Stepbrother Forever: A Stepbrother Romance (42 page)

“Sounds like they don’t have a clue what they’re doing,” I
said, and that much was a genuine commentary on the matter. I had learned
enough from my father, not to mention Harvard, to know an incompetently-run
business when I saw one. Or, in this case, heard of one. “You were probably
lucky to get out.”

Maddy snorted. “Yeah, in one way, but what about the other?
I’m broke, Preston. Or I will be once I handle my bills and rent this month. My
lease isn’t up for another eight months, and if I break it early, I’ll owe my
landlord
thousands.
” She continued to
fret until the waiter came over to take her order. As she struggled with
remembering the name, I interrupted.

“She’ll have the beef bourguignon with your Chateau Musar
2011 Jeune Rouge. Bring the bottle.”

Maddy finally seemed to relax some at the promise of wine. Or
at least, she did until the waiter turned to me and asked, “And for the lady’s
date?”

I laughed. It wasn’t meant to offend Maddy, but I could see
her cheeks flush. I waved my hand. “No, no. We’re not… she’s my sister. Well,
she will be, anyway.”

“I see,” the waiter said. “My apologies. What can I get for
you, Mr. Harvey?”

“The twelve-ounce Wagyu A5 Kobe, served New York
strip-style,” I said. It was one of my favorites. Most people were told to
order a day in advance, but I wasn’t most people. “With the regular sides.”

“Very good, Mr. Harvey,” he said. It seemed strange that he
knew my name but I couldn’t remember his face, let alone anything else about
him. The hostess probably tipped him off. That’s just good service. The waiter
took our menus and hurried off in the direction of the kitchen while I turned
my gaze back on Madison.

“Where were we?”

She blinked. “You were ordering five hundred dollars in beef,
and I was telling you about how broke I am.”

I winced. “Right. Uh. Go on.”

She sighed, slumping back in her chair and tucking a strand
of her chocolate brown hair behind her ear. I liked the way her nose twitched
when she brushed the lock away from her face. It made the light dusting of
freckles over the bridge of it dance.

“It wasn’t just stuff like that, though. There were other
things that happened there. A lot of harassment, sexual and otherwise.” She
didn’t look at me when she said the words, like she was ashamed of something
that had been done to her by people outside of her control. “What kind of place
lets their managers call their administrative assistant a cunt right to her
face, just because she disagrees with him about a decision?”

I almost choked on my water. I glanced around to see if
anyone else had heard my stepsister utter the dreaded c-word. “Christ. Didn’t
you tell HR?”

“Of course I did,” she answered. “But what do you expect them
to do about it? It’s my word against a supervisor’s, and as I understand it,
that supervisor and the HR director are very good friends.”

“So… I don’t know, go over her head. Write the CEO, if you
have to.”

She laughed. “Right. The CEO who doesn’t know my name, who
makes more money in a day than I do in a year. He’s going to come fight my
battles? I’d ask if you’d been drinking, but they haven’t even brought the wine
yet.”

“There has to be something,” I insisted. I could feel my
blood rushing now, boiling, burning in my chest. I didn’t get worked up about a
lot of things, but for some reason the idea of someone hurting Maddy had me
seeing red. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that, Madison. Not by anyone.
Ever.”

She looked at me for a long time, silent and wide-eyed. There
was something scrutinizing about her gaze, like she was searching my eyes for
some kind of answer. By the time her lips parted, the waiter had returned and
set the bottle of wine on the table between us.

“Shall I pour?” he asked me.

I tore my gaze away from Maddy. “No. I think we’ve got it.”

Although he let us be, the moment—whatever it was—was now
gone. Maddy was now more interested in the wine than whatever she’d been on the
cusp of saying, and I didn’t know how to ask her what exactly had been on her
mind. I didn’t want to push things with her. After all, this was the first real
conversation we’d ever had, and I worried that prying too hard would be a
recipe for disaster.

But the more I thought about her predicament—her job, her
finances, the cold-hearted bitch her mother was—the more I realized that I did,
in fact, have an answer. It was the answer to the question she hadn’t asked,
the question that maybe she was too proud to. But I had it all the same, and
now that I understood what her silence had meant, I knew what I had to do.

I was going to change Madison Hearst’s life forever. She just
didn’t know it yet.

And maybe, just maybe, I could kill two birds with one stone.

To
my utter shock, lunch
with my brother-to-be wasn’t the disaster I’d imagined.

Preston was a spoiled brat. I’d gleaned that much on the
first day I’d met him. He’d rolled up late to a family dinner in a shiny new
Tesla with a devil-may-care grin and lipstick stains on his collar. I
immediately knew everything I needed to know about him from that point on—or so
I’d thought.

The man sitting in front of me in the restaurant was a
completely different guy. He was genuinely concerned about me, my job, and my
future. He made me laugh and didn’t make me feel ashamed for crying. I was
starting to think maybe I hadn’t given him a fair chance. Sure, he’d always be
the rich kid and I’d always be the poor one, but there was no reason we
couldn’t be civil.

By the time we left the restaurant, I was feeling better. I
still didn’t have a game plan, but at least it felt like someone was on my side
in spirit. That meant a lot, not feeling alone.

“Do you have a car?” he asked me.

Slowly, I shook my head. The daylight was a little
disorienting after spending over an hour in the dimly-lit café. “No. I take the
bus wherever I need to go.”

Preston wrinkled his nose at me. “Seriously? What about when
you need groceries?”

I shrugged. “Not all of us can afford eighty-five thousand
dollar cars, Preston.” And then, in an effort to be less defensive, I added: “It’s
only me, so I try to only get a little at a time. Lightweight stuff. Then I
carry it back on the bus with me. It’s better if you use those reusable bags.
They don’t break like the plastic ones do.”

He stared at me like I was from some other world. Maybe to
him, I was. All he’d ever known were luxury vehicles, grand manses and summer
homes, penthouse suites and personal chefs. He’d never wanted for anything a
day in his life, and I sincerely doubted that Preston Harvey ever took the
bus—even to school.

But he didn’t say anything. He kept his face a slate as he
offered, “Well, you can’t walk home in those.” He nodded to my shoes. “I’ll
drive you.”

I raised my brows. “Really? You want to spend more time with
your stepsister?”

He smiled and shrugged, his buff shoulders rippling
underneath his button-down. He had the blazer draped over his arm, and I didn’t
blame him. It was warm out.

“You’re not all that bad,” he informed me. When I pursed my
lips, he chuckled again. “Hopefully you can say the same for me.”

“Maybe,” I relented. “I’ll say this for you: you’re
definitely not who I’d expected you’d be.”

Now it was Preston’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “And who were
you expecting?”

“The guy who showed up late to dinner,” I said. “The one who
looked like he’d just rolled out of bed with a woman. You know. A playboy. An
elitist fuck.”

Preston grinned from ear to ear, one of those shit-eating
grins that would have looked infuriating on anyone else. And it
did
look infuriating on him, too. Just
not in the way I had anticipated. Beneath my annoyance was amusement, though I
was loath to let it show. There was something about him, something I couldn’t
quite place, but the more I was in his company, the less irritating he seemed.

I studied his face for a moment. The sun made his short,
tawny hair glitter like gold, and his impossibly blue eyes sparkled like the
clearest diamonds I’d ever seen. No, that wasn’t right. They were more like the
bottom of a glacier: a deep, frigid hue locked away beneath a layer of ice that
somehow seemed to be melting the more I stared at him.

I turned away, my heart beating in my ears and my cheeks
heating up. Preston was very handsome. Maybe if we’d met under different
circumstances… Maybe if our lives weren’t quite so different…

“All right,” I said, trying to clear the awkward silence
between us. “I’ll go with you. I’m really not all that far from here, so you
shouldn’t waste too much time.”

Preston shot me a look meant to remind me that time wasn’t
something he particularly worried about. Then he ushered me down the sidewalk
to his car, that beautiful Tesla I’d seen parked in the driveway of his
father’s estate the first day I’d met him.

I supposed billionaires and their sons could do as they
pleased, but I had to admit that I’d expected Preston to have some sort of
driver. Then again, from his suit, it looked like he might have just come from
a business meeting. I thought about asking him what it was about, but I didn’t
know a thing about his father’s company and in all likelihood, knowing the
details would only bore me.

I slid into the seat next to him, letting the cream-colored
leather cradle my body. It was supple and buttery, smooth and warm, just the
right temperature from having sat out in the sun half the afternoon. I had to admit
that I loved the car’s design. The angles and planes were just so masculine, so
clean, and the digital dashboard display was just plain nifty.

I watched him plug in my address to the built-in GPS system
between the air vents. When he pulled out of the spot he’d parallel parked it,
it was like we’d hardly moved until he pressed the accelerator and forced me
hard into the back of my seat. The display of manly car-grunt complete, we
settled into the little trip.

“I have to admit, this is a really nice ride,” I told him,
admiring the contrast between the beige bottom half of the dashboard and the
charcoal-colored top. “Smooth, too. Feels like we’re floating.”

“And it’s eco-friendly,” Preston said, putting on a pair of
sunglasses as he merged into heavier traffic. “That’s sort of a pet interest of
mine. My father owns enough factories to personally be responsible for the
depletion of the ozone layer, but just because he doesn’t see how harmful it is
doesn’t mean I don’t. One day, when he’s gone, I’ll change things.”

I blinked, impressed. “You’re going to save the planet?
 
Duly noted. Any other hobbies I should
know about?”

Preston smiled. “Well, I like sailing. I like the vastness of
the ocean, how you can just ride out into the center of it and there’s no one
for miles around. It’s kind of like meditating, only I don’t have to clear my
mind—the sea does it for me.” Though I couldn’t see his eyes, I thought Preston
looked a little wistful. “I haven’t been out there in a while, though. Not
since our parents got engaged.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked him.

He sighed, turning down one of the side streets the GPS had
ordered him onto. “Ever since my father decided to remarry, he’s been gung-ho
about inducting me into the family business—more so than usual. My best guess
is that he’s considering an early retirement, but that he wants to keep the
money flowing in without having to worry about what a board of directors might
do with it in his absence. That falls on my shoulders. Hell, the honeymoon
they’re planning means he’ll be gone over a month, and I guess that’s when he
intends to hand over all of the control and responsibilities to me.”

“Jeez,” I muttered, looking out the window at the city
passing us by. “What the hell are they going to do for over a month, anyway?” I
winced once I heard the words come out of my mouth. “Ugh, no. Don’t tell me. I
really
don’t want to know.”

Preston laughed. I was beginning to like the sound of it.
“Neither do I. So let’s talk about something else…” He eyed me over his shades
at an intersection. “Since we’re on the subject of love lives, how’s yours?”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help but smile as well.
“Nonexistent. You don’t have to worry about me flying off for over a month any
time soon.”

“Not even a boyfriend?”

“No. Not for a while.”

“Girlfriend?”

I looked back over at him and sighed, shaking my head. “What
about you?”

He hesitated long enough for me to get the idea that if there
was someone, it wasn’t an official someone—or at least, nobody that he wanted
to admit to. I briefly wondered if Preston was the sort of man who used his
wealth to rent out escorts, but then I considered how attractive he was. With
those muscles and that face, there was no way he had any trouble picking up
women for free, or as “free” as a billionaire could get away with, I supposed.

“Not really,” he settled on at last. “No one I would bring
home, anyway. There’s this girl, but…” He trailed off as he moved through the
light. “We’re not in love, or anything. She doesn’t respect my boundaries. I
called it off a few weeks ago, but she still got her claws in me. I have a
feeling it’s going to get messy.”

I was surprised he was being so honest with me. Surprised,
and impressed. Preston was inspiring a lot of that in me lately. Maybe I’d
finally found a family member who gave a shit about someone other than
themselves.

“If you’re not happy, it’s better to cut things off now. Cold
turkey,” I assured him, dispensing my first piece of possibly-unsolicited
sisterly advice. “The longer you drag things out, the worse it will be in the
end. If she’s as bad at reading your intentions as you say, then giving her any
hope might seem like some kind of promise. And next thing you know, you’re
screwed.”

Preston nodded slowly. I could tell by the way the muscle
twitched in his jaw that he was mulling over everything I’d just said. “You
know, I was thinking the exact same thing. Still, it’s hard to let someone down
like that, especially when you think they might go off the deep end the moment
you do.”

“It’s better either way,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve lived
through it. I know.”

It was true. My last relationship had ended badly. We’d been
together two years, and they were the most hellish of my life. Sometimes I
couldn’t figure out which was more abusive: Tyler—my ex—or my job.

Former job,
I reminded
myself as my apartment building came into view. The trip hadn’t lasted very
long. It really put into perspective what a roundabout way the bus took.
All this family bonding has been great and
everything, but don’t forget: you’re still screwed.

As soon as Preston put the Tesla into park, I could feel a
panic attack swelling in my chest. I sat still for a moment, trying not to
think about how bad things were, how this might be the last month I’d spend
living in my upstairs apartment. I felt sick to my stomach suddenly, like I was
going to throw up, but then Preston put his hand over mine and I gasped out
loud.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

I turned. His face was so close to mine that I could smell
his cologne. There was something luxurious and silken about it, maybe Givenchy
or Clive Christian. The latter wouldn’t surprise me. It was the most expensive
cologne in the world, but someone like Preston Harvey could certainly afford
it.

Right now, I wasn’t thinking about his money. I was thinking
about the flash of his eyes, the sharp cut of his jaw, the soft strength of his
hand holding mine. On some strange instinct, I lifted my thumb out from beneath
his palm and caressed the backs of his fingers, brushing the pad down from his
knuckles to the tips of his nails.

He didn’t move his hand away, nor did he tear his eyes from
mine. There was comfort in his embrace, but the longer our hands remained
entwined, the more I felt that solace shift to something more.

Something darker. Something more heated. Something that I
wasn’t sure if it terrified me, or if it gave me the greatest thrill I’d ever
known.