Bastard Stepbrother (Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  Chapter Three

  The second he'd raked his eyes across my body, looked at me like a man looks at a woman, I couldn't get rid of the feeling. Even once I left the room I thought it was going to be alright, but it wasn't.

  The weight that he'd settled on me, the feeling of being watched, of raw want that I'd seen in his eyes was almost upsetting.

  Almost.

  Just thinking about it now, the way that his eyes bored into me, my heart skipped a beat. Did he look at every woman that way? Another woman might have been tempted by a man that intense, that full of… power, of vigor.

  He didn't say anything about knowing me. I suppose that, by itself, should be enough to tell me that he doesn't remember. But the way his eyes smoldered, the intensity of his look…

  I can't remember anyone ever looking at me that way, but somehow it seems like everything I had ever felt about my brother. Like there was a sort of super-human intensity to him.

  I'd imagined it was probably the results of a girlish crush, and the way that children look up to teens, teens look up to young adults. Six years was enough to make him a God in anyone's eyes. Of course I would assign all kinds of crazy traits to him.

  But seeing him again only helped to confirm everything I'd suspected. With looks like his, and the intensity in those eyes, it wasn't hard to imagine that he had his pick of women throughout law school.

  Now, he had a woman working as his secretary that most men would kill for without question. He had money, he had prestige, he had power. He had everything any woman would want. If he scored when he was in college, it was hard to imagine how much he got up to now, as a powerful, notably unmarried, lawyer.

  I closed my eyes. He wasn't some guy, though. I had gotten over my girlhood crush. If I hadn't, then I would. People tend to mythologize people who they only know a little about, but it's different when you find out who they are.

  Eric was a mystery, and he has been since I was fourteen years old. Because of that, he was going to be some sort of legend in my eyes.

  A perfect body, chiseled out of marble, the only memory that I could recall, that morning he walked out. The few photos that I could find, from year books that Mom couldn't get rid of—she couldn't get rid of anything—showed a preternaturally attractive face.

  My subconscious created the rest. I'd manufactured him into the perfect man, just edgy enough to really entice a woman. Strong and proud and intelligent and well-spoken. Soft at times, hard at others.

  It was impossible not to compare the Eric who had fueled more than a few sleepless nights, twisting up the sheets around my legs as I tried to get comfortable, unable to think about anything but that hot guy I must have known, and Eric Warren, the man who had sat behind that heavy wooden desk and set the heaviest gaze on her that I've ever felt.

  And to my surprise, it was no contest. My brother was everything that I'd imagined him to be and more, hardened and tempered by a decade apart.

  My breath still catches in my throat every time that I remember him, every time that I catch the smell of leather. It had permeated his office and now it hooked into the back of my mind, reminding me of that interview every time I pass by the cheap, heavily-worn leather sofa in my front room.

  The phone rings, starting with a buzz that makes me jump. The tabletop makes it that much louder, that much more shrill. Is it him?

  I've already got the job. I heard it from that secretary of his. When I don't have to feel as if she's some sort of competition for the affection of a man who is almost certainly off the table, she seems nice. Polite, friendly.

  All the friendliness in the world doesn't explain why she's calling me, though. Not when I don't even start work for another two days.

  It's not her, though. And as much as I might want it—don't want it—it's not Eric's office, or even a number I don't recognize that might prove to be his cell phone.

  It's a number I know well. The caller I.D. reads "DO NOT ANSWER" in big letters, and the advice is good. I'd given it to myself in a time where I thought that I would listen to advice if it was good.

  I can feel my blood pressure shooting up just from seeing it. I shouldn't answer. I really shouldn't. Mom is trouble, and she's always been trouble. It took me twenty years to see that, but as long as I kept her at a distance it wasn't a big problem.

  It was when I let her in that things got tricky. She wanted to talk to me, she could see me at dinner on Thursday. We'd talk then.

  If she was calling, it was because she wanted something. If she wanted something, then she was just slipping into the old patterns.

  I should answer it. She's my mother. I should ignore it. She's only going to hurt me, the same way that she's always hurt me.

  I don't know what to do. A moment later, the phone stops ringing, and my problems go away.

  She's got the message. Don't call me, Mom.

  I told you not to call me.

  She won't call back again. She promised not to call, but it was a mistake. A butt-dial.

  I told you not to call me, Mom.

  My breath catches in my throat. The phone buzzes again in my hand.

  DO NOT ANSWER, the phone says. It's good advice. She promised not to call.

  I take a deep breath and count down from ten. I'm feeling shaky. She'll get the message. She has to.

  Whatever trouble she's gotten herself into, it can wait. Dinner once a week is plenty. More than most daughters give, once they leave. Most daughters leave on better terms than I did.

  I don't need to feel bad about refusing to answer. I don't. She promised not to call. She's the one who needs to feel bad.

  She promised not to call. I look down at the caller ID again. It hasn't changed. Still says, in big letters, DO NOT ANSWER.

  My thumb flicks over the green circle before I can let myself regret what I'm doing.

  "I thought you weren't going to do this any more, Mom," I say softly.

  "I just missed hearing your voice," she says.

  And with that, the song and dance begins once again.

  Chapter Four

  Autumn's always been a beautiful woman, with hair that makes you think of leaves in the fall. A woman with a fitting name, without a doubt. She was only a girl, when I knew her, and even then, anyone with eyes could see that she was going to blossom into a lovely woman.

  It's easy to say that someone's going to be pretty; it's different to see it happen. To be looking at someone you knew when she was too tall for her body, when she looked somewhere in between a woman and a little girl, too tall to be cute like a child and too rail-thin, too shapeless, to be really womanish.

  Ten years is a long time.

  "You want to take a break?"

  She looks up from the papers. Her eyes are focused, but she looks tired. As well she should. It's not physical work, but digging through legal texts, searching for precedents, is a bitch and a half.

  There's way too much to actually print properly. The stuff that exists is enough to fill a library; if you printed the text in nice, readable columns with text that's not so small you have to squint, then it would fill two libraries.

  She's been digging, though, and she hasn't been complaining. Hasn't been slacking. I'm beginning to think that maybe Len, somehow, managed to pick one who was both attractive enough to worry about, and smart enough to be useful. The old dog can pick 'em, though, that's for sure.

  Her face twists up a little. She looks as if she's uncertain whether it's a test. Is he trying to see if she's slacking? Well, he's not.

  "Well I'm going to the break room. You're welcome to stay if you're on a roll."

  I push myself up in dramatic fashion. She pushes herself back an instant later and starts to join me.

  "Thanks. I was going a little cross-eyed."

  She knows how to talk, that's sure as well. Maybe there's something to it, maybe there isn't. Knowing who her mother is, there's no doubt she would have picked up on her mom's ability to say whatever needs to be said.

/>   She's like a natural-born con artist, that woman. Manipulator. Not everything is a heritable trait or something. People can change. They can change from their parents, hell, they can change from who they were as young kids.

  Miss 'Logan'—she was Autumn Greyson when I knew her. Something had stopped her taking on my father's name, but apparently somewhere between here and there she'd run into someone she felt differently about.

  I kept a smile on my face in spite of everything. He hadn't become a lawyer in order to get into acting, but the courtroom called to him, and getting good at the courtroom stuff meant, on some level, accepting that it's an act.

  You have to look like you're confident, look sympathetic. It doesn't matter that you are confident, on the inside, if you look like you were out until two in the morning last night.

  It doesn't matter if you are sympathetic if you let triumph touch your face, and you smile at a woman covered in chemical burns. Let your client smile. You look sad, horrified, when something bad's being talked about. You look cool, confident, without looking cocky.

  And with Autumn Logan, my natural instincts are pulling him a thousand different ways.

  She's an attractive woman, now. 'Kid sister' once means that she should be off his radar. And she should be. It doesn't change how he's looking at her.

  I guess my memories of her are good enough. She never did wrong by me, anyways. But it's impossible to look at her and not see her mother, and I'm not going to forgive her. There's been plenty of time to do it. Hell, I think Dad has.

  He'd take her back in a heartbeat. He's forgotten how it was. I haven't.

  Liar is too good a word for her. There's not going to be a chance to bring any of that frustration to bear, though. If I tried to get involve in her life, enough to let her feel even one tenth of the anger that she's made me feel since I met her seventeen years ago, I'd just get caught up in the whirlwind that she's constantly got turning around her.

  But Autumn…

  I take a breath, pour out a cup. I check that my smile's still on. It is.

  "Cream or sugar?"

  "Yes, please."

  I grab the sugar dish and move it across the counter, and reach into the fridge for cream.

  "Right here, don't feel bad about using it."

  "No," she agrees.

  "How are you liking your first day? Everything you expected?"

  "You've got a nicer conference room than last time I did this."

  "Yeah?"

  "Half the lights were on the fritz, and it was flickering on the books, and I mean… you've seen those things. Practically took an hour to read a single statute."

  "Yeah. I made sure to use the nice one, since I was going to be there, rather than just some lowly interns." I wink. She smiles.

  "Oh, well. Thanks, then."

  "Tomorrow, though—tomorrow it's off to the dungeon!"

  "I'll be sure to bring my lit magnifying glass, then."

  "Oh, no you don't. You'll be reading only in braille, as well. Hope you've learned to read braille."

  "A little."

  "And I'm forgetting the electric shocks. I should warn you about that, as well. You're not pregnant, or wearing a pacemaker, right? So it should be fine."

  Her lips looks so sweet when they part, enough to drive any man wild. Enough to drive me wild. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that whether or not I could have her, I could at least tease her.

  If she's anything like her mother, who knows—maybe she'll respond to it. I have to hold the smile on as I think it. If she realizes how I feel about her, that I know who she is, then it's all over.

  So I'd better keep the charade going.

  Chapter Five

  I should have been asleep by now. I've been making a point of not checking the clock on the wall for the past hour now. It would reflect badly on me, make it look like I wanted to leave.

  And I'm not going to leave until Eric does.

  There was a time when he could leave me behind. There was a time when I was a little girl and I could be pushed away just by trying hard, and seeing if I would try as hard as he would.

  But that was a long time ago. I'm not going to be left behind again. I'm not going to let him think of me as someone who he can just outrun, someone he can push away simply by virtue of my own weakness.

  I never let anyone think of me that way when I was in high school, never ever at university, and I'm not going to start now. I'm not going to stop until I make partner, and then—good fucking luck telling anyone I didn't work hard enough. I'm a full partner.

  Eric's fingers find the bridge of his nose. It was a gesture I'd seen before, but only on men who wore glasses. They'd push them up and rub their nose. Did he wear glasses?

  I didn't remember him wearing any when I was a little girl. The face that I saw, the photos I looked at, he never wore anything like that. And he hadn't worn them at all the two times I'd seen him.

  "You should go home," he says, for the third time.

  "I'm fine," I tell him, not looking up from my papers.

  "Suit yourself." He doesn't move from his chair.

  I'm not sure if it's pride, or if it's some personal stake I have in it. I'm definitely not sure if I'm only doing this because he's the one sitting at the head of the table.

  If it were someone else, would I have left by now? There was more work to be done, but there always would be. We weren't behind yet. We still had plenty of time, and if I didn't slack, we wouldn't get behind.

  But here I was, putting in hours that, objectively, didn't need to be put in. And it was all because I couldn't let my older step-brother, the first boy I'd ever had a big crush on, see me as anything less than a hard worker and a talented lawyer.

  Or, at least, a future talented lawyer. First try at the bar is in July, and as much as they tell me that I'm capable and smart and all that stuff, I've still got the paperwork on my bedside table at home, taking up space with the timely filing date approaching.

  I shouldn't let myself get distracted. I focus my eyes down. I can't just sit around and waste time. Nobody's going to be impressed by that.

  I don't know how much time passed, but the sound of a book closing wakes me up from the trance of reading across narrow lines of text. I look up.

  My brother pushes himself back from the table and stands up.

  "Come on, Miss Logan. We'll pick this up in the morning."

  "Are you sure? I can—"

  "I'm not going to walk in here in the morning and find you passed out and drooling in my books."

  "I don't drool," I answer, but he's got a doubtful smile and the humor is infectious.

  "Come on. You haven't eaten anything. We'll go find something."

  "Oh, I couldn't—"

  "You can, and you will."

  I stand up, reaching over to stack books and straighten them and I'm making plans in my head for how I'm going to carry them over to the shelves when his arm wraps around my shoulder and he moves me bodily toward the door.

  The sudden closeness makes my breath catch in my chest. If I'd seen it coming, maybe I could have hidden it, but I didn't. I can smell something on him, a cologne too faint to detect from across the table. He smells faintly of spruce and oranges, clean and manly all at the same time.

  For an instant, I let myself lean into him, my natural desire getting the better of my self-control. And then I get control of myself again. I shouldn't allow myself to get close to him at all, but I definitely shouldn't allow myself to get close to him on my first day.

  He certainly didn't mean anything by it. I have to repeat that to myself. He didn't mean anything at all by it. It's just the girlhood crush coming back to bite me, making me see things that aren't there, imagine things that aren't happening.

  I want him because I've always wanted him, and now that he's close, I'm letting myself imagine something that isn't going to happen.

  But God, is it easy to imagine, and God do I want to be right. I straighten myself pul
l gently free of his guiding arm around my shoulder. He lets it go without making any big deal about it. There's a good chance he didn't mean anything by it at all, and I would do well to remember that.

  "I should go get some sleep."

  "You should, Autumn. But you should eat something, first. Where are we going? I'm buying."

  "I can't let you—"

  "Are you telling me that I can't buy a beautiful woman dinner?"

  A shiver runs down my spine when he calls me beautiful. A voice in the back of my mind tells me that he doesn't mean anything by it, and that if he did mean something by it, I shouldn't be flattered.

  But I am. Eric—my Eric, who I have dreamt about just about every night for years—just said, about me…

  I don't know how well I hide that I'm flattered, because I shouldn't be flattered at all. But I am.

  "I don't know what's open at this hour."

  He looks at the clock, and he sees exactly what I see. At eleven, most places are going to be closed.

  "I see what you mean. Burger, maybe? I know a little place that's open twenty-four hours. You'll want to learn where a few are. It'll come up more than you think."

  "If you're buying," I answer, shrugging. I try to keep my expression light to let him know I'm joking. He doesn't have the expression of a man who's joking around, though.

  He's got the same look that took my breath away when I first walked into his office. A look that says that he's got something on his mind that, if he knew I was his sister, he wouldn't be thinking.

  Which is exactly why I'm not going to tell him.

  Because if I tell him, he'll stop, and I have no interest in that.

  Chapter Six

  I don't know what she was expecting, but Autumn's face when she realized she was coming along for the plane ride down to Phoenix was priceless. The way that she tried to hide her excitement and her surprise. She wants so desperately to be seen as someone who's serious that it works against her. She forgets to act like a normal human being.