Out of Line: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance

by Juliana Conners

  I’ve never begged for a woman to stay. It makes me feel weak and helpless, utterly powerless. But I don’t even care. I need to ask my question and I also need to see her again.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’d love to stay but I really have to go. It’s very important. I have to find my friends and then I have to get back to Pearl Street to my dad’s office to do something that’s very important for my family’s business.”

  I look at her skeptically. This seems like a strange excuse but she also doesn’t seem to be the type to be lying and it would be a rather odd lie to invent right now.

  “I got so caught up that I didn’t get to ask you what I need to ask you,” I tell her.

  “My name is—”

  She begins looking towards the door and already starts heading that way but I pull her back to me once again.

  “No, wait, listen,” I say. “Really quick. I need a big favor.”

  “What?” she asks, a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes.

  “I know this is a ridiculous question because we’ve only just met and then mutually pleasured each other…”

  She laughs and so do I.

  “But I was wondering if you would marry me.”

  “What?” she says, but I’m pleased to hear her laughing instead of looking at me like I’m crazy. I think this might actually work.

  “I know it’s crazy and I can pay handsomely for the inconvenience but I just need you to stand in for Meredith tomorrow at my wedding ceremony,” I tell her.

  Something different than curiosity flashes in her eyes now and I can’t exactly tell what it is. Anger? Annoyance? Or could it be that she doesn’t like the way that I’m proposing my proposal?

  “Look,” I tell her, desperate now. “I really would do this a lot more romantically if I could. It’s not like I just picked you out of thin air. Although I might have. But I mean, clearly we have a connection but you’re in a rush and my wedding’s tomorrow and I don’t have a bride so I’m in a real bind.”

  She laughs and I’m relieved.

  “I guess it is a strange situation,” she says. “And I’d love to help, and quite honestly, to see you again. But I don’t even understand how it would work. Wouldn’t everyone know that I’m not the same girl you went to the rehearsal dinner with?”

  I shrug.

  “Meredith’s really not that remarkable looking now that I’ve seen you.”

  She laughs.

  “Come on. that really doesn’t even answer my question and even if it were true it would make things worse instead of better.”

  “I know, right?” I ask her. “Everyone would be like, ‘Oh yeah, who’s that hot girl?, I thought he was with the dumpy looking chick.’”

  We laugh and then I say, “Don’t worry I’ve got it figured out. This part at least. I honestly don’t know that anyone would even be able to tell. Both of you were in costume tonight. I don’t even know that my own mother would know because she just— barely— met her tonight. But even if she does, I think she’d rather me marry you then nobody.”

  “Whoa,” she says, backing up.

  “I know, I know, that sounds really awful,” I tell her. “But you know what I mean. I don’t want her to know that I’m not marrying Meredith just yet, because she’ll just be upset and give me a whole bunch of I told you so’s on what was supposed to be a nice day for me— my wedding day— but if she does happen to know, then I know she’ll say well I suspected as much. And then she’ll just be glad I have some other plan so that our family name won’t be ruined and so that the crown will be saved.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to figure it all on in my head even though all I need to know from her right now is yes or no.

  “And after the wedding I’ll just tell her that we decided to honeymoon here or something so that I have time to figure something else out. I’m sure that with my family’ money and prestige we can find someone willing to continue playing the role of Princess.”

  She looks at me and then shrugs as if in resignation.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll do it. And not just because you made me come five times in a row.”

  “Only five?” I ask her with a coy smile. “I think I counted more than that.”

  “You’re probably right,” she admits. “I wasn’t exactly in the right mindset to count or do much of anything else. But I’m helping you because I feel really bad about your situation it’s just that I have no idea how we’re going to throw all this together.”

  “I’ll work it all out,” I tell her. “It’s just a small family ceremony which is why we had the big party tonight. Since my mom wasn’t sure the actual ceremony would happen and she didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of everyone if it didn’t.”

  “Gee, wonder why she’d think that,” Ella says, and we both laugh.

  “My family has a lot of servants that can make sure everything gets ready in time for the ceremony tomorrow,” I assure her.

  “Oh yes,” she laughs. I wish we could just stay here laughing together all night. There’s nothing I’d like more. But there are plans to be made before she has to run off. “Of course they do.”

  “And I already have all the clothes. The dress, the shoes, the veil… she even got a fucking tiara to look like a complete Princess, so I have that. All in the hotel room here at the resort.”

  She looks a little uncomfortable. She must be thinking I’m just trying to replace Meredith with her.

  “Of course, I mean if you want to go shopping… any wedding dress store, anywhere, whatever you want…” I start to explain.

  “It’s just, how do you know these things will fit me?” she asks.

  Oh yeah. I hadn’t really thought about that part.

  “I think she said the dress is 36 inches at the waist,” I tell her. “She was upset because she wanted to lose more weight before the wedding so I remember her mentioning this number once when we were talking on the phone.”

  “That could work,” she says putting a hand on her small waist and then letting it trail down her curvy hips, as if measuring it out.

  “Don’t do that,” I tell her. “You’re just going to make me want you again.”

  I pull her close to me and ask, “Are you sure you can’t stay? We can work out all the details for our fake royal marriage, and have a lot more fun too.”

  “I really wish I could,” she says. “But I can’t. Hopefully this will all work out tomorrow. It’s just the shoes that are going to be a problem…”

  All of a sudden she looks extremely embarrassed.

  “Why the shoes?” I ask her automatically, thinking the worst. Athletes foot? She’s missing a toe?

  “I just have this really weird thing I can’t really explain and I know it’s mortifying… but one of my feet is bigger than the other.”

  “Oh,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “Is that all?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “What were you thinking?”

  She tilts her head at me, wondering.

  “Never mind,” I tell her. “I’ll get you the shoes. What size are they?”

  “One of them is between a 7 ½ and an eight so 7.75 which is a size that almost nobody has, and then the other one is a more normal size 8 ½.”

  “That is a tall order,” I tell her, hoping I can remember those numbers.

  She laughs.

  “These days I usually just have my shoes specially made.”

  “Done,” I tell her. “I’m going to find someone who can do it at this short of notice. They’ll be the most beautiful shoes you’ve ever gotten fake married in, don’t worry.”

  She laughs that beautiful laugh again. I love that I’m the one causing it.

  “Okay then, sounds like a deal. I’m sorry but I really have to go, okay?”

  “Okay,” I tell her. “Meet me here tomorrow at 3 PM. The wedding is at five.”

  “And thank you so much for doing this for me,” I add.

  “No problem,” she says. Anything for
the guy I just blew under the table.”

  I pull her in close to me and run my fingers through her hair.

  “I’m so glad I get to see you again,” I tell her. “I’m hoping that even though it’s a fake marriage we can have our wedding night sex.”

  She visibly shivers. I can tell she likes this idea but is shocked by the way I just threw it out there like that.

  “We’ll just see about that,” she says. “What good is a wedding night if there’s no surprise sex?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” I tell her.

  “I know,” she says and we both laugh. “It’s not like I’ve done anything like this before and I mean anything like this.”

  “We’ll do it together,” I tell her and kiss her one last long time before she runs off.

  “I still have to get your name,” I call after her, so upset at myself for forgetting.

  She turns around and hesitates. It’s almost as if she’s deciding whether to cross some kind of invisible barrier. Finally, she shakes her head and says, “I think it’s better that you didn’t. I think Meredith is a fine name for me for tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going to call you that,” I tell her. “That name doesn’t fit you at all. But how about I just call you my Princess?”

  “Alright,” she laughs, one last time. “Until tomorrow, my Prince Charming.”

  “Until tomorrow, my Princess.”

  It’s only as she scurries back into the ballroom to find her friends that I admit to myself how much I really do hope to see her tomorrow. Not just for emotional and physical reasons but also because if she doesn’t show up, then my entire plan will be ruined.

  Chapter 11 – Ella

  “Holy shit,” I say, as soon as we’re back in the Dungeon.

  I’d already filled in Sharon and Nikki as we rushed over here and now I can’t wait to tell my aunt.

  First, though, I have official business to attend to.

  “Did you have fun?” Aunt Ashley asks, looking up hopefully from her spot behind the computer.

  “Way too much,” I tell her. “You’re never going to believe it.”

  “Oh, good, I can’t wait to hear all about it,” she says. “Yeah, but first, how did it go with the assistant? I assume there are no problems or you would text me.”

  “You know it,” she says, pointing to the perfectly prepared invoices on the computer. “Pending your final approval, this is ready to push send. I already looked over them.”

  “Okay then, we’re gonna jet,” Nikki says. “There’s an after party I want to go to.”

  Sharon says, “Ella, can you ca-come when you’re da-done with this?”

  “I see she’s had more to drink,” I tell Nikki, laughing. “Thanks for the invite, guys, but I think I have some pretty important plans tomorrow I need to be ready for.”

  “Oh yeah,” they both squeal together in response.

  My aunt looks at me curiously. “Cool. Did you meet a guy and you have a date tomorrow?” she asks

  “I’ll tell you later. Let me look at this,” I say in a rush.

  “Bye, guys.” I give Sharon and Nikki a quick kiss on each cheek. “Thank you so much for making me go tonight to this is crazy but amazing Ball.”

  “Glad you’re so happy happy joy joy,” Sharon says. “Just don’t…”

  She trails off but my aunt figures out what she’s saying just as soon as I do.

  “Fall in love?” she asks. “Get your heart tangled up too much?

  “Exactly,” Sharon says.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell them. “I have a heart of steel. I’m never gonna fall for anything again after what Paul did to me.”

  I can’t help feeling some knots mixed with the butterflies in my stomach though as I say this. I’ve never felt anything like I felt for the Prince. And the way he made me come was incredible.

  I try to tell myself it’s just the sexual infatuation. I know he wants to take my virginity and I want to let him. That feeling that was missing with Paul is there with the Prince. It feels perfect, so it doesn’t have to make sense. Just like how it didn’t feel perfect with Paul, so it didn’t have to make sense that I didn’t want to be with him in that way, and it had turned out to be good that I had listened to my gut. I want to listen to my gut now too, without putting my heart on the line.

  But I don’t even care that he’s going back to his faraway land. I don’t care that I’ll never see him again. Well, if I’m honest with myself I might care about that a little. But not enough to let it stop me from being with him for my very first time.

  If he can do all that he did to me with just with his fingers – and inspire me to do what I did to him with my mouth – I can only imagine what sort of magic the rest of our bodies can make together.

  I look over the invoices and everything looks fine. My dad’s company has been going well under my leadership, even if my step mother doesn’t want to admit it. I push send on the computer program with ten minutes left to spare. Just enough time to fill my aunt in on what happened tonight.

  “If it were anyone but you telling me the story I wouldn’t even believe it,” my aunt says, when I’m done. “I would think you were crazy and making all of that up. It’s so hard to believe all of that really happened.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe too,” I tell her.

  Of course I didn’t fill her in on some of the finer details. I just said that we kissed – which is true. I just didn’t tell her the kiss was so amazing that it motivated me to do other things with my mouth.

  “Well, I think the fact that he wants you to be his pretend Princess means he’s really into you,” my aunt says.

  “Don’t be silly,” I tell her. “He has to get married tomorrow for the good of the Kingdom.”

  “That’s not true,” my aunt says. “He could’ve just told his mom no. She sounds understanding enough that she would’ve found a way to work with him on it. What would he have done if you hadn’t said yes?”

  “He mentioned something about searching everywhere far and wide and paying someone to stand in,” I respond. “Actually, that’s what he is going to do once he gets back because he’ll need a more permanent replacement for me, his temporary, fill-in bride.”

  My aunt looks at me with a sparkle in her eye and says, “Why can’t that be you?”

  “Very funny,” I tell her. “I have a business to run.”

  “But is that really the only thing holding you back?” she asks. “What if he asked you to extend the length of the fake marriage? You would say yes if it weren’t for this business?”

  “I can’t even, with you and your hypotheticals,” I tell her, but mostly because I don’t really want to think about the answer to the question. “I have no idea what I would do. But he hasn’t asked yet, and he won’t be so please just leave it at that, okay?”

  But she presses forward, as my aunt is known to do.

  She says, “I’m asking because while I was holed up in this dungeon babysitting your assistant, I did a little digging. Look at this document. Here on the computer.”

  She pulls up a document titled Final Draft of Will. It looks different than what my step mother showed me after my dad died.

  “See?” Aunt Ashley says, pointing to clause 3.

  I stare at it, trying to make sense of what she’s telling me and what I’m reading.

  It still says that my step mother and I are to run the business and that my dad hopes we can get along. But it gives me the power to decide how well the business is working out under this arrangement and if I want to buy out my step mother’s quite lower share of the business than I thought he left her (which, she had said 50/50), I can.

  “This is strange,” I say. “I wonder why he changed it.”

  My aunt stares at me again. “Well, maybe he didn’t”

  I can’t even fathom what she’s saying. I know my step mother is evil but is she evil enough to change my father’s Will and pass some altered version off on
me as the real one when it’s not?

  The more I think about it the more I realize that she just very might well be that evil.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go see his attorney and try to see if there’s some way I can contest his Will,” I say. “I never really tried because it certainly wasn’t at the top of my priority list and I stupidly trusted her.”

  But then I realized something else. “It doesn’t really matter because how can I buy out her share? It’s less than I thought he’d left her but that would be a lot of money still.”

  “I thought about that,” my aunt says. “But I think, knowing my brother, that clause was put in there as an incentive to make sure that you run the business well. Because the business is already doing well and I think you can make it better and then you would be able to buy her out.”

  “You know,” I told her, “If I have the money I would just hire a manager to run it in my place. I mean, let’s face it: medical supplies have never really been my thing. I’m more of a daydreamer. Wish I could pay someone else to do it so that I could use the money to go to college and focus on creative writing. Or literature. Something impractical and unprofitable like that.”

  “Well, I really think you can do whatever you want to do,” my aunt says. “You’re a very smart and determined woman and I’m proud of you. And I know your dad would be too. Just like he always was.”

  “Awww, thank you, Aunt Ashley,” I say, as I hug her. Looking at the clock, I jump. “It’s almost midnight . You have to get out of here,” I tell her. “And I have to get all this stuff off.”

  She laughs.

  “So that’s what your friends outfitted you up with?” she asks. “You look beautiful and it’s fitting because they’re like your little animal friends getting you ready to sneak out to the Ball you were supposed to go to.”

  I laugh and say, “then that would make you my fairy godmother.”

  “Well, I’m honored to be that,” she says I hug her long and hard. For what must be the millionth time I think about how glad I am to have her in my life and how lost I’d be without her.

  “Thanks, Aunt Ashley. I hate to rush you out but…”

  “I know, the wicked stepmother is coming soon,” she says.