by G. Bailey
Resisting Them
A Stepbrother Reverse Harem Romance
G. Bailey
Contents
Copyright
Description
Quote
1. Elsie
2. Elsie
3. Elsie
4. Elsie
5. Elsie
6. Elsie
7. Ezra
8. Elsie
9. Elsie
10. Flynn
11. Elsie
12. Elsie
13. Max
14. Elsie
Epilogue
Afterword
Links
Also by G. Bailey
Excerpt of Wings of Ice-
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Resisting Them © Copyright 2018 by G. Bailey.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The author acknowledges the trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or stores referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Previously published in the Snow and Seduction Anthology.
What do you say when your mother calls from her holiday abroad to say she married a millionaire she just met?
Elsie just decides to put it on her long, mental list of irresponsible things her mother has done and carry on with her normal life.
Only that doesn’t last long when Elsie’s mother demands for her to come and stay for the Christmas break with the new family.
Elsie knows she doesn't have any other choice but to go and get meeting the new family out of the way.
Except her mother didn't mention her three new stepbrothers, or the fact that they all look like hot models in expensive suits with killer smiles.
Christmas break was meant to be snow, fun and presents. Instead, Elsie finds herself spending every day avoiding her attraction to not one, but three of her new stepbrothers.
18+ **Reverse Harem**
Quote
“Snow falling soundlessly in the middle of the night will always fill my heart with sweet clarity.”
-Novala Takemoto
1
Elsie
“No, Jesus Christ tell me you’re kidding?” I ask my mum as she rambles on about the hot millionaire she just married. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.
“We had this amazing night, it was so special,” she says, which is code for ‘I fucked this random guy I met, and he happened to be rich’. I lie back on my bed, looking up at the badly painted ceiling and wishing she wouldn’t be this much of a mess up. I don’t get why she married him, it’s not like she doesn’t have her own money from her ex-boyfriends and modelling jobs.
“Anyway, we will be going to his house for Christmas next week, and I want you to come,” she says, and the only thought I have is that’s not how I wanted to spend Christmas this year. Unfortunately, I did say I would spend it with her, but I wonder if I can get out of it.
“No,” I reply, as I try to think of a reason quickly, and she laughs, her voice high-pitched and annoying as hell as it’s not her real laugh.
“Don’t be silly, Elsie. I will email you the address, and John has already said he is going to get someone to get you from the airport,” she says, thinking I’m joking when, truthfully, I can’t think of anything worse than spending two weeks with her and my new fucking stepdad.
“Mum, I’m being serious–” I get out before she interrupts.
“Wait for me, John, I’m just saying goodbye to Elsie.”
“I can’t come, mum, I have university work to do,” I try to tell her.
But I know she didn’t listen to a word when she speaks next, “I have to go, but I will see you soon, and I’ll email you the plane tickets and details now. I miss you, my little Elsie bear,” she says and then puts the phone down before I can even reply to her.
“What did she want?” Kay, my university roommate, asks as I sit up and look over at her. Kay is a strange one, with her long, blonde hair in dreadlocks and a serious expression. She’s covered in tattoos and piercings. I wouldn’t say we were friends, more just two people who happen to share a room and try not to kill each other. I can’t say I haven’t thought about strangling her a few times over the last two years when she was being a bitch or copying my university course work. I have no clue why she wants to be a teacher, like I do, when she doesn’t have a nice bone in her body.
“Nothing. Just the usual shit,” I say, and she nods, going back to whatever, she’s doing on her laptop. I get up and walk out of our room, shutting the door behind me and leaning against it as I scroll through my phone contacts. I need someone to talk to. I stop at my ex’s name, wanting to call him and knowing I can’t. We broke up a month ago, and it’s still strange not to talk to him every day. We were friends for five years before we made the stupid decision to date, and it ruined what we had. I know we are better apart, considering he told me he didn’t love me anymore and then dumped me. The sad part was that I lost him completely as a friend, too, when I heard about him and one of my friends sleeping together a week later. Well, I have two ex-friends now. Seven months of dating, five years of friendship, and he has so little respect for me that he sleeps with one of my close friends a week later. That just about sums up my love life, it’s shit. I still hover my finger over his name and don’t have a clue why.
“Elsie,” I hear my name being called and look up to see my friend, Dane, walking over. Dane is the perfect guy, with soft-brown hair, a cute, baby face, and an amazing body. There’s only one issue, he doesn’t swing my way and is madly in love with his long-term boyfriend. They are cute together. Dane met him last year, and they haven’t been apart since.
“Just who I needed to see,” I smile, and he chuckles, pulling me into a hug and looking down at my phone in my hand.
“If you were even thinking of calling that asshole, then something must have upset you. Was Kay being a bitch?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at me and taking my phone off me. Dane is like the brother I never had and is super protective of me.
“You know what? It doesn’t matter if she was. I’m deleting this asshole’s number, and if you want a guy, we will find you one. You’re a knock out and don’t need shit like this,” he says deleting the contact and handing me back my phone, as I smile a little. I know he’s right.
“No. My mother got married, in Greece, to a millionaire,” I tell him, and he steps back, with wide eyes. I don’t think he was expecting me to say that.
“Fucking hell. That’s got be on top of the list of irresponsible things she has done. I thought the time she got arrested for having a three way on a beach was bad, and the fact that you had to go to Spain to bail her out,” he says, reminding me of what she did just last year. I’m always bailing her out of stuff like this, but that was one of the worst ones. One I never seem to be able to burn out of my mind, was when she called me to pick her up from a garage in the middle of nowhere. I drove for an hour, and she was naked when I got there. She just got in the car, completely naked and asked me to never speak of it again. My mum is completely bonkers. I can’t ever remember her not being like that. My dad used to have me on the weekends, and that left my mum time to go wild when I was little.
“Tell me about it,” I laugh, and he puts an arm around my shoulder, leading me down the hallway.
“Why don’t we go to the café, and I’ll buy you a vanilla iced tea and a chocolate chip cookie?�
� he asks me, and I stare up at him.
“Oh man, I need to find a man like you who likes girls,” I say, and he chuckles. He knows I have a sweet tooth for chocolate and anything with vanilla in it.
“Yep, you do. Did your mum say anything else?” he asks as he lets me go to open the door, and we go outside. The cold air blows against my face, making my cheeks burn, and I pull my jacket closer around me. The café is a two-minute walk from the student dorms and most of the students practically live in it for its wonderful drinks. Well, everything is a two-minute walk in London or a tube journey away. The university is surrounded by places to eat or buy things, which never helps my budget. I need to find a new part time job since my last place closed down, and I will soon run out of spare money. My student allowance only just covers my expensive rent and food.
“Yep. She invited me to come and spend Christmas at the new stepdad’s place,” I reply, and he whistles as we wait to cross the busy road. That’s the downside to living in London, the terrible traffic and the heavy prices to travel anywhere. The rent is awful here, and that’s why I’m stuck living with my bitchy roommate.
“I bet it’s nice, with that kind of money. Did she say where it is?”
“Nope, she’s emailing me,” I say and pull out my phone as we get into the café. I know I’ll have to go shopping now before I leave, to get a present for my new stepdad. I don’t even want to tell my dad about this, he hates any mention of my mum. I don’t look a bit like my mum, with my dark-brown hair and tanned skin. My mum has dyed blonde hair and is pale no matter where she travels. I got everything it seems from my dad’s side, including my blue eyes. Those two hate each other with a strange passion. I spend one Christmas with Dad and one with Mum. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember.
“I’ll get the food and drinks, go sit,” Dane tells me.
“Here,” I say, going to get my card out of my jacket.
“It’s on me,” he says, and I nod, walking over to an empty booth and sliding in as I open up my emails on my phone. I’m not surprised to see my mum already sent an email with an attached first class ticket from London to Edinburgh airport. There’s an address at the bottom and a note reminding me to bring warm clothes. I google search the location, seeing that it is some small-town miles outside of the main city, and it looks like it only has one or two houses dotted around. The houses look small on the map, but I bet they aren’t. I google the weather for the town, and it says snow. Storms and snow, just great.
“So, where is it?” Dane asks when he comes back ten minutes later and slides a plate with a cookie on it over to me, and hands me a drink. He sips his coffee as I chew on the cookie and answer.
“In the middle of bloody, cold Scotland,” I say, and he laughs, looking outside the window at the snow starting to fall. If it’s snowing a little in London, I dread to know how bad the weather is going to be up there and the dreaded realisation hits me that I might be stuck in a house with my mother and the fool she has convinced to marry her.
For two whole weeks.
2
Elsie
“Can I get you a drink, madam?” the air hostess asks as she stops near my chair.
“No, the champagne is fine,” I say, pointing at the bottle she already brought over and told me that it was paid for already. I’m not a big drinker and feel guilty that I’ve only had one glass when it looks expensive. I would offer it to someone else, but there is only an old woman in first class with me, and she has been asleep the whole time I’ve been here. I’ve never been in first class before, and it’s crazy nice. The chair has its own private screen and lays back. The flight is only two hours, so there isn’t much time to relax and enjoy the comfort of it.
“Okay. Well, if you have anything else you need, please let me know,” she says and walks off, her heels clicking against the floor. I look down at my skinny jeans and red tank top, and finally down to my leather boots that make me look out of place here. When I look up and see the air hostess still watching me with a creepy smile, I look away quickly. I have a feeling she is being paid well to look after me, considering the ten or so times she has walked over to me on this flight. I lay my head back, looking out the window at the passing clouds and hear the pilot of the plane announce we are landing and need to put our seatbelts on. The plane shakes as it lands, and as I look out the window, all I can see is snow. They have been having snow storms for the last week. I was surprised they didn’t cancel my flight. I had been hoping.
“I hope you had a lovely flight,” the air hostess says as I pass her, and I smile tightly. I sure did, but I doubt the next few weeks are going to be fun. I try to remember what Dane said about trying to enjoy the trip, and I’m likely going to get some nice, expensive presents from the new family. It takes me less than ten minutes to get my suitcase and wheel it out through the security checks, with all the smiling staff being more than helpful. I’ve never seen an airport as big as this one, and as I stand in the waiting area, I put a scarf on because it’s freezing even indoors. I’m glad I put my trench coat on, but it’s not going to do much against the snow outside. At least, it’s not actually snowing. I look around the busy airport, seeing some people holding up signs with names on them, but none of them are mine. I move closer to the windows, looking out at the snow-covered car park and the people running around.
“Miss Knott?”
I follow the voice saying my name gently and look over at the very sexy man standing behind me. The man’s lips turn up into a slow smile that’s stunning and hard to look away from. Holy crap, where do they hide guys like this. The man has a slight Scottish accent, a clean-shaved jaw, and a playful look in his hazel eyes. He’s a little taller than me, so I have to look up to speak to him.
“As much as I like you staring at me like this, I’m afraid we have to go as my car is parked out front,” he says, and I mentally slap myself out of my ogling.
“I wasn’t staring . . . I was just wondering who you are,” I say, and he laughs slightly as he tilts his head to the side and slowly lets his eyes dip down my body.
“Miss Knot, if your cheeks weren’t flushed and lips weren’t parted like you want me to kiss you, then I might have believed that,” he says.
“Just who in the hell are you?” I ask, and he offers me a hand.
“I’m Flynn Xander, your stepbrother,” he says, lowering his hand when he realises I’m not going to shake it.
Holy crap my new stepbrother is hot.
“Does it always snow here?” I ask Flynn as he drives us to his house, or his father’s house rather. The massive Land Rover he drives is having no problem cutting through the snow on the way, and the stormy clouds above suggest there is going to be more snow later. There isn’t much to see now that we’ve left the main city and hit the countryside. There’s just trees and snow, and more damn snow.
“No, not really. This is a cold month,” he answers. My new stepbrother hasn’t said much to me in the two hours we have been driving, and I can’t stop sneaking glances at him and then mentally reminding myself that he is my stepbrother. Plus, he is way out of my league, anyway. I can tell from the perfectly pressed suit he has on, the soft-styled hair, and the very simple way he flirted with me earlier that he knows exactly what he was doing. I bet he has had his fair share of women, with a body and a voice like his.
“What’s your name?” he asks me when we stop at some lights in the middle of nowhere. There are no other cars and nothing but icy roads that make it difficult for him to drive.
“Elsie,” I reply, and he chuckles.
“What?” I ask finally.
“Nothing.”
“Clearly wasn’t nothing. Come on tell me,” I say.
“Fine. Your name makes you sound all innocent and sweet. I’m hoping you’re not like that,” he tells me.
“Why are you hoping?” I ask.
He chuckles a little before replying,
“You don’t want to know, darling,”
&nb
sp; “What if I do?” I say, making him smile seductively at me, before looking back at the road as he turns into another lane.
“It’s not likely you’re all sweet and innocent.”
“What makes you think I’m not?” I ask, flirting with him a little, and he looks over at me for a second before focusing on the road as the light goes.
“Well, I’ve spent two days getting to know your mother. Let’s just say that I bet the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he says, and I glare at him as his words piss me off. Just when I was starting to like the hot idiot.
“The fucking apple fell far from the slutty pain in the ass tree.” I snap, not believing he’s comparing me to my mum.
“The fucking apple huh? With language like that, the innocent vibe isn’t working, darling,” he laughs.
“You know what, why don’t you drive and shut up?” I say, and he laughs loudly.
“Elsie, you certainly have a way with words,” he says. I don’t reply, letting him drive us further into the countryside.
When Flynn takes a right into a long snow-covered driveway, I finally ask him, “Let me guess, you live in a big-ass house in the middle of nowhere?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” he replies with a questioning look.
“It’s just antisocial, that’s all,” I say, thinking about all the rich people that always live in big houses away from everyone else.