My Stepbrother, His Highness: A Royal Stepbrother Billionaire Bad Boy Romance

by Victoria Cabot

It has EVERYTHING to do with him.

  I couldn’t let him see how important it was to me. I needed to get out of there. It didn’t matter to me if I was physically naked in front of him. I had lain next to him, emotionally naked. And he had kicked me in the teeth.

  I got to my room and washed up and changed as quickly as I could. I had to get out of the apartment for a bit. I checked my bank account. $564. Damn! I needed to save up a little bit more.

  I texted a friend of mine from work to see if she needed any help at the coffee shop. Somehow, something went right with the universe and she texted me back immediately saying that she wasn’t feeling well and if I could cover her, that would be amazing. I jumped at the chance and told her I’d be there in half an hour.

  I had to get out of the apartment.

  I went to the kitchen and put a casserole into the oven to cook for dinner. While waiting, I threw some laundry into the washer and did what dishes lay in the sink. The apartment was a day and night difference from when I first moved in a few days prior. I heard Tristan in the shower and prayed that I would be out by the time he came outside.

  I needed something to occupy my time while I waited for the casserole. I pulled out my laptop and started looking to the job openings that I had found. This time, I broadened my search criteria for other cities outside of New York.

  That’s right. Get the fuck as far away from the Creep as possible.

  Ten minutes later, the casserole was done. I pulled it out of the oven and took out a plate. I wanted to eat dinner as quickly as I could and get the hell out of there.

  Tristan came out half way as I was scooping food onto my plate.

  “Smells good,” he said, trying to see if I would respond. I did not.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked me, looking my way as he grabbed a plate from the rack.

  As if you don’t know. You smug son of a bitch…

  I couldn’t help it. I looked at him with enough venom to kill and asked, “Is talking part of the agreement we had also?”

  He looked like I had just slapped him. “No, no its not,” he answered. “It’s just what civilized people do when they eat together.”

  “We are not eating together, Tristan!” I exploded. “We are not doing anything together! I am not sharing this meal with you!”

  I stomped off towards the living room and sat down with a thud onto the soft leather sofa.

  I immediately fell back and struggled to keep my food on my plate.

  Girl, if you’re going to try and keep the moral high ground, don’t act like an idiot!

  Tristan took a plate of food and sat down in the dining table, pulling out his phone and answering some emails. I must have finished my food in record time – forgetting everything my mother had taught me about eating slowly with small bites like ladies were supposed to do. There was nothing ladylike about what I was doing. I had failed at life and was forced to find myself in a situation where I traded sex for rent. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was stupid enough to start liking the creep who actually proposed the entire fucked up arrangement in the first place. And to add insult to injury, he had no feelings for me! What the fuck was wrong with me.

  Nothing. Just get the fuck out of the apartment and clear your head.

  I walked past Tristan and put my plate in the sink. I picked up my purse from the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Tristan asked.

  “Work,” I replied tersely. “I picked up an extra shift. I’m heading to the train. Don’t wait up.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Tristan said and I slowed my pace. “The 4, 5 and 6 train are out of service both directions because of a stalled train. There’s no way it’s back up.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take the bus.”

  “It’s rush hour, Alicia and the subway doesn’t work. The buses aren’t stopping because they’re all full.”

  “I’ll catch a cab.”

  “Again, it’s rush hour.”

  I turned towards Tristan with a glower in my face. “I’ll walk to work then, okay?”

  Tristan stood up. “It’s 80 blocks downtown. Really you want to do that?”

  I sighed in frustration. The rational part of me realized that he had a very valid point. I was going into this half-cocked. “Well, I really have to get to work,” I said. “What should I do?”

  He smiled and pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. “I’ll drive.”

  Jesus Fucking Christ…

  Talk about the most awkward car ride ever. I sat there, looking at the buildings and blocks as they rolled by, letting my mind wander.

  Who was Tristan, really, and what was his whole deal in this arrangement? He didn’t need me to get laid on a regular basis, so why rent out his apartment?

  Why was I thinking about him when I should be focusing on getting a job and getting the fuck out of that apartment?

  Why couldn’t I keep separating the act of sex from the intimacy? Why couldn’t I practice what I had always preached?

  Who has a car in Manhattan anyways?

  Tristan was some kind of wierdo!

  I was conflicted about this arrangement, that’s for sure. But I was saving money hand over fist. With this added shift I was taking on today, I was now at a point where I was seriously thinking of upgrading my phone a little – to be able to check email on it as well as surf the web. Hopefully it would help me in my job search.

  Because if one thing was sure, I couldn’t keep doing this. I had to find a job and get the hell out of the apartment.

  Before I knew it, Tristan had pulled up to the curb next to the coffee shop.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I said to him, not sure how to make eye contact.

  “No problem, Alicia,” he replied evenly, looking at me with concern.

  It was insane. I felt like a thousand eyes were on me when I opened the door to the store and got in, wondering if anyone had noticed who had dropped me off. Wondering if they had seen his face or been able to read his expression. I wondered if they knew he had fucked me twice since I last came to work the other day. I felt naked, and it made me feel ill.

  Thus ended my first week with Tristan. It had involved a lot of crying – thankfully not that much was done in front of Tristan. It had also involved a lot of anger, frustration, and sadness. We had a few awkward conversations and I had begun to make some discoveries into Tristan but was left with more questions than answers.

  I also cooked more dinners than my entire life put together thus far. For purposes of not offending people, I’m not counting my ramen noodle and ketchup with bacon bit soup as dinner. Nor am I trying to convince myself that swallowing someone’s semen counts as any sort of meal (it should!). I’m talking about full on meals that require preparation and where you need to go shopping on FreshDirect or Amazon for. Like Tortilla Soup casserole, fried chicken and tomato soup, Spanish rice with fish sticks (I was hungover that day, okay?), and many other delicious meals compliments of the fine chefs at YouTube. The lovely Park Avenue apartment was looking a lot tidier than when I moved in. I had added some window dressings and the sunlight really did wonders as it streamed into the beautiful apartment.

  I really had accomplished a lot in that week - and it set the stage for the next several weeks.

  Don’t forget, you also let a complete stranger fuck you four times this week too…

  Well, there was that, too, I suppose.

  The next few weeks followed much the same pattern that the first week did. Tristan would go to work for most of the day. I would search for jobs. I would go to work. I would clean the apartment and cook dinner. Tristan would come home. He would eat. Then he would fuck me. Sometimes I would like it. But usually if I liked it, I cried afterwards because I didn’t want to like it. Then I hated Tristan with all my heart. I would blow up at him. He would answer my questions with a shrug in that way of his and I would stare into his beautiful eyes and begin to realize that my self-loathing was looking for a target. We had sex three ti
mes one week and the last time towards the end of the week I remember wondering what happened to Nadia while he was pumping inside of me. I let my mind wander as he went in and out of me, and the last thought I had was that if nothing else, I was going to get to the bottom of this mystery. Then he made a face of pure craziness and unloaded his seed inside of me.

  Thanks, buddy. Thanks a lot.

  The next day, I had a day off. The first thing I did after waking up, and it was really on a lark more than anything else, was to write two emails to a few of my friends, listing out Tristan’s address, phone number, measurements, and a picture of him from his album. I was about to go snooping into the life of Tristan Carnahan – a beautiful man who paid women to have sex with him. That either made him scary, or tragic in my opinion. It was in my best interests to know what happened to his wife and daughter. If he had murdered them, then their families deserved to know.

  Also, you know, your life could be in danger, right?

  I had crafted the letter without wanting to worry anyone. In as fake-cheery a manner I could, I had included a picture of Tristan that gave a full body shot – in case I went missing one day and someone needed to forward on a high quality image to the investigators.

  Wrong move. Seriously not the brightest email I could have sent.

  “Damn girl, that is one fine piece of man,” wrote a friend of mine.

  “You slut. What’s he like in bed?” texted another friend. I pretended I didn’t know, when in fact I had no answer to that question because I was still trying to answer it myself.

  “I was thinking of coming over to NYC to visit you. When is good?” another wrote. I knew her motivations and didn’t even bother to reply.

  After the flurry of emails and texts about my roommate died down, I got to the serious task of snooping. Whatever was going to guide me, I knew I would find it in the closet. So, after a scrumptious breakfast of donuts and a slice of pepperoni pizza, I took a bucket of cleaning solutions, put them in a bucket with some rags and went into Tristan’s room. Once there, I set all my stuff around the room, as if I were hard at work cleaning, and opened the closet door. I put some gloves on my hands so as not to leave fingerprints on anything.

  Day-um, you’re going all out, girl…

  If I was going to snoop and it dealt with dead people, I was damn sure I wasn’t going to implicate myself.

  I had already skimmed through the family photo album and a few others so I carefully placed those to the side. I began to go through the various other boxes that existed in the closet. I came upon some utility bills and construction bills as well as invoices that were stored in a box along with some other receipts. I laughed a little to myself seeing that Tristan spent roughly about $8 a day for coffee and some sort of munching item on the way to work.

  Who knows what would have happened if he had walked into my coffee shop before any of this happened?

  Some used MetroCards, some receipts from taxis, and then a shoebox that he had written with black permanent marker, “Commercial airfare.”

  I sat there for a second wondering what that could mean. Then I shrugged and opened the box.

  My eyes would have popped out of my head if they could. I found flight receipts for First Class Lounges, curbside pickup and drop-off, and plane tickets. Jesus, the cost of those plane tickets would have paid for my rent for years. I found a ticket to Singapore on Singapore Airlines that he had apparently used late last year. First Class seats that cost more than all the plane tickets I had purchased in my life.

  Who is this guy?

  I had always known that Tristan was doing something right based on the apartment that he lived in – I mean, Park Avenue high-rise, with the views and layout that it had as well as the amenities was enough to get a girl kind of wet when she thought about such things. But I always thought that he was stretching to get this apartment – these plane tickets made me think that he wasn’t really working up much of a sweat at all in that supposed stretching.

  Resolving to come back to the flight receipts later, I began instead to rifle through the rest of the closet. If what the receipts were telling me were true, then Tristan had to have a decent pool of money coming in. But he was telling me he ran a startup that just started. How did a startup at the stage that Tristan was describing afford him the kind of swag that he had been purchasing?

  A thought went through my head unbidden, but once present I paid it very close attention. The whisper was that Tristan was some sort of mafia player, or even some sort of contract killer.

  Maybe it’s not like he needs you for sex, girl. Maybe he needs you for cover.

  If that was really the case, then that would very easily explain why someone like Tristan, who was so very easy on the eyes, was asking me to fuck him in order to not pay rent. Who else could he get and maintain a steady illusion with? Was I in trouble of being an accessory to whatever nefarious plot that Tristan and his overlords were cooking up? Was my life in danger?

  I found a binder that was just what I was looking for. It read, “Consolidated Financial Records – For Tristan.”

  Now this was it. Give me the Readers Digest version of what was going on with this man. I opened the binder and saw several sections. I got up and went to go sit on Tristan’s bed, propping the binder up and beginning to look through it. The first section was apparently consolidated financial statement information for all of last year. I wondered why it was so thick.

  I should have realized why.

  Within seconds, as soon as I was looking at values, my heart skipped a beat. I looked at the figures, and it might even be fair to say my heart stopped.

  What the fuck? Oh holy hell…

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” a voice called out.

  If my heart had stopped at looking at the numbers in the binder, I nearly had a coronary when I heard a voice to my right.

  Fear coursed through me as I dragged my eyes upwards, seeing the shadow as it stood in the doorway. I wish I had had a chance to pray, and call my parents.

  But all I could honestly do was sit there, and tell myself I’d finally get to meet Penny and Nadia.

  The Bodyguard

  I was staring at a listing of accounts. Looking at the heading on top of the page was a standard Bank of America statement. Except that it read, “High Net Worth Private Client Group”.

  I had no idea what that meant. But what I did understand were the numbers below

  High Interest Core Checking: $2,765,749.73

  What the fuck?

  Convertible time deposits: $35,983,763.00

  Does two commas mean a million again?

  Recent Transfers Out Of Country: $88,924,994.00

  Where was he transferring money out of country? And what was he doing with so much money?

  Besides, didn’t someone this wealthy usually have someone do these kinds of things for them? Why was he working at a startup – yes, he was running it, but still – and why did he get a roommate? He didn’t even need a roommate!

  To get laid…

  Please! If he wanted to get laid, this guy can get laid. He’s fucking gorgeous, and now he’s loaded too? This is every woman’s wet dream.

  You might not like to hear it, but he’s also really nice. He’s been pretty cool so far, aside from you know, being a creep and a pervert.

  That and maybe having killed his wife. I was just about to make an epiphany. I could feel being on the cusp of something.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” a voice called out.

  If my heart had stopped at looking at the numbers in the binder, I nearly had a coronary when I heard a voice to my right.

  Fear coursed through me as I dragged my eyes upwards, seeing the shadow as it stood in the doorway. I wish I had had a chance to pray, and call my parents.

  But all I could honestly do was sit there, and tell myself I’d finally get to meet Nadia and Penny.

  A man stood there – shaved head, a tanned complexion, dressed in black (prob
ably to cover up the sight of blood). He was a big guy, like one of those guys who spends their whole life bodybuilding and juicing up and then ends up with a gut that’s looking like fat but excusable because their muscles are so huge. And this guy had huge muscles – not even in a sexy way – but in a scary way. His biceps were like tree trunks and his forearm was at least the size of my neck. He was looking like he was around forty-something and all I could do was look at him.

  Run, girl, run!

  I just sat there, at peace with myself that these were the last minutes I had on this earth.

  “What are you doing in this room?” he asked, clarifying his earlier question. “Answer me now!”

  Oh no he didn’t.

  If he was going to have to kill me, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him to sit there and order me around while he did it. I summoned my innermost bitch and turned to him and did the only that came to mind.

  I screamed my voice off.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed.

  He momentarily flinched and I used the opportunity to run to my room. I thought about closing and locking the door, but realized he could probably push it open from it’s hinges with just one hand. I pulled at my bag and took out the rape whistle and began to blow on that. The screeching noise that came out was like fingers clawing at a chalk board.

  “Argh!” the man exclaimed, holding his hands to his ears. “Stop that!”

  My chances of survival were slightly improving, and were increased exponentially when I found a can of MACE in my purse. I had bought it when I was first leaving for college – I hadn’t used it in several years, but pulled it now.

  I hoped I was pointing it properly as I yelled, “Stay back motherfucker! I have MACE!”

  “Listen, relax lady!” he yelled, holding his hands up and walking towards me.

  “Not another step, fatso!” I yelled back, pointing my can at him while holding onto my rape whistle. “I swear this shit will melt your eyeballs from your skull!”

  “Jesus Christ, lady!” the man yelled and then slowly backed away. “Okay, I’m walking back.”