Where, in all of that, was Angela supposed to fit?
Why am I trying to impress her?
Is it wrong to try? Am I doing exactly what she’d been afraid I would do, earlier, on the ground, when she hadn’t wanted to talk about money? What we’re doing, right now with the old neighborhood below the rotors, is exactly all she’s hated me for. Right now, we are literally looking down our noses at my old life — at her current life. I’m still in my tuxedo, wearing a watch that must cost five times what she makes in a year. My cufflinks would pay her rent for months. Everywhere I look are signs of wealth, and suddenly I’m afraid she’s seeing right through me.
If my intention wasn’t to rub my money in her face and make her feel small, I’ve inadvertently betrayed that design. We’re trapped in the sky, and it might only be a minute before she sees how truly transparent I am. I hadn’t meant to be an arrogant asswipe, but it seems I can’t help myself.
But judging by her face, Angela’s mind is elsewhere. She looks elated: a kid on Christmas morning. She’s wearing one of those smiles people can’t get off their faces even if they want to. It stretches her cheeks, forming adorable half moons around her mouth as her teeth show and her eyes fill with mirth and wonder. She’s hypnotized by all of this. Right now, I could get her to do or believe anything.
I want to reclaim my question. I wanted to know if she’d heard helicopters overhead, and when she told me yes, I was going to tell her that a few of those times, the copter had probably been mine. But the question, like my watch, tux, and cufflinks, suddenly feels like a slap in her face — a way of pointing out the wealth I’ve built, that I’ve kept from my father and his current family, that Angela doesn’t have because I’ve hoarded it like a dragon atop his piles of treasure. Everything around her right now — the helicopter, the bar stocked with aged scotch, the limo we rode in to the airstrip, and the penthouse — has made her angry for years.
This is a life she’s never had. And I’m trapped because there’s no way to offer a morsel. If I give her money, my father gets it, too. Even if I’m willing to give, she’ll never take. I realize that part of me has wanted for years to see her again, to do exactly what we’re doing now. But it’s all temporary. Where does she fit in this life, in any way, at all? She doesn’t. Angela’s pride would never allow her to stay, even if she had a place.
Wondering whom I’m trying to fool, I tell myself that she’s never been more to me than a girl I once knew. I lie to myself, pretending that all we’re doing now is some sort of charity, and that my goals are to assuage guilt and right a wrong.
This isn’t selfish at all.
I can’t reclaim the question. But she’s lost in wonder, looking out the windows, looking down. I don’t have to follow it up. Angela’s a child at Disneyland.
“Is that the park?” She points out the window.
I can’t see from where I am. It feels sensible, in something hovering high in the air, to sit on opposite sides of the body. But this is a Sikorsky S-76C, the same company that makes the Black Hawk, and it weighs over seven thousand pounds. My 190 pounds of shifted weight won’t make a difference.
Now I’m sitting directly beside her, looking out the window, both of us sinking into the soft, tan leather seats. I follow her finger and feel our legs brush one another.
“The park by the house, yeah,” I tell her.
I sit back in the big seat, feeling my wide smile and wondering if it’s appropriate. Now she’s out past dark, and I still don’t know what we’re doing here. I’ll obviously need to take her home in the limo. Then what? Do I say, “Well, it’s been nice seeing you again, Sis … have fun among the rabble, hope you don’t get shot tonight”?
But it’s not late, despite being dark. I tell myself to relax. If I’d had a plan, it would have required two stages. Stage Two was whatever conversation we’d eventually have, but Stage One had to open her first so she’d be willing to have it. We have time. We’re both adults, despite the maybe-I’m-getting-myself-in-trouble way I can’t help feeling. If it gets too late, that’s neither here nor there. For now, Stage One is working. Whatever makes Angela lower her guard enough to chat is good enough for now.
“It looks so small,” she says. “And look … there’s my house!”
“Want to call your mom? Tell her you’re in a helicopter above her right now?”
I wince a little, wondering if that will come off as pompous, too, but Angela seems to take it for the playful question it was meant to be. Call Mom; tell her to look up; wave even though she’d never be able to see. She’d already called, the way she used to when she was first driving, back when we met. I don’t know what she told her mother about when she’d be home, or who she may or may not be with.
“Yeah, right.”
“Do you want to?” I repeat.
She smiles and shakes her head. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes — something that regards “call your mom, and tell her you’re with Parker” as a laughable proposition. Then it’s gone. She looks out the window again then straightens in her chair. The helicopter’s interior isn’t what you’d expect from the movies. It’s more like a tiny private jet or a small but opulent living room. There’s a flash where I see our surroundings as she must be seeing them: awed and duly impressed but too lightheaded to resent me.
As if reading my mind, she suddenly says, “How much does a ride like this cost?”
I don’t want to answer, but she’s looking right at me. I can’t help but be bowled over by the change in her. The intervening years have settled phenomenally well onto Angela’s shoulders. She has the same girlish look as she had when I last spent any real time with her at eighteen, but now she seems to have grown into that quiet, classic beauty she had as a kid. She’s wearing her hair in the most casual of styles. Her clothes are nothing special, and I’m dimly aware I picked her up after a run without so much as time for a shower. And yet she’s somehow more striking than any of the women I’ve dated in the past several years, despite her lack of makeup or style.
“About as much as my old Ford,” I say.
She laughs a small, unthreatened laugh. We both remember my Tempo without the front bumper. We both remember the way it smelled like the cigarettes I always used to smoke. I’m probably the only one who remembers fucking maybe a dozen girls in it over the years, but I was never careful about concealment, so it’s possible the vehicle was known around town, possibly with a cool nickname like the BoneMobile.
But despite my attempt to divert, Angela says, “Seriously. How much?”
I don’t want to say, but resisting any more would be false modesty and make me look like an asshole.
“I think it was about $13 million.”
“Oh, sure,” she says. “No big deal.”
Is it terrible that I’m not even sure? I think it was $13 million, but it’s not like I wrote the check personally or noticed the hit. I have a small fleet of other vehicles, and right now their values are flitting in my head and making me uncertain.
“Pocket change,” I say, trying to play along.
Angela glances out the window. I realize how gun-shy I am and wonder if it’s time to relax. She seemed to have a rather large chip on her shoulder in the limo, but the helicopter’s spinning blades seemed to have knocked it off. Now she’s just a girl on a ride.
She looks back at me. “This was cool.”
I cock my head, feeling playful and increasingly confident. Every minute she fails to jump down my throat for being a rich asshole, I feel my sense of certainty ramping up. I didn’t get where I am by being timid.
“Was?” I say.
She looks across the city lights again. We’re headed toward my penthouse, but we pass it by. She seems to notice then looks over at me with adorable befuddlement.
I open a private channel to the pilot and give a command that Angela can’t hear. Then, subtly, the copter noses down a hair, and I feel the copter gather speed.
“Where are we going?
” she asks.
Somewhere, I’m sort of thinking, that we maybe shouldn’t go.
“You’ll see,” I say.
ANGELA
I DON’T KNOW WHY PARKER kidnapped me that one day, and I honestly have no idea where he got the car he kidnapped me in. I only know that on that day, while I was walking home from school, he pulled up in this Camaro that I felt certain he’d stolen.
I was with Sandy. We were on foot, and Parker was waiting dramatically for us on one of the side streets, leaning low with his window open. He waited until we were right next to the thing before gunning the engine and sticking his head out, laughing.
I jumped a foot. Sandy practically caught me. Then I looked over and saw the way she was looking at him, her eyes full of suspicion. Parker had been nothing but rude to any of my friends, and Sandy was no exception. He was passably rude to me in public, too, but after a year around Parker I’d learned to see right through him. He was an asshole, but an asshole I’d come to slightly understand. The best way to deal with Parker’s brooding temperament was to starve it of oxygen. To play off his insults and not let them bother me. Every once in a while, I could mock him right back — not in my usual style, but in a mimicry of his. That earned me more respect each time, and by then, I’d chiseled a hole in his armor. Sandy didn’t like it. And she sure didn’t want me to get into the car.
“Come on, Angela,” he said. “Got a surprise for you.”
I moved without thinking. Parker was strangely interesting to me, despite his drinking, his smoking, his insults, and the way my mother rolled her eyes whenever he got into trouble. I found his father insufferable, and Parker flat-out hated him. In a way, it had helped us to bond.
Sandy grabbed my arm.
“No way, Angie.”
“What?”
“Yeah, what?” Parker said to Sandy. “I’m just giving her a ride home.”
“How about Sandy then?” I asked. “You wanna give her a ride home, too?”
“No,” Parker said.
“Oh, wow, I’m hurt,” Sandy said.
“She’s just a few blocks up,” I told him.
Sandy didn’t seem to want my intervention, nor did she want me to get into the car with Parker. He pushed the door open.
“He probably stole that car,” she said, echoing my thoughts.
“I’m tired,” I said. “I’m going. You want to go?”
“No,” Parker repeated, answering for Sandy.
Sandy pulled me closer and whispered. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting a ride.”
“He said he’s got a surprise. Not just a ride.”
“Getting a surprise then.”
Sandy peeked at him, her gaze uneasy.
“What’s wrong with you, Angie?”
“What do you mean?”
Another glance. “You like him.”
I felt myself blush. “He’s my stepbrother!”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t like him, Ang. I know you. You’re stupid about this stuff.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not your fault. Maybe it’s a daddy thing. With your mom — ”
I yanked my hand away from Sandy. I wasn’t about to hear her armchair psychology, or listen to outrageous ideas about my being into Parker. Of course I wasn’t into him. That would be wrong. He was a jerk, and the son of my dickhead stepfather. I wasn’t that dumb.
That’s the impression I’d outwardly maintained, and what Sandy should have believed.
“Thanks for your assessment,” I said.
“I’m just saying it’s a bad idea to play into — ”
“He’s just helping his sister out.” I tried to repeat the word a few times in my mind: His sister. His sister. Maybe I should say it a few times to Parker out loud, to make sure we were on the same page.
“Parker Altman doesn’t help anyone out. Have you forgotten what he did to Carter last year?”
“He’s fine, Sandy.”
She stared at me. Parker was waiting, his door still open. He had his hair in messy spikes and was wearing a plain white tee, arms thick, his smile practically sideways — the grin of a man who’s clearly up to something, and probably no good.
I stood between them for a moment, then went to the car and got in. Sandy was still staring. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
Parker pulled away from the curb. He drove too fast through the neighborhood streets, daring pedestrians to get in his way. I looked over, my heart thumping, wanting to tell him to be more careful but not quite finding my voice.
It was clear almost immediately that we weren’t going home. He wasn’t just giving me a ride, which I already knew no matter how I’d justified myself to Sandy. I didn’t need a ride, for one; our house was a few blocks away, and the weather was warm — hot, even. The Camaro was also wrong. Parker owned a rusted-out Ford, and while this car wasn’t in much better repair, it was definitely nicer and apparently faster.
I wanted to ask where we were going, but Parker always made fun of me for never stepping a toe out of line. He was clearly getting us up to no good, and I knew it; he’d see right through my question. He was too cool for the phrase “goody two-shoes,” but it’s what he’d be thinking, though of course with more color.
What was I afraid of? Parker? Whatever scheme he was up to? Going along with it so readily? Maybe Sandy had been right. It didn’t make sense; Parker and I didn’t hang out, and this was unprecedented, whatever it was. Maybe that’s why I’d gone: I’d sensed a rare chance to have him alone.
But now alone, I felt uneasy. What were we supposed to talk about? We were opposites with nothing to share.
“Where did you get this car?”
“Borrowed it.”
“From who?”
“Why the fuck you need to know that? Just buckle in, okay?”
I did. He’d shut me down so completely I didn’t want to say another word. I felt dumb for my questions — as if they’d been highly unreasonable, not at all what someone in my position would ask.
We left the dirty city streets and drove onto the highway. We’d only had a half day of school, so it was barely after noon, and the highway wasn’t yet packed as Parker headed west.
It was ten minutes before I summoned the nerve to speak again. It was so strange. He’d picked me up, and yet he seemed put out. I wondered if he’d been sent on an errand. It didn’t make sense — either of our parents decreeing, “Parker, pick up your tightass of a sister and drive her wherever” — but it made more sense than this being his idea. His profile was set, that eternally half scowl on his square, stubbled jaw. The abandon in his eyes.
I didn’t want to say anything more because he’d only make fun of me. Parker didn’t want to be there, and whatever bolt of excitement I’d felt earlier was just me being stupid, chasing the idiot fantasies I didn’t have the guts to declare.
I asked the obvious: “Where are we going?”
He looked over, still seeming half-annoyed. But there was something else there too — or so I imagined.
“The beach.”
The beach? I must have misheard.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a hot day, shit.”
“But … why?”
“We got a half day. You wanna see the ocean or not?”
“I was going to help mom with the shopping.”
I watched him roll his eyes, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
“Jesus, Angela. Do you do everything she tells you?”
“She didn’t tell me to do it. I just figured I’d help.”
I expected him to contradict then insult me. Instead, Parker turned his head fully toward me. The highway screamed by. I wanted to tell him to face forward, but that would invite mockery, too.
“See, that’s why I picked you up, right there. If I don’t save you, nobody’s gonna.”
“Save me?”
�
��You’re such a goddamned Girl Scout,” he said, returning his eyes to the road, swinging us across two rows and into the diamond lane fast enough to thump my heart. “Look, we’ve lived together for a while now. All you do is go to school, do your homework, hang out with your group of losers — ”
“Those ‘losers’ are my friends.”
“And then, on top of it all, every time your mom says to do something, you hop right up and do it. ‘Yes, Mommy, no problem! I’ll do all that shit you should do yourself!’” He mocked my voice, injecting the parody with all the simpering goody-goody I’d always secretly feared others saw in me. Then he laughed. “Honestly, Angela, if you don’t learn to tell her no, you’ll be doing her shit your whole life. She walks all over you.”
“She’s my mother,” I said lamely.
“Oh, but now, it’s not just her. You know where I saw you yesterday?”
The idea that he’d seen me anywhere was disturbing. Sometimes, Parker and I managed to avoid each other for days, and I hadn’t seen him for a while before he’d popped up in the Camaro like a jack-in-the-box. The thought of him peeping in on me tickled my neck.
He didn’t wait for me to speak. “The auto parts store. You got a lot of need for auto parts, Angela?”
“I was just — ”
“Just getting shit for my dad? Yeah, I figured that out. He’s got legs. He’s got a car that runs, hence the need for a part. But no, you were out, so might as well take care of it, right?”
“I was going to drive right by it,” I said defensively.
“Uh-huh. Nobody fucks with me, Angela. Know why?”
My Billionaire Stepbrother (Lexi's Sexy Billionaire Romance #1) Page 8