The Five Brothers Next Door: A Reverse Harem Romance

by Nikki Chase

“I don’t need your plans, Cole. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

  “I promise you, I can fix everything. Please,” I beg her.

  “I told you, I’ve had enough of you trying to run my life. Why do you even do it? Do you get some sort of sick pleasure from destroying and then rebuilding my life?”

  “No, Emily, I’m not trying to—”

  "Stop it!" She shouts. "Everything! Just stop! Stop trying to control my life. I'm not your puppet for you to manipulate and toy with as you wish."

  "Emily," I say, trying to calm her down. "I'm not try—"

  "Shush!" She cuts me off. "Don't tell me what to think! Don't tell me what to do! Just... Just stop!"

  "Will you please let me at least explain what I’m planning to do?" I ask, exasperated.

  "No.” She looks straight at me, her eyes cold and indifferent. “I don’t care anymore about anything you have to say. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear any of it. You've had a lot of chances to explain. You've had years!" She takes in a deep breath, then exhales audibly. In a calmer voice, she continues, "Years, Cole."

  "I know. I know I’ve done you wrong and I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But please, Emily. Let me make it up to you. I never meant to hide anything from you. I just wanted—“

  "I said stop it, Cole. You want to explain. You never meant to do it. You just wanted something else — I don't even care anymore what it was. It's all about you, isn't it?"

  I was almost ready to go on with my explanation, but my mouth falls open and remains that way for a few long seconds that feel like forever. Emily makes a good point. A point that many other people in my life have made before. Maybe there's a truth to it.

  "I thought so," she says. "I'm not here to assuage your guilt, Cole. Stop treating me like I'm some hurt little bird you pick up to put back together. Maybe it hasn't occurred to you, but I'm a human being with my own wants, my own needs, my own aspirations. It’s not all about you.“ She pauses to catch her breath. "It's too late for explanations now, Cole. Stop thinking about yourself for once and let me live my life."

  "Emily, please don't do this." I'm begging now and I know I sound desperate and pathetic, but I'm grasping at straws. I have to tell her something. Something real. Something that actually means something to her. Something that will make her listen to me and stay with me. "Emily. I love you."

  "Then leave me alone," she says with finality.

  She walks away, and I just stand there. I let her leave. It feels like a thousand arrows have just stabbed into my chest.

  I’ve failed.

  Emily

  “Em?”

  “Uh-huh,” I answer weakly from my bed. A thick blanket and a door separate the two of us and I have no idea if she can hear me.

  “Em, are you in there?” Alice repeats.

  “Yeah,” I say louder.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Okay.” I flip the blanket open and take a deep breath. It was getting pretty hot and stuffy in there anyway.

  “Is everything okay?” Alice opens the door, letting the light from the living room spill into my bedroom. She leaves it open as she walks in and sits on my bed.

  “No.” And just like that, the tears start falling again. Soon enough I’m sobbing in Alice’s arms. We used to do this a lot after Scott’s death. I didn’t think we’d have to do this again so soon, especially after I started putting the pieces of my life back together again. Heh. So much for my recovery.

  “Did something happen with Cole?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Alice. Who’s Randy? How does he know Cole?” I thought I’d had enough of Cole’s excuses. I thought I already had all the answers. But as soon as I got home and had a chance to think, more questions cropped up in my brain.

  I can’t possibly pick up the phone and ask Cole after the way we left things at the cemetery. But maybe Alice can help with the few remaining questions that I have.

  “Em, I need to tell you something. Please keep in mind that I love you and I never thought things would turn out this way.”

  I pull away to take a good look at her face. Why did she say that? She’s starting to sound like Cole.

  Alice takes a deep breath, then says, “There is no Randy.”

  “What are you talking about? You told me about Randy yourself, remember? When we had that dinner with Cole?”

  This doesn’t make any sense. Alice would never lie to me. It must’ve slipped her mind.

  “I remember, Em. Listen. As soon as you told me about going to the conference alone with Cole, I knew I’d made a mistake, but it was too late. You were so excited about it and it was a good opportunity for your career. I couldn’t just tell you not to go. But the thought that I could’ve stopped what happened between you and Cole has been keeping me awake every night.”

  “I don’t understand.” I frown in confusion and sniffle. All the crying I’ve done all day has blocked my nose.

  “I’m sorry, Em. I’ll start from the beginning.” Alice hands me the box of tissues from the nightstand and smiles apologetically. With my room in complete darkness, Alice’s face is cast in the shadows of the light coming in through the slit in the door.

  “Marco didn’t tell me about a vacancy at Foster Hotels, and neither did Randy. Randy doesn’t even exist. Cole was the one who approached me about the job.”

  “Cole…?” I prop myself up with my elbows and get up to a sitting position.

  “Yes.” She takes another deep breath, as if steeling herself to tell the tale. “About a year after the accident, Cole came up to me and introduced himself. He said he was the driver in the other car. He said he knew you were looking for work and he wanted to help. I did wonder how he knew about it, but when I found out he was Robert Foster’s son it all became clear.”

  “Who is Robert Foster?” I blow my nose into the tissue and set it aside to join all the other tear-saturated, snot-soaked tissues on my bed.

  “Ah, right. You don’t know who he is.” She looks up at the ceiling and pauses to think. “I first heard about him from one of the regulars at my restaurant. He’s a big deal. A really big deal, Em. We don’t hear much about him because he’s a private guy who prefers to stay in the shadows.”

  “I’ve met him at the office a few times,” I say.

  “He’s not literally always in the shadows.” For the first time since she entered my bedroom, Alice smiles. “Some say he’s into drugs and illegal gambling, but nobody really knows. He definitely has some shady stuff going on, although people say he’s cleaning up his business now that he has enough money to go legit.”

  I nod along as Alice tells her story. It’s all starting to make sense now. The tracker, the men Cole said were guarding him, the strange animosity between the two of them.

  “So you see how I didn’t think it was strange that Cole knew about your job search. His family is the kind of people who make it their business to know about stuff.”

  “So you lied about Marco? And about Randy? Why?” I know Alice would never do anything to hurt me. I feel like I’m in an alternate reality where everything’s upside down.

  “Well, you really needed a job, Em. And the job market sucked. And you had no qualifications for the kind of job that would lead to a decent career,” Alice says. “You have to admit it was an excellent opportunity for you. You’d already had everything taken from you. I didn’t see any point in you handicapping yourself career-wise for no good reason.”

  “What do you mean for no good reason?” My chest starts to burn again with anger and confusion. Why does everybody in my life feel the need to make life-changing decisions for me?

  “I’m sorry, Em. But you know as well as I do that it really was an accident. You told me yourself that Scott was speeding to get you home. In the storm. At night.”

  I remember how I was begging Scott to get me home quickly. My head was spinning and I needed to lie down. I had no idea it was goin
g to cause the biggest tragedy in my life. I’ve spent countless nights crying myself to sleep just thinking about how I was pressuring Scott to drive faster. If Cole is a murderer who’s responsible for Scott’s death, then I am too.

  “At the time you couldn’t even see yourself going back to college, so your career chances weren’t going to get better any time soon,” Alice continues. “I knew you and Scott planned for you to go back to college while he continued working. And with Scott gone, that wasn’t possible anymore. I thought there was no sense in throwing away the only good career opportunity you’d ever come across in your life.

  “I thought you would work at Foster Hotels for a couple of years and then move on to another company. You’re a smart girl, Em. Always have been. I thought if someone would just give you a chance you’d go far. Then Cole showed up, ready to give you that chance. I never expected anything to develop between the two of you.

  “I know it’s hard for you to see too far into the future right now. But years from now you’ll have forgotten all about Cole. You’ll have an awesome new job and maybe even an awesome new boyfriend.”

  “I can’t see any of that happening,” I say, blowing my nose into a bunch of crumpled up tissues.

  “I know what happened with Cole wasn’t exactly normal dating experience. But believe me, sooner or later you were going to run into some assholes. It’s all just a part of being a single girl in the city. Think of this as a learning experience. Hell, as far as assholes go, Cole isn’t even the worst.”

  “God, Alice. I asked him if he did it on purpose.”

  “What, the accident?”

  “I don’t know. Everything.” I can’t even remember much of what I said this morning at the cemetery. It all happened so fast.

  “I’m sure that was a real accident, Em. There was no reason for him to purposely get into a car accident, not unless he had a death wish. He almost died himself.”

  “He did?” I look at Alice incredulously. “Why don’t I know about this?”

  “The Foster family kept the details out of the papers. That’s why it’s not in the news. That’s why there was no media interest at all in the story even though it involved someone like Cole Foster.

  “I asked Cole about it when he approached me about your job. I asked him why. He told me he was unconscious for days. When he woke up, the family had taken care of everything. The police, the media. There was nothing left for him to do and the guilt was killing him. He felt that helping you would help him heal. And Em, you needed that help.

  “Honestly, I don’t know why he decided it was a good idea for the two of you to get together. But I’ve given it some thought, and I don’t think he meant for that to happen either. He stayed away from you for months, right? Until Robert Foster told the two of you to go to the conference.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of these things?” I ask.

  “Would you have taken the job if you had known?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly,” she says. “I know you’re not ready for it right now, but you’ll see that this was a good career move for you, Em. Now that you have some work experience at one of the most prestigious hotel chains in the country, finding work won’t be as hard as it used to be.”

  Alice has a point. Having worked for Foster Hotels has made my resume a lot more attractive to future employers. And that presentation I did in Seattle made it look even better. I also made a lot of industry contacts at that conference.

  “So what do I do now?”

  “You do whatever you want, Em. You’ve been through a lot and you’ve accomplished a lot in your short career. You can rest for a while and then figure out what to do yourself. I’m done being a busybody.” Alice smiles.

  “Are you sure?” I tease her. Alice has been my parent and my guardian angel my whole life. She can be nosy, but maybe that’s a side effect of having always been the one who’s responsible for my well-being. Even if things haven’t turned out well, I know she has done her best for me. And I can’t imagine her behaving any differently in the future.

  “You’re a grown-up and you can make your own decisions. Obviously, I don’t always make the best decisions. I’m not going to run your life anymore.” She looks at my unconvinced expression and admits, “Well, at least I’ll try my best.”

  Alice softly laughs, and I join her even as my tears continue to streak down my cheeks. It feels weird to cry and laugh at the same time. But I feel like I can face life again — maybe not now, but definitely in another month or two.

  Cole

  “I didn’t think you’d really come,” my father says as he enters the home office.

  It’s mid-day now and the room looks completely different. The curtains that covered the big window behind the desk are now pulled back, letting warm sunshine stream in. I can see trees and flowers outside the window.

  My father has always loved gardens. He has an army of gardeners to maintain the grounds around his mansion. It’s just like him to never want to get soil on his own hands even if he’s the one who gets to actually enjoy the results of the dirty work.

  “You know me. I always come when you call. Besides, I don’t miss Officer Dumb and Officer Dumber,” I say.

  “Very funny. You’re a joker, that’s what you are.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad you enjoy my jokes.” I watch him take a seat in his big leather chair across the desk.

  “Where did you go yesterday?”

  “Oh, you know. Around.” I shrug nonchalantly and lean back in my own comfortable, fabric, normal-size chair.

  “George and Julian told me you went missing and they couldn’t find you.”

  “Sounds to me like you need to improve your HR department.”

  “I do have to either fire them or train them. I haven’t decided.” He looks to the side and purses his lips like he always does when he’s thinking. Looking back at me, he says, “I thought of sending more experienced men, but you know them and you’d just talk them into letting you go.”

  “You’re getting rusty, Pop.”

  “Maybe I am. And maybe I’m getting soft, too, because I’ve been letting you run around and do as you like. You haven’t even been answering my calls. But that’s not how things are going to work from now on.”

  “Oh, no. Should I be scared?” I use the wimpiest voice I can come up with.

  “Don’t whine. You sound like a little girl,” he says.

  “Maybe I want to act like a little girl. Maybe that’s what I’m going to do next, since you’re probably going to fire me now.”

  “So you’re admitting that you saw her yesterday?” He rests his elbows on top of the desk and interlaces his fingers, holding them against his clean-shaven chin.

  “Of course I saw her. Why else would I sneak out? If I just wanted to go shopping I could’ve taken them with me. Maybe then they’d dress better,” I say. “You know what you should do? You should design a uniform for your thugs. Maybe your new and improved HR department can do that for you.”

  I know I’m deliberately derailing the conversation. Maybe I’m being immature, but I don’t know when I’m going to have another chance to aggravate him, and — get this — I think I’m going to miss this.

  He sighs. There it is. The father I know wouldn’t just go along with my jokes endlessly, not even when he’s in a good mood like today. The man’s patience has a limit, as he so often reminds me.

  “Boy, this girl is going to be your downfall,” he says. “Mark my words.”

  I shrug. What can I say? The man’s probably right. Look at what I’ve already given up for Emily. For all that I’ve done, she’s not even mine anymore. And yet I feel completely at peace with how things have gone.

  I’m heartbroken and miserable, but I’ve done my best to make things work with her. I actually love her. I didn’t even know I was capable of that before Emily. So I’d call that a win.

  “I don’t like having to do what I’m going to do.” He looks straight
into my eyes like he used to do when he was about to take my toys away. He’s expecting me to break down and apologize. I may have done that when I was a boy, but I’m a full-grown man now. He doesn’t scare me like he used to.

  “Bullshit.”

  “You know what?” He glances out the window in an exaggerated show of pensiveness. “You’re right. Maybe I do enjoy this a little bit.”

  “You wouldn’t be so jolly if you weren’t about to bring down your wrath and punishment upon me.”

  “You know I have to be consistent once I’ve said something. I’m a man of my word. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you. Maybe that’s my own fault for not bringing you up more strictly. You’re my youngest kid and I’m too lenient with you. I’ve failed to instill proper discipline in you.”

  “Oh, let’s not get all nostalgic now. You’re going to make me cry.”

  “Yes, but I’m going to make you cry tears of pain, not nostalgia.” He smirks cruelly.

  He’s always more jovial when he’s about to execute one of his threats. He knows it’s going to hurt like hell for me regardless of his demeanor. Whether he yells at me or jokes around with me, I’m still going to end up in a world of pain. He’s calm and cheerful because he knows he’s about to get his way yet again.

  “You know, I’m actually overdue for a good cry. It’s been a while since I last watched a re-run of Bridget Jones’ Diary.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that is.” He looks intently into my eyes. “I’ll admit I do enjoy this, but only because it means I’ve planned things the right way. I built in some kind of insurance to make sure you don’t hurt the family. And now that you’ve gone and done that, I can’t just let you get away with it.”

  “How? How have I hurt the family? Can’t you just admit that you just don’t like it when I don’t follow your orders like a good lap dog?” I know I’m raising my voice and he’s probably enjoying this, but my anger has been simmering beneath the surface for too long now. He’s treated me this way my whole life, controlling my every move while pretending like he’s only trying to be a good patriarch.