Mine - A Stepbrother Romance (8 page)

Dammit, Mason had played me yet again. Literally no one else was dressed up. I knew I should have listened to my first instincts when I’d assumed he was lying just to embarrass me.

Every eye in the room turned to me, and I half expected the music to come to a screeching halt as everyone gaped at my ridiculous nurse costume.

Crap.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MASON

Oh man, the look on Arizona’s face right now was perfect. She hadn’t believed me at first when I’d told her to dress up, but I’d convinced her to do it by pretending to throw a little bitch fit about how I was just trying to help her, and now here she was, dressed like an idiot in front of everyone I knew. I couldn’t believe she’d actually ended up falling for it. Her hazel eyes were wide, and she turned to me and mouthed something.
You friggin’ prick.

Screwing with her was just the absolute best. Tonight’s reaction was good, but my favorite was still the other night when she’d hammered on my door, clutching the nude portrait I’d had done up for her courtesy of my photographer buddy who had his own studio downtown. The anger flashing in her eyes had given me blue balls for the entire night.

Anders stepped forward and stuck his hand out. “You must be Arizona. Nice costume.”

She forced a smile and hesitated, obviously trying to think of a way out of this.

“Uh…thanks,” she finally replied, taking his hand and smiling warmly. “Mason tried to tell me it was a costume party. I didn’t believe him, but I figured I might as well come be the party nurse. I can administer shots of tequila, hold people’s hair back if they get too drunk…all that jazz.”

Everyone standing around us laughed, and Anders slapped her on the back. “Oh man, you didn’t tell us your sister was funny, Mason. Come on, Arizona, let’s go administer some shots right away.”

He winked before linking arms with her and dragging her away to a table filled with bottles of booze and shot glasses, and I narrowed my eyes and lit up a smoke as I watched her laugh and carry on with a whole bunch of my friends. Well, well…this wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I hadn’t wanted to bring her here tonight, and I’d only been doing so to keep Roy and my mother off my back, so I’d figured if I embarrassed her enough she’d leave straight away and catch the first cab home.

That plan had more than backfired. She actually seemed to be having fun, and now I couldn’t even have more than two drinks for the night. I’d planned on getting hammered and crashing here, but if she was actually staying for the party, then I’d have to get her home safely.

I had a beer and caught up with some of my friends who I hadn’t seen in a while, but it was hard to concentrate on any conversation when I had one eye on Arizona the whole time. Right now she was munching on a party snack and talking to some redheaded girl she’d just met across the other side of the room, and I looked over my friend’s shoulder and narrowed my eyes as a giant of a man approached her.

I didn’t recognize him, but I could tell he spelled trouble. Giant was probably a gross understatement. He put every other guy in the room in his shadow, even well-built guys like me. At least six foot five with the kind of muscular, tattooed body that was only possible through pumping iron and abusing steroids, he had the jawline of a beast and bright blue eyes that looked ready to put out fires.

And he was heading straight for Arizona.

Every other chick in the place was eyeing him up, but he ignored them and cocked an eyebrow as he said hi to her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I excused myself from my friends and stepped closer, not missing the blush that was spreading across Arizona’s cheeks.

“So you wanna dance?” the guy said, leaning in closer.

“Oh…um…okay, sure,” she replied, her face reddening even more.

She took his hand and followed him over to where a bunch of drunken partygoers were already dancing, and something inside me boiled over. No fucking way. I didn’t like her much, and I sure as hell wasn’t happy about her being here, but there was no way I was going to let her go off with a walking amino acid like that. I knew exactly what guys like him were about. Everyone thought I was bad, but I was tame compared to some of the predators around, and he was definitely one of them.

His ice blue eyes smoldered as he looked down at her, and he roughly grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in close, moving to the beat of the music in fluid steps.

Fuck that. I strode over and grabbed her arm. “Sorry bro, gotta talk to my little sister for a sec,” I said, staring at the guy. He reeked of pot and Paco Rabanne cologne. What was this, the seventies?

He grunted and put up a mild protest; obviously a man of many scents but very few words. Arizona glared at me.

“Your Dad called,” I lied. “Come on.”

The guy let her go, but I could feel his eyes on my back as I led Arizona away from the party and up a darkened hallway.

“What are you doing?” she protested. “Did Roy really even call?”

“No,” I replied. “I was just saving you. You’re welcome.”

“Saving me from what?” she asked, glaring daggers at me. “From dancing with a nice guy?”

“He’s not nice, trust me. That dude was shadier than an umbrella factory.”

“Do you even know him?”

“No, but I can tell.”

She crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to hide her cleavage from me, but the action only pushed her tits up further. “You’re just pissed that I’m actually having fun. I know you were trying to humiliate me tonight, but you failed at that. Too bad. Now leave me alone.”

I leaned in close so that her back was almost pressed up against the wall. “So what, you’re just going to go fuck every guy at this party to prove something to me? Okay, I get it, I shouldn’t have tried to embarrass you, but that doesn’t mean you need to go slut it up with the first skeezy gym-bro you find.”

Her dark eyes flashed at me. “I’m not going to fuck anyone, as you so delicately put it. I never have, and I’m not going to start now with some guy I just met.”

“
What
?”

Her hand clamped over her mouth as she realized what she’d just said, and I pulled back. “You’ve never…you’re a
virgin
?”

“Shut up,” she said. “It’s none of your business.”

Fuck. Seeing her standing there in the skimpy nurse’s outfit I’d given her, with all her curves and sexy pouts, there was no way in a million years I’d have ever suspected she was still a virgin. She was nineteen, for Christ’s sake! I didn’t know anyone who’d even made it through junior year of high school with their virginity still intact, let alone all the way to nineteen. Somehow that made her even hotter and more unattainable in my mind, and I couldn’t help myself.

I pushed her up against the wall and leaned down, crushing my lips against hers in a heated embrace. She moaned in confusion but didn’t stop me, melting into my arms instead, and as I slid my left arm around her back to hold her steady, I put my right hand on the perkiest ass I’d ever had the pleasure of touching.

She squirmed in my arms, and I came up for air for a second before swooping back down and kissing her with a frenzied desperation. It was like a dam had broken inside me, driving the urge to tunnel my fingers through her hair, over her skin, to touch every part of her and feel her body against mine. I’d wasted so long screwing around and pretending I didn’t like her, but what was the point? It wasn’t true. I wanted her.

Badly.

Our kiss turned harsh, demanding…our lips locked in a hunger with enough heat to scorch the both of us. Tongues clashed in a bid for domination, and she finally gave in and let me take over, an incoherent murmur in the back of her throat. I slid my tongue along hers, then drew back and gently nibbled her lower lip, drawing a moan from her.

Suddenly she seemed to remember that she couldn’t stand me, and she scrambled out of my grip and pushed me away.

“Get off me!” she said. ‘What the hell are you doing?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. “Don’t pretend like you weren’t kissing me back.”

“Yeah, well…it was a mistake. Just like when Satan had sex with your Mom, resulting in your existence.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” I asked, although I had to admit it kinda was. She had a sharp wit. Unfortunately, I wasn’t much in the mood for jokes.

She didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m not joking. It was a mistake and it won’t happen again. I can’t do this with you.”

“Jesus, why can’t you just tell me why you fucking hate me so much?” I asked, unable to believe that we’d just gone from a passionate embrace to arguing again within five seconds flat. We were like one of those crazy couples from a teen drama show. Not that we were a couple. Oh no, she’d made it very clear that would never happen.

“You know why. I have to go,” she mumbled, pushing past me and heading back down the hall.

I followed closely behind her. “Look, let me drive you home at least. You’ve barely been here for a week. You don’t know the number for a cab or how to give directions around this city.”

She turned back to me, her eyes flashing again. “I’ll call Roy.”

“He’s out tonight at that business dinner.”

“Well then I’ll call Victoria. Roy said if I ever needed something and couldn’t get hold of him, then I could call her. She’ll send me a cab.”

I rolled my eyes. Victoria was the worst. She’d been Roy’s head personal assistant since before he met and married my mother, and she was batshit insane. She spent half her time fawning over Roy like he was her father or something, and the rest of the time hitting on me. She was pretty hot, but there was no fucking way I’d touch her with a ten foot pole. Let’s just say she had a sweet tooth for nose candy, if you know what I mean.

Crazy girls were one thing, but crazy girls with a coke habit were another thing entirely. I had no idea how Roy didn’t notice and fire her. I mean, she was constantly sniffing like she had a head cold, and no regular person could work fourteen hour days without stopping for a break. A while back, I’d told my mother to tell him out of concern for his company and their reputation, and not long after that Victoria had taken some time off. So for all I knew, Roy had sent her to rehab for a while and then rehired her when she got clean. None of my business, but I was still staying far, far away from that bundle of crazy.

“I’m taking you home,” I said, grabbing Arizona’s arm. “And that’s final.”

We drove home in silence, and when we returned she went flying out of the car like a bat out of hell. Like, actually full-on running up to the house to get away from me. Jesus, was I that bad of a kisser? Nah, it wasn’t that. There was definitely some deeper reason as to why she hated me.

“Arizona!” I called out to her as she sped up the stairs to her bedroom. “Can we just talk for a sec?”

Her only reply was the slam of a door, and I sighed. I lit up a cigarette and took a drag, the nicotine immediately hitting my bloodstream but doing nothing to take the edge off all the bullshit from earlier. I wasn’t supposed to smoke indoors, but no one else was home except Miss Crazy Train upstairs, so I didn’t really care. Fuck, I was horny. I didn’t know what it was about her, but she drove me fucking crazy, even when she was pushing me away and looking at me like I was something she’d found in a ditch on the side of a road.

I scrolled through my phone contacts list, trying to put her out of my mind for a while. There were at least twenty chicks who I could call for a quick and easy lay, but I ended up just throwing my phone across the room in frustration. Nope. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, not when the sweet taste of Arizona’s full lips was still haunting my mouth.

I guess I was in for another night of jerking off like the pussy little bitch I’d apparently become since I met her.

Fucking yay for me.

CHAPTER NINE

ARIZONA

“So you and Crest,” Tina said on the other end of the phone line. “Spill. I can tell something’s going on from all the way up here in the sticks. You’ve sounded weird the last few times we chatted.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh as I inspected my eyebrows in the bathroom mirror. “You’re right. I didn’t want anyone to know about this because it’s so gross, but he kissed me at a party we went to the other week.”

“Did you kiss him back?” she asked, her tone suspicious.

“Um…for a second,” I admitted.

“I thought we agreed he was an asshole, Ari. Seriously, that dude is bad news. I still can’t even believe he’s your frickin’ stepbrother. Why on earth would you kiss him back? Please don’t tell me you like him!”

“No! I can’t stand him,” I said.

I had no response aside from that. I didn’t know how to explain to her that whenever I was in close proximity to Mason, I seemed to lose all sense of reason. Yes, I knew he was an ass, but damn if everything about his body, face and scent didn’t distract me for just long enough to let him get close.

It had been two weeks since what I’d started to refer to as The Thing had happened, and I’d avoided him like the plague ever since. He seemed to have noticed that I was doing so, and he’d been ignoring me right back. No texts, no stupid pranks. Nothing. I knew I’d been horrible and immature by kissing him back for a brief moment and then screaming at him to get away from me, but it was the strangest thing. I really hadn’t wanted to kiss him, but I simply couldn’t help it. The second his warm lips had crushed down on mine, my mind had gone completely and utterly blank.

What was more unbelievable was how my body responded. Every cell of my being should have been screaming for me to get away from him, but instead everything had clouded over and the throbbing between my legs had intensified to a point where I’d felt like I might explode. Then my brain finally ticked over and pulled itself out of the haze, reminding me why I disliked him so much.

It hadn’t been too hard to keep away from him in the time since. He’d had to go away for a while to some charity thing Layla sent him to out west, and I was so busy at my new job at Rosacorp during the day that I was rarely at home anyway. The main office was about a forty minute drive from home up in Providence, and I usually went in with Roy in the mornings or took one of his cars in myself.

I was just doing general admin stuff for the time being while I got a feel for the place. That way I could actually have some real experience rather than just being handed an amazing job straight away simply because of who my father was. I’d been nervous at first seeing as I had no idea what was appropriate to wear to an office run by a billionaire, but Roy had easily solved that. A personal stylist had shown up at the house a couple of days after the party I’d attended with Mason, and she’d taken my measurements and then made some calls.

Three hours after that, a delivery had been made, and my closet was now fully stocked with designer blouses, chic little sundresses, gowns for any events I might have to attend, stylish winter coats, and even designer pajamas. I had no idea how much it all cost, but judging from the expensive fabric, perfect cuts and designer labels, I was willing to bet that just one thing from my new wardrobe cost more than my entire old wardrobe put together. It was crazy. People always said that money didn’t buy happiness, but clearly those people didn’t know where to shop…

All kidding aside, I was finally feeling settled into my new home. Layla hadn’t been around much, and I’d dismissed her comments about my weight as a one-off thing that she didn’t mean. Roy and I still spent as much time together as we could, and I was really starting to feel attached to him. The gorgeous clothes, house and other perks of his fortune were nice, but they weren’t the reason I chose to stay. Hell, if he’d been poor I still would have wanted to get to know him. He was a great guy.

It was just an unfortunate reality that part of getting to know him meant dealing with his heinous stepson. Dammit. Why did every single one of my thoughts lead back to Mason?

“It’s fine, Tina. Really. It was just a mistake,” I finally said.

“You know what your problem is, right?” she asked. “You’re in your late teens, you’ve got all these crazy hormones flying around, and you’re not doing anything about it. I know you want to wait for the perfect guy, and that’s fine…but you should stay well away from guys like Mason Crest in the meantime, because it can be tempting and you might end up doing something you’ll regret. That’s probably why you kissed him back.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I feel so bad for telling you to hook up with him when you first met him. It’s like I put the idea into your subconscious or something, before we found out what a dick he is,” she said.

“Don’t worry, it’s never going to happen again. I’m not even remotely interested in him,” I said, trying to convince myself more than I was trying to convince her.

I was totally, absolutely, completely one-hundred percent lying to myself.

***

A few hours later, I was well into my day at work when the elevator dinged. I looked up at the chrome doors out of habit to see who had arrived on the floor, and Victoria stepped out and approached me, stiletto heels clacking against the tiles as they always did. If she didn’t have a perpetually-snooty look fixed on her face, then she might have actually been nice to look at, but I couldn’t stand being around her.

All she did was go out of her way to make bitchy comments about me, my job performance, my appearance, and anything else she could think of, all in a voice dripping with contempt. Unless Roy was around, of course. In that case, her voice would be sweet as cherry pie and she’d sing my praises until the cows came home. Two-faced bitch. She barely rated above Mason on my list of undesirables.

At first, the other staff members in the office had been on the fence about the situation. They already didn’t seem to like Victoria very much, but they’d also initially been wary of me because the way they saw it, I was just the CEO’s daughter who’d been handed a job despite having zero qualifications. That was true, but they’d gradually warmed to me when they’d realized I was here to work and learn, not screw around all day.

Once they’d realized that, the barriers all seemed to drop, and they were friendly as anything. I think that annoyed Victoria even more.

“Arizona,” she said sharply, tapping my desk with a pen as if I hadn’t already noticed her presence. The way she said my name made it sound as if I were a convicted pedophile awaiting trial.

“Uh-huh?” I said, pressing my lips into a semblance of a smile.

“You haven’t forgotten about the media lunch, have you?”

Oh crap. I
had
forgotten. Layla had organized for a bunch of reporters to do a story on our haphazard little family now that the news had spread about Roy finding me, and I’d been dreading it for the last week. I had no idea how it had slipped my mind, and I looked up at her.

“Um, what time is it again?”

She rolled her eyes. “In just under an hour. I came to get you and escort you to the hotel restaurant where it’s being held at. Roy and Layla are already there, and Mason is heading there straight from the airport. He just got back from L.A.”

I stood and hastily gathered up my things. “I’m ready to go,” I said.

She shot me another look of pure disdain. “That’s what you’re wearing? Really playing up the whole ‘I’m just a poor girl from the country’ angle, aren’t you?”

I gazed down at my cream-colored silk blouse and black pencil skirt with my eyebrows furrowed. What was wrong with my outfit? I hadn’t even picked it; it was one of the work outfits the stylist had sent over. As usual, Victoria was just being a bitch for no reason. I was usually bad at standing up for myself, but I’d gone without my morning coffee earlier on, and I was
not
in the mood for this crap.

She turned away, and I called out to her.

“Wait. Can I ask you something?” I said. “I always seem to get the impression that you don’t really like me all that much. Can you tell me why? I mean, if I’ve done something to offend you, all you have to do is tell me instead of treating me like dirt.”

She narrowed her eyes and sniffed before replying.

“Fine. You really want to know?” she said. “Hmm, let’s see. You wander in here just a month ago to monopolize all of Roy’s time, and everything just gets handed to you on a silver platter. You get to live in that nice big mansion and drive his nice new cars, and meanwhile, I’ve been the one to work like a dog for him and take care of him all these years. Five years, Arizona. He’s practically been like family to me. And then
you
showed up.”

She practically spat those last few words, and I wrinkled my nose, trying and failing to see her point. “Okay, well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but he is my father. I can’t help that. I didn’t ask for any of this. I had no idea he even existed until a month ago.”

She put her hands on her slim hips. “Exactly. You didn’t even know he
existed.
I did. I’ve helped him. I’ve worked eighty hour weeks for that man for this long, and it should be
me
getting rewarded, not some little hick from the middle of nowhere who’s done nothing to deserve it.”

I clutched my handbag in a death-grip, resisting the urge to smack her in the face with it. “It’s your
job
to work for him and help him out. Your sense of entitlement is insane. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t know he existed until recently. If you want to blame someone for that, blame the man who kidnapped me. I would’ve
loved
to have been in Roy’s life before now.”

I knew I was right, but her words still stung. I’d barely been able to spend a cent on the credit cards I’d received since I arrived here, purely because I didn’t feel like I’d done anything to deserve it. It was Roy’s money, not mine. He was always lavishing me with gifts of expensive clothes, dinners and entertainment stuff, not to mention my room in his Newport mansion…but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t earned any of it, even while working at his office.

Victoria was still an entitled bitch, though. Seriously, was she on crack or something? I couldn’t think of another reason why she was being so delusional. Just because she saw Roy as some sort of father figure didn’t mean he had to treat her like a daughter and give her all the things he’d given to me.

She stared at me silently for a minute and then held her hands up. “Fine. Let’s just go to this lunch and we’ll forget I said anything. All right?”

“Sure,” I said, stalking ahead of her to the elevator. “Let’s go.”

I wasn’t actually going to forget what she’d said anytime soon, but the last thing I needed was for her to be up my ass even more than usual over a petty little spat. Not when I was about to go face public enemy number one, otherwise known as Mason, at this lunch thing.

Ugh. How was I going to pretend for all the journalists that we were all one big happy family? On top of that, how was I going to pretend I hadn’t had my tongue down my stepbrother’s throat just a couple of weeks ago?

It was so crazy that I could be so attracted to someone and yet despise them so much. Surely there had to be some sort of scientific explanation for it. Maybe Mason just had really powerful pheromones that made all my lady-parts flip out.

Yup, that had to be it. Pheromones.