Trick - A Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

“Funny,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Off you go.”

I yawned and sat down again as the director called out cues.

“Okay, guys, you know the script. Patrick, you’re standing there with Ana…no, to the left a bit. Yep, that’s good. You’ve just come home from your first secret date, and you go in for a brief kiss while you think everyone else is out. Then Lexie, you enter from the right and catch them in the act. Got it?”

The cameras began rolling, and I watched with fascination as Patrick got into character. It was strange to watch him playing a nervous, innocent high school kid. It wasn’t like he had any experience in that department. He’d been an alpha dog from day one.

“Chris…I had a really good time at the lake today,” Ana said, widening her eyes and looking up at Patrick.

“Me too,” he replied. “Dana…I…I just…”

He leaned in and pecked her on the lips, and Lexie came out of a fake door and walked onto the stage to ‘catch’ them.

She gasped. “Dana! Oh my…”

And then Patrick went off script.

He pulled away from Ana, walked right over to Lexie and grabbed both sides of her head with his hands before tilting her face upwards for a passionate kiss. She murmured softly in surprise and let it happen, and I could see their tongues entwining all the way over from my seat.

“Cut!” the director yelled as they finally broke away from each other. “Patrick, what the heck do you think you’re doing? Chris was only meant to kiss Dana, not Lucy!”

Patrick smirked and looked right over at me as he answered the director.

“Sorry, Merv,” he said. “I just really felt like kissing
Lucy
…”

CHAPTER SEVEN

LUCY

I felt my face turn bright red. No one else in the studio seemed to have noticed, but the way Patrick had just emphasized the word ‘Lucy’ made it very obvious to me what he was up to. He hadn’t forgotten about our little interlude last night. He’d just been biding his time to play more stupid games with me.

I turned away from the stage and focused very intensely on a blueberry Danish while the filming continued. I didn’t want to look at Patrick. I
couldn’t
look at him. If I did, I knew that all the strange, confused feelings from last night would come rushing back in a torrent of craziness.

I’d been exhausted earlier over lack of sleep, but now I was heady with energy. I felt like running, kicking, punching…but that wasn’t my job. My job was to sit here and wait for Patrick to finish his scenes.

When it was finally over, we barely spoke. I had no idea what to say to him, and for once in his life, he didn’t seem to have anything to say either. We hopped in his car, and I directed him to the nearest Red Cross blood donation center.

“So we’ll just go in, donate blood, and act all casual,” I said. “Make it seem like you’re a little shocked when the photographers see you. That way it isn’t obvious that we set this up.”

He rolled his eyes and delicately pressed his foot down on the gas pedal. “You know, I have donated blood of my own accord before.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. If you don’t believe me, I have a card in my wallet to prove it. AB-negative, sweetheart.”

He glanced over at me for a second before continuing. “I’m not as shitty as you make me out to be. I do help people sometimes. I’ve just kept it quiet before now.”

“Why, because it doesn’t fit your image to be seen doing good things for the community?” I asked.

“No. Because if I’m going to do something good, I’d rather do it for the sake of it, not just for the media attention.”

I sank back into my seat. Wow. Patrick ‘Bad Boy Extraordinaire’ Archer had actually said something that a decent person would say.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to imply anything bad.”

“Whatever. It’s fine,” he said.

Neither of us had mentioned his behavior back on the set yet, and I wasn’t going to be the first to say anything. He’d only done it to get a rise out of me. That much was obvious from the smirk on his face when he’d looked at me afterwards.

I decided to distract myself from him by texting Jimmy. Hopefully he’d actually reply for once, and I could figure out if he really had been seeing someone else.

Hey. Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Everything okay?

Surprisingly, he messaged back almost immediately.

Hey babe. Soz. Been busy. R u free tonite? I miss ur body ;)

Maybe if I hooked up with him, I’d be able to get the kiss with Patrick out of my head once and for all.

Yeah, I’m free. I’m at my Dad’s place in Calabasas. Wanna come over?

K. I’ll be there at ten.

Ten seemed a little late - almost booty call late – but it was better than nothing.

“Who are you texting?” Patrick asked, glancing over at me.

“Jimmy. I’m seeing him tonight,” I said.

I had no idea why I told him that. It was none of his business. It felt like part of me had only mentioned it to make him jealous, but why would I do that? I didn’t care about making Patrick jealous…did I? No, that was juvenile. I’d simply answered his question; that was all.

***

By a quarter to ten, I was fairly tired after the long day I’d had, but I was still amped to see Jimmy. I wanted to know what was going on with him, and I was determined to find out. I didn’t want to blindside him like a crazy person with a bunch of wild accusations, so I decided to play it cool and wait till he’d been here for at least half an hour before I casually brought up what Claire had seen the other day.

As usual, he was late, and I kept myself occupied by trying out a bunch of new lip tints my Mom had bought for me a while ago. He finally called to be buzzed in the gate and then knocked on the guesthouse door at ten-thirty, and I answered it with a big smile.

“Hey!”

“Hey, yourself,” he replied before stepping in. He let out a low whistle. “Nice place. Pretty cool that you have it all to yourself. I guess that means we won’t be bothered by your Dad or anything…”

His voice trailed off, and he leaned down to kiss me. His lips were cold, and I felt nothing as we embraced. His hands groped at my breasts, and I pushed him away.

“Wait…Jimmy. I haven’t seen you in ages. Why don’t we just talk for a while?” I said.

He curled his lip up. “You think I drove all the way out here just to talk?”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but his words cut to the core of me. Was that it? Was I so worthless that all I was good for was sex?

No. That was bullshit. I wasn’t going to let my high school demons continue to affect me anymore.

“I think we really do need to talk,” I finally said.

He ignored me and leaned in close for another kiss, and when I pulled back I noticed that his pupils were dilated as wide as saucers.

“Did you take some sort of pills?” I asked.

He ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, Lucy, why do you always have to be asking questions? Just fucking relax already.”

I folded my arms. “No. I told you we need to talk. My friend said she saw you with another girl a couple of nights ago. Is that true?”

“No. I was with my parents two nights ago. Your friend is making shit up,” he replied.

I could tell he was lying.

“Maybe you should go,” I said.

His eyes darkened with anger. “I told you, I didn’t drive all the fucking way out here for nothing. Don’t be such a fucking bitch.”

With that, he grabbed me and pushed me towards my bed, and I struggled against him.

“Jimmy! Let me go!”

He was much taller and stronger than me, and he covered my mouth as I tried to scream. It was so unfair. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman was, she could get physically overpowered by a douchebag of a man nine times out of ten. My heart raced with terror as he slammed me back on the bed and pressed himself against me, and he whispered in my ear as I tried to scream beneath his hand.

“Shh. You’ll ruin it for me, babe,” he said, dragging his lips across my neck.

I winced and struggled against him to no avail, and pain rushed through me again as he reached down into my top and twisted one of my nipples. He finally took his hand off my mouth as he reached down to take off his pants, and I took the opportunity to scream.

“Dad! Anyone! Help!”

Jimmy slapped me across the face, hard. My skin stung where he’d hit me, and my mouth dropped open in shock. No one had ever hit me before. Whatever drugs he was on, it was obviously making him lose his mind, and I was in a lot of trouble. I kept trying to struggle against him, but that only seemed to arouse him further, and one hand crept down the waistband of my pants, sliding further and further towards the area between my legs.

No, no, no!
With his hand over my mouth again a second later, I couldn’t cry out again. I could barely breathe. Tears streamed down my face, warm on my skin, and I shook my head, silently begging him to stop.

He ignored my pleas and brought his other hand to my neck, his expression dark.

“Ever been choked, babe?” he whispered, his lips curling up into a sadistic smile. “It’s pretty hot. Apparently it makes you come harder.”

Oh, fuck. I could seriously die here tonight.

He squeezed, moving the hand from my mouth to my neck as well. Fear coursed through me, my vision blurring at the edges as my oxygen supply was cut off. I could feel his hardness pressing between my legs, trying to get inside me, and I stopped struggling. It was of no use. The more I tried to stop him, the more he’d hurt me.

I felt myself drifting into unconsciousness as he choked me harder, and just before I slipped away into the darkness, I had a vivid memory of Claire and myself back in South Africa. We’d gone to a street carnival in Cape Town one night, down at the V&A Waterfront, and there’d been an old man who claimed to be able to read people’s auras. He said he could tell all sorts of things about a person, like if and when they would get married, how many kids they would have, and when they would die. He’d told me that I’d live to be ninety, but right now, I could only think one thing.

He was wrong.

Suddenly I was awake again, coughing and spluttering, and Jimmy was being dragged off me. I heard shouting, and I moaned and rubbed my neck before summoning the strength to sit up.

Patrick.

He was here. He’d dragged Jimmy off me, and now he had him on the floor.

“You fucking piece of shit!” he shouted before curling one hand into a fist and slamming it into Jimmy’s face.

Blow after blow rained down upon Jimmy, and I watched with a mixture of terror and admiration. Despite everything that had happened between us, despite how much we disliked each other…Patrick had saved me. On the other hand, it looked like he was actually about to kill Jimmy.

“Stop,” I weakly called out, unsteadily balancing on the edge of the bed as I tried to drag more and more oxygen into my lungs. “Patrick! Stop!”

My voice seemed to get through to him, and he abruptly stopped. His knuckles were covered in blood, and he stood up, pulling Jimmy to his feet as well.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he snarled, pushing Jimmy towards the door. “You ever come near my stepsister again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Blood was streaming from Jimmy’s nose and lips, and he didn’t say a word as he stumbled out of the door. Patrick came over to me and gently ran his fingers across the red marks on my neck.

“Lucy…” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Are you all right?”

As I looked up into his eyes, the answer popped into my head immediately. I was bruised, shaken and sore, but none of that seemed to matter with him standing right here. Because of him, I was safe.

In that moment, I was a hell of a lot more than all right.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PATRICK

Looking down at Lucy, I felt a twinge of something in my guts; something I hadn’t felt in years.

Fear.

When I’d walked in here and seen that bastard attacking her, I’d been terrified. There, I said it. I was fucking
terrified
. The thought of something happening to her was enough to drive me wild, and I’d immediately jumped into action, dragging that prick off her and smashing his face in, not even caring about the aching in my knuckles. I was bigger than him, so it wasn’t hard, but he was twice the size of Lucy. If I hadn’t come in at the right moment, there was no telling what he might’ve done to her. He could’ve raped her, and it had looked like he was just about to when I entered.

Fuck, he could’ve killed her.

“Lucy. Are you all right?” I repeated.

She blinked and nodded. “I think so,” she said.

“I think I should take you to the hospital. I’ll wake your Dad and my Mom up first so we can tell them what’s happening.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. I’m just a bit sore. Let them sleep.”

I put an arm under hers for support and helped her to her feet. “Well, we do need to call the police. Come on. We’ll get you into the house, I’ll make you a cup of tea, and we’ll call them.”

She nodded again. Her whole body was violently shaking, and I carefully guided her out of the guesthouse, up the path, and into the main house.

“Patrick,” she whispered as I gently helped her into a chair in the dining room. “Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t there.”

“Let’s not think about that right now,” I said in a quiet, soothing tone as I rubbed her back.

“What were you doing out there?” she asked, gazing up at me.

It killed me to see her like this. Her eyes were bloodshot and teary, and for what felt like the hundredth time already, I silently thanked God that I’d been there to help her.

“I was coming to tell you that you could sleep in tomorrow if you wanted. Filming on the set’s been cancelled for tomorrow. Ana came down with food poisoning a few hours ago,” I replied.

“Oh. I hope she feels better soon.”

Typical Lucy. She’d just been brutally attacked, and she was still worrying about whether or not my coworker was all right.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” I told her.

I went into the kitchen and called the police, then made her a cup of tea and took it out to her in the dining room. Her arms were still shaking, so I held it steady for her as she took her first sips.

“Thank you,” she said, giving me a weak smile.

“No problem. When the police get here, you’re going to have to give them a full statement of what happened. They’ll probably want to take some photos of your neck and any other areas he hurt, and they’ll probably want to follow up with you another day to talk about pressing assault charges.”

She nodded and took another shaky sip before replying. “Won’t you get in trouble for what you did to him?”

“I don’t give a shit. The prick deserved it.”

“I guess I could always say I did it. Self-defense,” she said.

I grinned in spite of the situation. At least she still had somewhat of a sense of humor. “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I doubt the police will care much about what I did to him when they hear what he did to you.”

She gave me a watery smile, and then her face turned to a curious expression. “How do you know so much about what happens when the police come to take my report and all?”

I let out a deep sigh before replying.

“Before my Mom met your Dad, she went through a lot of shitty boyfriends. They used to beat her up. I tried to stop them whenever I could, but sometimes I wasn’t there. Or sometimes they were stronger than me. So I know what it’s like.”

Her eyes widened. “God,” she said, her voice pained. “Patrick…I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to apologize. That’s just how things were back then.”

“When you used to come to school with bruises on you…is that why?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded but didn’t seem to know what else to say. I let her sit in silence for a while as she drank, and then I moved my chair a little closer to hers.

“Do you wanna talk about what happened back there?” I asked.

She swallowed her final mouthful of tea and looked down at her lap.

“I think Jimmy was on some sort of drugs when he came around. Things haven’t been good between us for a while. I should’ve known it was over a long time ago. He’s never treated me nicely, and I’ve barely heard from him at all lately. This morning Claire said she’d seen him with another girl, so when he came around, I confronted him. Then…then he attacked me.”

Once more, I felt shame course through me. This was my fault. After what I’d done to her in high school, I’d probably set her up to believe that she couldn’t do any better than guys who treated her like dirt.

I opened my mouth to tell her how fucking sorry I was, and how I knew it was all my fault that she’d turned out so insecure, but the police chose that moment to show up.

I let them in, and they sat down at the table with us and asked Lucy to give them a statement of everything that had happened. She spoke haltingly at first, and I gave her an encouraging nod to keep going and get it all out.

“Uh-huh. Okay,” one of the officers said a few minutes later. “Now, can you give us his address? His license plate number would help too, so we can find him even if he hasn’t gone home.”

Lucy gave them his home address and car details, and the other officer pulled out a camera.

“Miss Martinez, would you mind if I take some pictures of your neck? It’ll be useful to have as evidence in the case against him if you want to press charges.”

Lucy nodded. As she pulled her hair back and craned her neck so that the officer could take the photos, rage boiled up inside me all over again. Her delicate skin was already beginning to bruise from where Jimmy had tried to choke her. How dare that fucking animal put his hands on her like that? I wanted to hunt the fucker down and finish what I’d started earlier. I wanted to make him feel ten times the pain he’d put her through.

I wanted to kill him.

When the police were done with us, they left with the promise of catching Jimmy, and I sat down again.

“If that fucking tool ever comes anywhere near you again, I’ll do more than break his nose,” I said. “I’ll break his fucking neck.”

She gave me another weak smile. “We’re trying to clean up your image, Patrick. Somehow I doubt that getting you slammed with a murder charge will help with that.”

“Yeah. I guess not. Anyway, this might not be the right time, but I’m sorry about that stunt I pulled earlier at the studio. Seems really stupid now.”

I really was sorry. I’d only done it to get her attention. After what had happened between us last night, she hadn’t said a word about it, and for some reason that had pissed me off. I’d wanted to give her a little reminder of the kiss, so I’d kissed the actress playing a girl with the same name. It was fucking stupid, though. Juvenile and pathetic. Besides, she’d barely reacted and basically ignored me the rest of the day, and now Lexie Greyson was probably convinced I was into
her
. Fuck that. Lexie was a snobby bitch.

“It’s all right,” Lucy said. “Don’t worry about it.”

She yawned and stretched as she finished her sentence.

“You should get some sleep,” I said.

“I know. I’m just freaked out about going back to the guesthouse,” she replied.

“I’ve got an idea. There’s plenty of spare bedrooms in here if you wanted to stay in one of them, but I was thinking you could stay in my room.”

“What?”

I held my hands up. “Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting we share a bed. I’ve got a couch in my room, and I can sleep on that while you take the bed. That way I’m right there in the room with you. It might make you feel safer. I think you need that after the night you’ve had.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’d like that. Thanks.”

We trudged upstairs, and I let her into my bedroom. Even though I’d hooked up with countless chicks, I’d never let a single one of them see my room. It was my own private world, with a lot of things that might surprise some people who thought they knew what I was about…Lucy included.

She looked around and then fixed her gaze on one of my shelves, and her eyebrows shot up as she took a step closer.

“You have a lot of books.”

“I know.”

She ran her hands over the spines of some of the books. There was everything ranging from epic fantasy by Tolkien to first editions by beat generation authors like Kerouac and Burroughs, and I shifted uncomfortably where I stood as I watched her. No one else in the world knew what I really liked to do with my spare time, and now she did.

“I had no idea you liked to read. These don’t seem like your kind of books,” she said.

“Oh? What sort of books do you think would suit me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. How To Be A Douche For Dummies? Ten Steps To Seduction?” she said with a mischievous smile.

I chuckled. “Glad to see your sense of humor is back already. Seriously, though, I never used to like reading. I only started getting into it a year or so ago. That’s what made me start thinking about maybe doing other stuff aside from acting. I’ve even been thinking about doing some online college courses or something. But I don’t know yet.”

“What changed?” she asked, gazing over at me with those big, innocent eyes.

I rubbed my chin. “Er…honestly? I guess it was because of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. It took a while, but all the stuff you used to say when you tutored me…I guess it finally started to sink in. You always used to go on about how knowledge and education were important, and reading was the key to that. Y’know, I was really surprised when you didn’t end up going to college.”

“Well, I’m glad you got something good out of our study sessions,” she said.

Her voice had suddenly turned stiff, and I knew she was thinking about what I’d done to her after our last study session.

“Lucy…I know this is two and a half years too late. I haven’t brought it up before now because I figured you didn’t wanna hear it, and also I guess I was too much of a pussy. But I’m sorry for hurting you back then. I’m really fucking sorry. I’m worried I wrecked your life, and I think about it all the time. I’ve never been able to forgive myself, and I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I don’t want to see you like this ever again. You can do better.”

She sighed heavily. “You think I ended up with a tool like Jimmy because of what you did to me in high school?” she said.

I shrugged. “Well, yeah, sorta. I mean, if I hadn’t hurt you so bad and made you feel so shitty and insecure, you might have ended up with someone who treated you better.”

She looked over at the window for a moment. “Why did you do that to me? I always wondered.”

“Because I was an immature little asshole. I cared so much about my reputation that I let it get in the way of how I really felt. And when Mom married your Dad, I knew I’d probably have to see you a lot, so I was a dick to you to make sure you kept hating me like I deserved. That’s no excuse, though. Like I said, I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just want you to know I’m sorry.”

She turned away from the window and looked right at me.

“I won’t sugarcoat it, Patrick. I hated you back then. You really messed me up, and sometimes I even wanted to kill you. But it’s not your fault I ended up dating Jimmy. That’s on me. I was deluding myself into thinking he was a good guy.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “You and I were so young back then. We’re still young, I suppose, but we were only seventeen when all that happened. And now that you’ve explained why you did it, I have to say I kinda get it.”

“You do?”

“What you told me earlier tonight, about all the abusive guys your Mom dated and your experiences with that…you wanted out of that life, for both you and your Mom, and we both know your reputation has helped with that. It helped you become really confident and popular, that helped you get your first TV role, and now you and your Mom have a much better life because of it. So when you were only seventeen and wanted to make things better, I guess it made sense for you to be so desperate to protect your image. You felt like you needed it. Maybe more so than others.”

I’d never really thought about it that way, but she was right.

“It’s still no excuse for the way I treated you,” I replied. “Shit, Lucy, you’re always so nice and understanding. I don’t deserve it. That’s why I wanted you to keep hating me.”

“I don’t hate you anymore,” she said. “If you say you’re sorry, then I believe you. I don’t want to hold onto a grudge anymore. I have for so long, and it’s not healthy. And you need to let go of the past as well. Stop trying to get me to hate you.”

I looked down into her eyes, and I’d never wanted to kiss anyone so badly. But this wasn’t the time.

“You really helped me out tonight. So why don’t we call it even and try to be friends?” she said, holding out a hand.