something. I glance back at my mom sharply; “Mom, how am I
just
hearing about this?”

My mother takes a big gulp of her wine before she glares at me; “Well it’s not
my
fault that you managed to get kicked out of law school after two weeks.”

I roll my eyes; “Mom, I
dropped
out; there’s a slight difference.”

“And does that distinction put you any closer to being a lawyer?”

I groan, pinching the arch of my nose between my fingers; “No, mother. Which is exactly the reason I left.”

Seriously, we’ve been through his three hundred times.

“Well maybe if you’d spent as much time in undergraduate thinking about your career as you did working in those
restaurants,
you’d have been more prepared.” 

I groan loudly and my mom shrugs and takes another sip of her wine. 

“But hey, what do I know?”

“Mom!” I snap; “Can we back it up here? Who
is
this guy?” 

“I’m not sure I like being interrogated like this, honey,” she says frostily, taking another quick sip from her glass. “And you’re
‘just hearing about it now’
because I
just
got off the phone with him ten minutes ago when he asked me.”

I scrunch up my brow. “He asked you over the
phone?
Who the hell is this guy?”

She sips her wine, and then drops her eyes to the tablet sitting in front of us. 

“Well, you remember that nice boy Oliver Beckett don’t you? The one we had stay at the house for that exchange program during your senior year?”

Yes, mom, the boy who nearly took my virginity in the back seat of your mid-sized sedan.

“Yes,” I snap.

My mom tsks and shakes her head; “You two don’t talk, do you? Oh he was such a nice boy, Chloe.”

No, he wasn’t.

“No, mom, we haven’t talked since back then.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.” 

Mom’s being cagey. After ten years alone together, even having been away most of the last four I can tell she’s avoiding the subject at hand, “Mom?”

“You know, his
father
is quite nice, too.”

I frown.

“Quite nice, actually. And maybe
you two
haven’t kept up, but Barney and I have stayed in touch since Oliver left.”

“Um, Okay?”

“A lot, honey,” She says quietly.

I can start to feel a horrible sensation creeping up inside of me.
Oh c’mon, there’s no way-

“Mom where is this goi-”

“You might say we’ve been doing the long distance thing,” Mom bites her lip and looks at me, “You know, dating.”

The horrible sensation starts to turn into a roar inside of me, and suddenly, my eyes are darting back to the table, and the cocky, smirking, arrogant, panty-melting grin of Oliver
fucking
Beckett.

“Mom-”

“It’s Barney, honey!” My mom squeals excitedly; “He’s asked me to marry him, and he wants me - he wants
us
to move to London!”

The bottom drops out then. And I’m just in free-fall as I stare at the boy from those nights five years ago. The boy whose kisses I can still remember, the boy whose hands I can still feel. And I’m putting the horrible little pieces together as the floor starts to sway beneath my feet.

The boy who nearly took my v-card, and then told everyone at school that he did.

The boy who’s about to be my new stepbrother.

Oh. My. God.

It’s grey, it’s fuckin’ raining, and it’s miserable outside as I scowl and trail my dad through the arrivals terminal at Heathrow. Fuckin,
of course
it’s raining; it’s England, land of eternal
non-
sunshine.

Dad looks at his watch and frowns before glaring up at the arrivals screens, as if it’s obviously someone’s
fault
that their plane is all of ten minutes late. 

Not that I’m much better; that’s ten more minutes of me being
here
as a participant in this whole fucking train wreck instead of elsewhere. Elsewhere like the restaurant.

“Pop, I need to get back.”

“They’ll be here in a minute, Ollie.”

“
Dad
, I’ve got stocks to prep, mis to set up-”

Shit to cut, cook, sear, broil, sous vis;
you name it. If it’s food and it requires some sort of preparation, it’s probably on my to-do list.

“Cool it, boy.”

“Shit doesn’t cook itself, dad.”

He shoots me a look; “This is important, Oliver.”

Yeah, to you
.

I’m still trying to process this shit, even now when “this shit” is about to land in England and walk right into our lives. The “shit” I’m somehow just learning about within the last week, I might add. 

“You were busy with taking over at the restaurant, Oliver, I didn’t want to distract you with that.”

Give me a fuckin’ break. There’s what, like twenty million eligible women his age in Great Britain, and dad goes for one from
America
. And not just
any
woman,
of course
.