Our parents didn’t have to tell me what they thought—I knew it. Porter was their prodigy. The new and real-life version of Doogie Howser, the boy genius that became a doctor at a ridiculous age.
Our whole lives, it was always Porter.
That became painfully obvious to me when I came back from overseas, and the only girl I ever loved chose him, instead. Except he had cast her aside like he always did, leaving me with nothing.
Doctor Porter Kingsley. Neurosurgeon and human extraordinaire. Not to mention the most eligible bachelor in all of Tampa. Really. Someone published one of those ridiculous lists, and his name was on it. Right at the top—number freaking one.
Thirty years old and every woman from eighteen to eighty wanted him.
People even made fake appointments with him just to try to woo him into dating them.
I couldn’t make this shit up.
Now, that didn’t mean I didn’t have my pick of women. I could get who I wanted.
If I wanted them.
But often it was my playboy brother who wanted them, and they him because of who he was and what he did. My only saving grace was I fought for our country, and that appealed to many of them. But I didn’t like to schmooze and socialize the way he did. I wasn’t romantic or sure of myself. I came a long way in my adult life, finally coming to terms with who I was and not hiding myself under Porter’s umbrella.
But I couldn’t dislike him, because he was my best friend and had been my entire life, from the moment we were born. I tried to hate him, and I might have succeeded for a few minutes, but it was futile because he was my other half.
My identical twin brother.
So yeah, I had the looks. I had brains, too, though nowhere near the brains of my counterpart. What I didn’t have was the confidence Porter portrayed from the second he took his first lungful of air. In my experience, it was people like Porter who finished first, and I had long since resigned myself to playing second fiddle next to him.
“She’s fucking gorgeous.” Porter’s whispered voice snapped me back to the present.
“Why the hell are you whispering?”
“Well…because I’m standing behind the pole in the parking garage so she can’t see me.”
A laugh burst from my mouth. “Are you serious? A big-shot neurosurgeon and keynote speaker in tonight’s benefit, and you are hiding behind a pole?”
“Shut up, asshole. I had to see her before I have to walk into an event with her on my arm.”
I groaned. “You didn’t see a picture of her before you hired her?”
“No. She’s new and they didn’t have a picture. I took the boss lady’s word for it.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m in the parking garage. Do you want me to come escort you in?” With that, I snorted. “Get it? Escort you in?”
Porter moaned. “Seriously, Breck? You’re going to do this now?”
I laughed again. “I can’t believe you hired an escort to go with you. I mean, really, Porter. You didn’t have a nurse or someone you could bring with you to hang off your arm? Or one of Mom and Dad’s girls they’re always trying to set you up with? What if Mom and Dad find out?”
“I couldn’t ask any of them,” he said, his voice still low. “They’ll get the wrong idea if I ask them to be with me tonight, and I can’t have that happen. Then that shit is all over the hospital. It’s like a fucking soap opera around there. Plus, Mom and Dad are not going to find out because you’re going to keep your damn mouth shut. And I don’t have to tell you what a disaster their last ‘set up’ was. She still calls me, Breck. Still.”
I shook my head. This man could write a book with his female woes, and now he’d gone and hired someone to go to this important event. Like that’s going to end up any better. “Tell me you’ve never done this before, Port.” I couldn’t fathom hiring a high-dollar escort to go with me somewhere, but then again, I could find many more things to spend my money on.
“This is the first time. But looking at her, it may not be my last. I’d pay big money to pretend she’s my girlfriend so all the women at the hospital leave me alone. Wonder if there’s a monthly installment plan.”
I rolled my eyes. “Must be so rough having all these women fall at your feet.”
He scoffed. “Like you don’t have every teacher at your school foaming at the mouth to jump into your bed, Breck.”
He kind of had me there. I wasn’t interested in them—okay, many of them—but the offers were definitely there. I refused to take any of them up on the suggestion, though. I embarrassingly even had some parents proposition me before. Married ones, too. Let’s not even go there with the senior girls. I’d had several tell me they were “legal” now.
It was rather disturbing and made me want to run as far away as I could from the dating scene.
“What does she look like?” I stepped out of the car and checked my reflection in the window. It was time to change the subject—anything to get him to stop talking about me.
Porter cleared his throat. “She’s got this dark hair that goes down her back. It looks like the perfect hair to hold on to while you’re pounding her. What I saw of her face is pure perfection. Wide eyes with a flawless complexion. And—hot damn—her body. She’s wearing this tight black dress with a slit up the side. It’s sexy but still professional, and she’s got curves that won’t quit, bro. I mean, shit. I think I have a woody. No, I know I have one. I must have this woman, Breck.”
I stepped away from the car and began walking to the elevator. “You’re not going to sleep with her, are you, Port?”
I admittedly had zero experience with “escorts.” I knew what the name implied, but I wasn’t sure where Porter’s thoughts were.
“Well, I’m not ruling it out, baby bro.”
The elevator door opened, and I stepped in. “Whatever, Porter. I’ll see you down there. Stop hiding behind poles, and go get your girl.”
I slid the phone into my pocket and blew out a breath as the elevator doors closed. I mentally steeled myself to see my parents tonight. It wasn’t that they were horrible to me. They loved me, and I knew it. I just felt like an immense failure next to my brother every single time we did one of these events. It was more than likely my own issue, but it didn’t change the fact that I dreaded it or that I then felt guilty for even thinking like that about my own brother.
It was the way my dad would ask me about teaching, with a little snarl of his lip or downcast eyes. And how my mom patted my arm saying, “That’s nice, dear,” or “You’ll find a woman who will love you for you,” like doing my job meant no one would ever want to marry me since I wasn’t “financially secure.” It didn’t matter that I lived frugally and had quite a bit of money in savings. I never told them, because it was insignificant. I lived in a two-bedroom house I remodeled myself over the last several years in the normal part of the city, and they never understood why I was content with that.
Preston and Brielle Kingsley were considered high society in Tampa. My dad was an orthopedic surgeon, the best in the state. My mom was a personal injury attorney. She owned one of the most lucrative firms in all of Florida. Everyone in the state knew the Kingsley name. They lived on the Gulf of Mexico in a several-million-dollar estate with housekeepers and cooks. A few years ago, after they both retired, my dad had hired a driver. They owned a yacht, more cars than anyone needed, and vacation homes around the world.
My parents were overachievers. They married right out of college and by the time my brother and I came around, they were easily both making high six figures. They had us later in life, which was why we were in college when they retired. Having made their fortune and had fabulous careers, they were ready to hang up their hats. We were their only children, but we had each other.
Porter was on their same playing field—his IQ off the damn charts and his desire to be the best at everything he did matched theirs. My goals were different than theirs, and I doubted they would ever understand me.
I was a painfully shy kid. While my brother was boisterous and loud, I was most comfortable with family and a few close friends. I loved playing baseball and running cross country, but it wasn’t until I got involved in JROTC in high school that I gained any confidence at all.
That experience led me to join the Army right after graduation. My parents’ expressions of disappointment and the tears on my mom’s face when I told them what I had done was one I’d never forget. I still wasn’t sure what kept them from completely disowning me, but Porter likely had something to do with it. Especially since I had signed up without their knowledge or permission. By the time they found out, it was too late to stop me.
Despite him not understanding why I would want to put my life on the line for my country, Porter got me like no one else did. He was the only one I confided in and told my most difficult insecurities. I had no reason to be insecure, since I grew up in a loving household without any worries in the world, but that didn’t change the anxiety that consumed me.
The four years I was part of the United States Army changed my life. I found purpose in our mission and pride in my role in protecting our country. I made friends that would risk their life for me, and I took that role very seriously. After four years, I knew I wanted to go to college.
Despite knowing it would be frowned upon by my parents, there was no doubt I would go into teaching. I wanted to utilize the passion and guidance my JROTC teacher gave me and help instill that in other kids. My degree in English Education meant I could get a job easily as an English teacher and then also be part of the JROTC program.
I was now five years into my teaching career and didn’t regret it for one day. In fact, my first class of girls and boys that enlisted in the military were coming home now, or still there, choosing to make it their career.
It was the most fulfilling job I could imagine.
I took a deep breath as I stepped out of the elevator and onto the cool marble floor of the hotel lobby. I noticed the sign for the benefit and turned left, heading toward a large ballroom. My shoes made soft clicks on the floor as I walked.
“Doctor Kingsley?” A female voice came from behind me, and I smiled. This happened all the time. When we were younger, it was fun to switch roles and pretend. It was a game we played with our friends. Then, we had no distinguishing marks on us to tell us apart so we were doppelgangers for the other. The only thing that set us apart now was the tattoo between my shoulder blades, representing my years in the Army.
There had even been times when we were teenagers that Porter convinced me to “share” his girlfriend, especially once he started college at the tender age of sixteen and had all the college girls falling all over him. My face still flamed thinking about that. After all these years, I couldn’t believe I let him talk me into that—multiple times. But it had ended up biting me in the backside because while I was deployed, our “sharing” took on a whole new meaning.
That was the brutal end of my sharing with him ever again.
I turned and smiled at the beautiful blonde. “Actually, no. I’m his brother, Brecken.”
Her mouth formed a little O at my answer. “You’re…twins?”
“Yes.” I laughed because the question was so ridiculous, yet we were asked all the time. “And you are?”
She grinned, and a small laugh came from her ruby red lips. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he had a twin brother! Wow. Two of you in this world. There should be something against two people being as gorgeous as you. I’m Camber. I’m a nurse at the hospital where Porter works.”
I scanned her slim figure, dressed to the nines in a taupe-colored dress that gave me a good visual of just what her body looked like. She was a knockout. And more than likely one who had already graced my brother’s bed based on her appearance and the way she wasn’t afraid to say what was on her mind. Porter’s type, exactly.
Except he refused to get serious with any of them. I knew why, but I wanted to see him move past it. When he was in med school, he fell hard for a nurse on his pediatric rotation. She was older than him and was a single mom to a little boy. He loved both of them, and she left in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. It was the one part of Porter that was weak—still to this day, if anyone brought up Amelia’s name, a look so dark crossed his face you swore the sun had gone permanently behind a cloud.
That was one way we were alike, though he knew nothing about my feelings regarding the situation with Dahlia, and he never would because I wouldn’t tell him.
“Nice to meet you, Camber.” I shook her dainty hand and couldn’t help but notice she held on a beat too long. If she had been in my brother’s bed already, she wasn’t opposed to being in mine. Her body language and the way she appraised me up and down told me that. It also meant that as much as I may want to forget by burying myself in her warm heat, I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
It was bad enough to always take a back seat to Porter and his “amazing accomplishments.” I wouldn’t be second to bed, as well.
There had been women over the years interested in getting serious with me, but I could honestly say I had never been in love. I thought I was once, with Dahlia, but I wasn’t sure now. I had known before I left for basic training that I thought I loved her. I wanted a future with her, and I thought she did with me, too. While I was gone, she sent me packages, we talked on the phone, and we made plans.
All while she slept with my brother.
In his defense, he had no idea how “in love” I thought I was with her, and we had a habit of sharing. That had always been his idea, and I went along with it because he was Porter, but that was neither here nor there.
But now, that head-over-heels, I-would-do-anything-for-anyone feeling was as foreign to me as hiring an escort to go to a dinner. It blew my mind that Porter even knew how to find an escort. I wouldn’t know the first thing about where you go to get one of those, but Porter has connections for everything. Somehow I didn’t think Google was helpful in making that sort of alliance.
Camber’s gaze drifted down to my ring finger and then back. She grinned again and placed her hand on my arm. Despite my refusal to go any further with her, she would make a good distraction from this event while we were here.
“Want to get a drink?”
“Sure.” She stepped in line with me, and we walked in silence into the large ballroom. When we reached the makeshift bar, she put her arm in mine and pressed a full breast into my side.
I cleared my throat and smiled down at her with a hell of a lot more confidence than I felt. “What would you like?”
“White wine, please. I trust you can pick a good one.” There was that eye again, the one that studied me like she intended to undress me.
I nodded, ordered the drinks, and then handed Camber hers.
“So, what do you do?” Camber asked, taking a sip of the sand-colored liquid.
Here we go. “I’m a teacher.”
She smiled, either uncaring or unaffected by my answer. “That’s great. What do you teach?”
“English and JROTC. High school.”
“I bet all those high school girls are dying over you, Mr. Hot Teacher. Wow, I sure wished I had teachers that looked like you when I was in school.”
I blinked, not knowing how to answer her.
Camber laughed and bumped me playfully. “Just teasing, Brecken. Well, kind of.” She sipped her wine again, watching me over the clear crystal of the glass. I watched as her pink tongue darted out to lick some of the wine from the rim, and my pants tightened despite myself.
“Breck! There you are!” Porter’s booming voice cut through the sexual tension that surrounded us, and I was never so thankful to see my brother. It had been too long or something. That’s the only thing I could think to justify my teenage reaction to her attention.
Porter clapped me on the back and turned to the beautiful nurse. “Hey, Camber. You look stunning tonight, as always.”
Camber preened at
the praise. “Thanks, Port. I just met the twin brother I didn’t know existed.”
Porter grinned. “Yeah? Isn’t he great?” I knew exactly what the gleam in his eye meant, and I tried to signal him to knock it off without alerting Camber.
“He is.” Camber glanced back and forth between the two of us, and I swore I knew what went through her head. This woman was kinky! Another indication Porter had already had his way with her.
“Where’s your date?” I had to throw an extinguisher on this to shut down the vibes she sent.
Camber glanced behind Porter and then back. “Date? You brought a date?” The way she said that told me all I needed to know. She wanted to be on Porter’s arm, and he had turned her down. So she set her sights on me. Predictable.
“She’s in the restroom. She’ll be right back.”
“Someone from the hospital?” Camber didn’t give up easily; I could tell.
Porter glanced over at me. “No.” He didn’t have time to elaborate. The most drop-dead gorgeous woman started walking across the floor, and we all stopped to watch her. Her gaze swept the room like she searched for someone, and I found myself wishing it were me she had her eyes on. As she passed, everyone stopped to watch her walk. She was that captivating.
Her hair was so dark it looked almost black, and it fell in waves around her shoulders. The black dress illuminated some of the sexiest curves a woman could have. While revealing enough to make you salivate, it covered the essentials and left room for the imagination to play. Her skin was the most beautiful olive color, her face flawless even from this distance. Painted dark red, her lips pursed as she continued through the room. A waiter stopped next to her, and she took a flute of champagne. I watched, transfixed, as she lifted it to her mouth and took a sip. The motion of her swallowing made my mouth dry out and my heart accelerate.
Ravenous: The Kingsley Brothers Duet Page 2