The Cousins Series Boxed Set

by Lisa Lang Blakeney

  "Is it safe?"

  "Ha ha. I thought you were Roman again."

  "He's just being a good cousin honey. I know that I said that you wouldn't see him much around here, but he's just trying to get you out of the house for a while."

  "So you put him up to this?"

  "His father did." She holds her hands up like she's under arrest. "It wasn't me. I know how dedicated you are to your work."

  Even though he's eerily quiet, Joseph has been nothing but super sweet to me since I've been here, and I can tell the way he is with Juliette, that he is possessive and protective by nature. Of course he would want someone to look out for me. He probably feels responsible for me since I'm currently living under his roof, but I just can't. Not with Roman.

  "It's not like I don't know the city Aunt Juliette. I've lived here for years. I went to Penn. I don't need a babysitter."

  "Is this about Roman burying you alive when you were six, because that was our fault sweetie. We should've been keeping a better eye on things. He was just doing what boys that age do. Roman was always a handful."

  "Auntie–"

  "You're not going to stop saying aunt are you?"

  "Not to your face." I smile. "It just seems inappropriate to call you by your first name."

  "My brother has always had a stick up his ass with formalities and stuff. I get it though. We were raised that way by your grandparents. It's just that I remember us both promising each other that our children would call each other by our first names. We thought the whole title thing was stupid when we were kids. We had to call anybody over the age of twenty-five aunt this or uncle that. Even our cousins. It was ridiculous."

  "It's a shame that you and Dad can't figure out how to fix this thing between the two of you. I'm pretty sure he misses you."

  "What makes you think that?" She asks wistfully.

  "Just a feeling."

  "Well maybe one day we'll clear the air. Having you here is actually a big step in the right direction."

  "How does helping your homeless niece repair things between the two of you?" I chuckle.

  "I don't know if ten years ago he would have ever allowed you in this house. He must be mellowing with age or maybe because you're an adult now. Either way, it's progress."

  I smile but wonder to myself what on earth could have happened to make my dad avoid his only sister for most of his adult life.

  "Will you tell me what happened?"

  She exhales tiredly.

  "Your father and Joseph have some issues."

  "What issues?"

  "They don't like each other. Your father didn't want me to marry him. He made me choose. I chose Joseph."

  My father is many things, but making his sister choose between him and the man she loves sounds extreme even for him.

  "Let me brush out your hair before you jump in the shower Elizabeth. It's gorgeous. Just like your mom's."

  "Okay."

  "You know that Bobby and Philip are four and six years older than your father and me." Uncle Bobby and Uncle Philip are Juliette and my dad's older brothers and are both lawyers for my grandfather's firm.

  "Yes."

  "That's why your father and I were so close, because we're only a year apart, but we also worshipped our big brothers. Your dad wanted to hang around them and be just like them, and I wanted to date all their friends. Joseph was one of those friends. I'm pretty sure your dad envisioned me with a nice guy my age from school or something. The whole family did. But Joseph didn't go to our school and he wasn't from our town. He was from the inner city, rough around the edges, and he was much older than me. No one wanted me with Joe, but your dad definitely took it the hardest."

  "So he cut you off completely because of who you chose to love?"

  "Not completely. If I was to ever be in any real trouble, I know that your father would be there in an instant. I've never doubted that. We just decided that we couldn't be in each other's lives in the same way that we had been. It just wasn't going to work. Your dad never respected our relationship."

  "May I ask why you didn't become a lawyer?"

  She stops brushing my hair for a moment. "Has your father talked about that?"

  "Maybe once." He definitely brought it up more than once. Blaming my uncle for her "downfall," as he called it.

  "It wasn't because of Joseph if that's what he said."

  "Well you don't have any children, so I was just wondering what stopped you from–"

  "I lost a couple of children Elizabeth." She cuts me short. "Three miscarriages to be exact."

  "Oh my gosh, I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

  "It was a long time ago sweetie. I just couldn't seem to carry any of my angels to full term."

  Juliette silently finishes brushing out the last section of my hair. I feel like crap. I shouldn't have asked her all of those questions. Sometimes I amaze myself at how I often manage to say or do the wrong things at the wrong time. I have the worst timing.

  "There you're all done." She pats my shoulder.

  "TEN MINUTES!" I hear the sexiest, raspiest voice bark up the stairs to the both of us.

  "Gosh your cousin is bossy just like his dad. Those Masterson men." Juliette chuckles and shakes her head. "You better get ready."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELIZABETH

  MY NEW COUSIN MAKES ME anxious. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He's managed to shower, dress and smell absolutely amazing in less than fifteen minutes, and he's keeping a close watch on me out of the corner of his eye while he drives. Gosh, the man even drives with swagger. Looking sexy as hell as he leans slightly back in his seat with his left arm guiding the steering wheel and the right stretched across the back of my seat. His hand is so close to the back of my head, I find myself sitting here waiting for him to start running his fingers through my hair.

  "Where are we going?" I ask nervously.

  "By the art museum." He says in a serious tone.

  I turn my head to look square at him. "That's where I used to live."

  "I know. Joseph told me you still have a few boxes in the basement and that you haven't received your security deposit back yet?"

  I pick up my iPhone and play aimlessly around with the arrangement of my apps. I'm embarrassed and a little annoyed that my uncle has sent Roman to handle business that is my responsibility without even consulting me. I wonder if my mother told them about everything that happened, because she clearly must have told my aunt and uncle something. Of course even she doesn't know everything.

  "Why do you call your father Joseph?" I ask changing the subject.

  "The same reason why Juliette wants you to call her Juliette. They don't want to feel like they're old enough to be somebody's father or aunt."

  "But they clearly are."

  "They sure as hell are, but what can you say to the delusional?"

  We both laugh at the same time and my eyes lock with his for a fleeting moment.

  "Are you and Joseph close?"

  "Not exactly."

  "But you work together right?"

  "Yes, but it's not like you're thinking."

  "What am I thinking?"

  "That I wanted to follow in his footsteps, be a part of the family business, or some shit like that."

  "Then what is it like?"

  "It's more like I didn't have a lot of options, and I took the simplest path."

  "Seems like a profitable path though. This is a very nice car, and I hear you live in some fancy apartment on Chestnut."

  We were riding in a freshly washed, black Range Rover SUV with tan leather interior and some sort of navigation system that looked like it was designed by a NASA engineer. And I couldn't help but overhear Juliette bragging to a girlfriend on the phone the other day how she's so proud of Roman, and how he lives in a great building with a doorman at his age.

  "We already had money Elizabeth," he says flatly.

  "Your father did, but Juliette says that you earn your own money. That they don'
t give you a dime."

  "Does money impress you?" I detect a tone from him that suggests that me liking money is a bad thing. Like perhaps I'm some sort of shallow person, when I'm far from that. I'm just impressed by his success. His and Joseph's. Everything they've seemed to have accomplished. I want to be independent and an entrepreneurial success like they are. I want people to remember who I am, or at least what my contribution to this world was, and I certainly don't want to have to live in my aunt's guest room while I do it.

  "There's nothing wrong with money, but that's not what motivates me if that's what you're asking."

  "What motivates you?"

  "The work that I do."

  "What are you working on exactly?"

  "I'm designing an app."

  "Oh that's cool," he says with a little disinterest. "A game?"

  "No, it's a productivity app that will help match high school seniors and college students to scholarship money." I say with pride in my voice.

  He looks mildly impressed. "You're smart."

  I shrug my shoulders. "More like inspired. My parents didn't have the money to send me to Penn or any college for that matter, but they made too much money to qualify for needs-based scholarships. So I had to figure things out on my own. I spent most of my junior year of high school online, in libraries and bookstores researching hundreds of scholarships. It was a nightmare, but it worked. I paid for my entire college education. Room and board. Even food."

  "So you want to help others have an easier time finding scholarships?"

  "Exactly. The money is out there, it's just the search for it which is brutal."

  "That's fucking amazing."

  I grin like a goofball. There's something about receiving Roman's seal of approval that makes me feel like doing a hundred cartwheels.

  We ride by one of my favorite diners, and I know we're back in my old stomping grounds. I'm getting nervous, and I need to find a way to tell Roman the reason why without telling him everything. I don't like to talk about the attack. I've barely told Sloan or my parents what happened, so I sure as hell don't want to spill my guts to him.

  Roman already notices my apprehension. Shit. My hair twisting always gives it away.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I don't think I'm going to get the security deposit back."

  "Why?"

  "The place needs painting, there's a hole in the wall of my bedroom, and I didn't really clean when I left."

  His eyebrows squish together. "Back up. Why is there a hole in your bedroom wall?"

  "A misunderstanding."

  "Between?"

  "Me and my ex." Well that's sort of the truth.

  "What's his name?" He asks flatly. "The ex."

  I turn my head and catch Roman staring at me.

  "Keep your eyes on the road please." I ask.

  "I got this. I was driving well before you got your period. Just give me the name."

  Gosh, he can be so crude sometimes.

  "I don't want to tell you."

  "Why?"

  "Because I get the feeling you might actually do something with the information if I give it to you."

  He grins. "That's the idea."

  "I handled it."

  He growls under his breath.

  "Listen Elizabeth, I know that we don't know each other that well yet, but you're going to learn a couple of things about me very quickly. I'm an expert at handling shit, I don't like to ask things twice, and I don't accept the word no very often or very well."

  Something about that very matter-of-fact statement makes my nipples tingle. I imagine he's very hard to say no to, and that I probably couldn't say the word very much at all to him. I probably wouldn't want to.

  "I need the name. It's my third time asking," he warns.

  "Ethan Anderson." I say reluctantly.

  "See, was that so hard?" He asks with a grin while keeping his eyes on the road.

  "I guess not." I say with an unintentional quiver in my voice.

  Roman turns his head, looks at me and squints again. It's like his eyes are a bullshit meter.

  "What aren't you telling me?"

  I take a deep breath and just spit it out. Chances are my mom told Juliette or Joseph most of what she knows anyway.

  "I didn't have a fight with my ex. We were both attacked in my apartment. That's why there's a hole in the wall."

  Roman quickly swerves the Range Rover over to the shoulder of the road. I can hear bits of gravel popping as we roll over them.

  "What happened?" He asks with an eerie but deadly like calm.

  "Why are you stopping?" I ask nervously.

  "Talk." He hooks my chin with his pointer finger. "And I mean everything Duchess."

  Every time he calls me that I can't breathe.

  I lean my body into the passenger side door as I speak, wishing I could burrow myself even further. The fresh air from the window I cracked is whipping stray hairs around my face and they're sticking to my lips. I'd do just about anything right now to change the subject, but I know it's not going to happen. I can see that about him already. The steely determination across his face. He's waiting patiently for my story, and he's made it clear that he doesn't like to ask for things twice.

  "My boyfriend was over ... Ethan. We were fooling around in my bedroom when we heard a loud crash in the front of my apartment."

  I turn to look at Roman's face. He motions for me to continue.

  "There were men in the house."

  "How many?"

  "Three."

  "How do you know there were three for sure?"

  "Because two had guns drawn on Ethan and one knocked me out. My head made the hole in the wall."

  Roman grips the steering wheel tightly while drawing deep breaths, and I stop talking.

  There's an awkward silence between us now.

  We're still sitting on the shoulder of the road and Roman hasn't looked my way or spoken to me in over six minutes. I know it's been exactly six, because I've been paying close attention to the time on my phone. I don't know him that well, but his body language suggests that keeping quiet and giving him time to process what I said then let him calm down is the right approach.

  "Is that why you're at my father's house?" He asks finally breaking the silence.

  "Yes. I couldn't stay in that apartment anymore. I just–"

  "And where is ... Ethan?" He asks with disdain on his lips, although I don't know why. I haven't even told him about the drugs yet.

  "His parents told me that he is in rehab in Arizona."

  "So this was drug related?"

  "I think so, but I didn't know he did drugs." I say in my defense. "Ethan is a swimmer and an athlete. He always told me that he'd never do drugs."

  "Do you love him?"

  "What?! No." That was a weird question.

  "Is he still your boyfriend?"

  You would think that I'd have an emphatic answer of a "hell no" to that question, but it isn't that simple. I haven't spoken to Ethan since the incident. He hasn't called, texted, or even written me a frackin' letter. Even most of his friends are avoiding me. It's almost as if they blame me for what happened, when it's totally obvious that Ethan got knee deep into something that he brought to my doorstep. Not the other way around.

  "Umm–"

  Roman raises an eyebrow at that response but moves on.

  "And so what did the men want from him? Money or drugs?"

  "Drugs I think. They said Ethan had something that belonged to them."

  "Do you remember exactly what they said Duchess?"

  "The two with the guns didn't say anything. The one who knocked me out did all the talking. He said that Ethan was lying, that he was high on his shit right now."

  "Did you say anything to them?"

  "Not one word. He hit me when Ethan said he didn't know what they were talking about."

  "And then you woke up and everyone was gone?"

  "Yes." This sounds even worse when I talk about it.r />
  "Ethan went to Penn with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Is he from here?"

  "No, he's from Maryland, but why? What are you going to do Roman?" I start panicking a little. "I just want to put this whole thing behind me. Joseph should have never asked you to do this. It's my business and–"

  "There's no way in hell Joseph knows about this. Trust me. He thinks all I'm doing is taking you to pick up the rest of your things. He knows something happened to you for you to leave your apartment so abruptly, but nothing like this. If you're worried that your parents told him what happened, they didn't, and they didn't tell Juliette. That's if your parents even know."

  "They sort of know."

  "Sort of?"

  "They don't know about Ethan or the drugs. They just know I was attacked in my home. I guess they decided not to tell Joseph."

  "Are you protecting that asshole?" He asks coldly.

  "No. That's not it at all. I just wish you would let me handle it Roman."

  "You're family now, so your business is my business. Remember that. And what the fuck are you so worried about anyway? I told you, handling shit is what I do for a living, and I do it well."

  He steers the car back on the road ... pissed off.

  "You feel me?" He asks.

  I nod. Roman is saying all the right things, all very assuring things, but I worry that he's looking at me in a new light. I'm not sure why his opinion even matters to me, but it does. Maybe he thinks differently of me now. Maybe he feels sorry for me. Maybe he realizes that I'm dumber than a doornail, because let's be honest, only an idiot would miss the fact that her boyfriend was a frackin' drug addict?

  "Is that it?" He points to the management office of my old building while he unknowingly pulls into a parking space directly in front of my old apartment.

  Roman is dressed in a slightly loose vintage ringer tee and worn jeans with a different pair of black hard bottomed boots on. His tats are very much visible today, and his height and width make him appear even more formidable. His shirt softly hugs his solid edges, and I gaze in amazement at what I already know is a six-pack rippling underneath. With a core that strong, I can't help but daydream about how easily it must be for him to lift a woman up and flip her over.