For a damn foolish second, I hope that she says she isn’t on anything and think that if I just got her pregnant, maybe then my dad will have to set aside his expectations of us being siblings. Maybe then he’ll let us be a family in a different way. But who am I kidding? He would be devastated and disappointed. Dad gave me and Reid everything and he only ever asked us for one thing: being good brothers to Kaya and good sons to Karen, and here I am, putting my own desires ahead of everything.
“I’m on the pill, Chase,” She reassures me, unaware of the shit storm that’s raging inside me.
I nod. “Good. I’m clean by the way, so you don’t have to worry—” she takes it the wrong way, if the hurt I see in her eyes is anything to go by. Way to go Chase, before you break her heart, why not go ahead and piss her off too for good measure?
Fuck, regardless of my dad laying down the law about Kaya being off-limits, maybe not being with me is good for her anyway because I clearly suck at this relationship stuff.
“I’m clean too.” She says it staring in my eyes and I dig the hole I’m in just a little deeper. “Super. I know Parker and Bryce have always been responsible with this kind of shit, but glad you’ve been careful too so far.”
She looks confused. “What do you mean?”
I shrug. “You know, I’m glad you’ve been using protection.”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t been using protection, Chase. I’ve never really needed to. Well, I mean, Parker and Bryce got tested and we’ve been doing some ... stuff. But I haven’t slept with them yet. I’d never slept with anyone until ... you.”
Her words cause so many different emotions in my heart that it’s hard to keep my head from spinning. There’s a bit of incredulity because I see the effect Kaya has on men, my brother and I experienced it first hand early on. And I couldn’t miss the way Parker and Bryce were looking at her from the second we got here. Even that douche Marc was totally smitten.
So it’s surprising that she was still holding onto her V-card.
“I thought you ... you know, with Bryce and Parker—”
She observes me before answering. “They wanted to take things slow.”
I blabber like an idiot, because I feel both elated to have been her first but also guilty as fuck for what I’m about to tell her and for how I took her. Had I known that this was her first time, I would’ve been much more gentle. But really, who the fuck am I kidding? Had I known that this was her first time, I would’ve felt way too guilty to take her. She deserves someone who can be with her, she deserves someone who would be her boyfriend, not the shit I’m about to give her, but the alternative is even more painful, so I steel my heart and begin putting physical distance between us.
I get out of Kaya’s bed and don’t dare look at her when I deliver the news.
“Kaya, what just happened between us ... it can never happen again. And we can’t tell anyone. Not even Parker and Bryce.”
I don’t turn around to look at her as I begin putting my clothes back on. I know how her sad and wounded expression looks, I’ve been the cause of it way too many times. And every time I’ve made her cry because of my selfishness, I lost a bit of respect for myself.
But I’m done lying to her about it, I can hurt her by having been too weak to resist her a few moments ago, by not being able to change our circumstances but I can’t go back to the way we were.
If being her friend will be painful, it’s a pain I’ve earned, every single ounce of it.
“You don’t want me anymore, Chase? Was I so awful a fuck—”
I force myself to turn around and face her. She has to know that none of this is her fault.
“It wasn’t fucking, princess. We made love and as far as that goes, it was my first time too. I’ve never been with a girl I cared for and loved before, because I’ve only ever been in love with you.”
“I don’t understand. If that’s how you feel, why— None of this makes sense, Chase. And I have to tell Bryce and Parker, I could never lie to them about it, I love them too much.”
It’s my turn to be confused. “You love them?”
She nods, her green eyes clear like the sea water in Star Cove.
“I haven’t told them yet but I’m in love with them. This is why I couldn’t choose between them. And this is why I have to tell them how I feel about you. I’ve loved you forever, Chase, since the first day we met. My feelings for them are more recent but just as intense—”
I bristle for a second, feeling unadulterated, powerful jealousy rise in my throat. I probably have no right to feel this way but the fuck if anything makes sense right now. “So what was your plan, Kaya? A four way?” My voice sounds hard even to my own ear, but I mean, seriously I’d like to see anyone else in my shoes. How would you react if the girl you’ve just made love to, told you that she’s in love with both your best friends?
I see tears beginning to fall from her eyes as she pulls the bedsheets closer around her chest, probably feeling as exposed as I’m feeling right now.
Her voice is just above a whisper, “I don’t know. I was hoping we could’ve all talked about it and helped each other figure things out. I never set out to deceive anyone but I can’t lie about my feelings. I love each of you.”
I sit back on the bed and wrap my arms around her, letting her lean against my chest and cry the tears I’m making her shed.
“You can never tell anyone, Kaya. What happened between us is ...”
Wonderful, hot, right.
“Wrong and could destroy our family. This is why Reid and I stopped coming here in the summer and stayed away from every holiday unless we knew for sure that you weren’t going to be there. Because we both love you and Dad made it clear that we were to be siblings.”
She focuses on the wrong piece of information first.
“Reid? He loves me too? But he—” I look into her eyes again, explaining how Reid is much better than me at staying away. He could feign indifference while I was weak and chose to torture myself and Kaya by being an asshole to her all the time.
I tell her everything, how we both fell for her at first sigh when we didn’t know about our parents involvement with one another.
How at first we were more worried about the fact that neither of us was prepared to give up on pursuing her and we thought that our biggest problem was winning her over without destroying our relationship with one another.
“We never saw this coming, Kaya. But right before he proposed to your mom, Dad was clear that he expected us to be good brothers to you. And warned us of how things could look if we were too affectionate with you.”
Her eyes cloud over when realization begins to dawn on her. “Is this why you guys stopped hanging out with me? And—”
I rub the pad of my thumb against her bottom lip, knowing that once I leave this room, I won’t be able to do it anymore.
“And we began behaving like two assholes? Yeah. It was a little easier only because I kept telling myself that you never liked me to begin with. Because I thought you’d seen that note on the manga and ignored it. I kept telling myself that Dad was right and that you just wanted us to be your brothers. I’m sorry, princess but nothing has changed. If anything, things have gotten even worse for us. Because our parents are happy together and Dad loves you like a daughter.”
She starts crying harder as soon as she realizes that there’s no way to be together for us, unless we’re willing to destroy our family.
“I love him too, Chase. I love him more than my own dad. He gets me, he cares about me. But I don’t understand. We didn’t grow up together, so why does he think it’s so wrong if we felt more than just friendship for each other?”
The look on her face breaks my heart, I would do anything to see Kaya happy. I’d give her anything she wants but it turns out all I just managed to do is break her heart even more than I already had.
“I suppose he’s got this picture in his head of what his perfect family would look like? And I guess I kinda
understand why he wouldn’t want us to get involved with one another. Think about what would happen if things didn’t work out and we broke up. It would destroy our family and it could affect our parents marriage too, if they felt like one of us did something wrong. And I don’t blame him for speaking up three years ago, he must have noticed how into you both Reid and I were. Things could have gotten bad even before the end of a relationship, if the one you didn’t choose couldn’t have gotten over the disappointment.”
She gives me an odd look and I know immediately what she’s thinking, so I laugh because despite the fact that her thought kind of pisses me off, she’s so cute with that hopeful look in her eyes. “No, princess. Don’t even say it. If Dad couldn’t accept one of us dating you, imagine if we’d decided to share you. He would have had a stroke. Plus, I’m sorry to tell you but I’m not exactly the sharing kind of guy. I want you all for myself and the fact that I can never have you, has been killing me inside every day. Especially now that I know how it feels to have you in my arms, to be inside of you.”
Kaya climbs onto my lap, hiding her face in my chest and I wish there was something, anything I could do to fix this mess.
She looks at me again and her voice comes out in a soft whisper, as if she were trying to cling to one last shred of hope.
“So is this it for us? Is there no way for us to be more than siblings?” I sigh and tell her that I’ve been thinking about it for the last three years but especially since we got here at the beginning of the summer and I saw her again.
“I don’t think there is, unless we’re prepared to lose our parents. Dad is a generous, loving man but he has a hard side to him that you might not have seen yet. But trust me, you don’t build a Fortune 500 company by being a pushover. Have you noticed how at the wedding there was no family? Just friends and business contacts? That’s because Dad hasn’t spoken to his parents, my grandparents, for over two decades. He had some kind of disagreement with his father right before he graduated college and they haven’t spoken since. Kaya, I’m not afraid to be cut off, I don’t care about his money or taking over his company one day. But I can’t disappoint him and break his heart, not when he’s finally happy. When my mother died, Reid and I were just starting middle school and Dad was there for us. He was our rock. I know that as our father, it was his job to care for us but—”
Her hand comes up to cup my jaw, tickling me when she plays with the light stubble that has started to appear on it.
“You don’t need to say anymore, Chase. I understand. My circumstances are different but my mom had to raise me by herself because my dad was never there, under the guise of his military career. But in reality, he’s never cared about me, or Mom. She’s been my everything, she’s always put me first. And I do love Dustin like a father. I just wish there was a way for them to accept how we feel about each other.”
I don’t think there is and I can’t lie to her about it.
“I wish there was also a way to stop loving you, Kaya.”
23.
The Last Kiss
Kaya
THIS MUST BE THE BEST and the worst night of my life: Chase loves me and making love to him went beyond what I could’ve ever imagined in my wildest dreams. But at the same time my heart is broken beyond repair because I know that he loves me back and this feeling that should give us happiness, is just making us sad and miserable.
I understand everything now, why Chase and Reid have been treating me the way they have and how hard things were for them too.
I’m still in Chase’s arms and I hug myself tighter to him, too scared of letting go because I know that the moment I do, there’s no going back. That we’ll have to find a way to get over this all-consuming love and come out on the other side as friends or really learn to master the cold indifference that the twins have been practicing for three years.
I ask him what he wants to do and he shakes his blond head. “I don’t know. I can’t go back to pretending that I hate you but at the same time, I don’t know if I can be your friend. Especially because I’ll have to watch you with my two best friends, Kaya. It’s not just the jealousy that will kill me but I’m afraid that they’ll see right through my feelings for you. They know me too well, they’ve known me since we were kids.”
I hadn’t thought about that either. “Chase, I need to tell them ...” he doesn’t even let me finish. “You can’t. We can’t tell anyone what happened between us. I can’t even tell Reid. If this got out and reached our parents ...” he’s fucking right.
But how am I going to be able to look Parker and Bryce in the eye and lie to them? I try to explain but Chase won’t budge.
“I love them, Chase. They mean as much to me as you do,” his eyes flash with hurt mixed with anger but I have to try to explain how I feel. “I know that it sounds crazy and impossible but I love you all equally. I never thought I could feel the same way I feel for you and Reid for anyone else but it happened. It happened the same way it did with you. The moment I saw Bryce and Parker, I started falling or them. And maybe I’m weird or broken and fucked up but how am I going to be able to lie about my feelings for you? And they’ve been so patient, taking things slow and I just went and had sex ... they deserve to know.”
He looks extremely serious when he tells me that I can tell them that I had sex. “You just can’t tell them it was with me, Kaya. I know they’d never tell on me but the more people know about this, the more chance that the secret will get out. Please, it’s for our family’s sake. I won’t even tell Reid and I’ve never kept any secrets from him.”
I look away, knowing that Chase isn’t completely wrong but I’m still battling with the notion of lying to Parker and Bryce.
He puts a gentle finger under my chin, coaxing me back to look at him, holding me captive with that incredible dark blue gaze of his.
“Kaya you know that I’m just trying not to let our family down, right? You know that I’m in no way ashamed of what we did? I regret it because I feel that I had no right because of the circumstances but I’ll treasure tonight forever.”
I know how he feels, I feel the same way, so I promise to keep our secret.
The light is beginning to change in the room, the night is giving way to a new day, the first day in which I’ll know what I’ve lost before it could ever be mine.
“I need to go, princess. Parker and Bryce might be back any minute and they can’t find us this way.”
I nod shakily, digging my nails into his chest, telling myself that I have to let him go but wanting to stay in his arms one more moment.
He holds me tighter and he speaks softly when he asks me for one last kiss. We both know that it’s a terrible idea, that it’ll only make walking away more painful but I can’t deny him or myself.
His lips touch mine in the most gentle, sweetest kiss ever. There’s all his love and all his reverence and regret in the touch of lips but he still owns me and I still open up to him, letting him taste my own love and my own regret. It doesn’t last as long as I need and I almost tell him that I don’t care about our parents and what they want us to be to each other. I almost ask him to choose me and walk away from it all, for me.
But I know I have no right, that I wouldn’t be able to live it down when one day he’d resent me for costing him his relationship with his father. Especially when I love him with all my heart but I feel the same way for his brother and his two best friends.
When he walks away, I don’t look at him because it hurts too much and I hide my face in my pillow. A pillow that now has Chase’s sexy ocean scent. I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep a wink because of the heartbreak and the guilt I feel toward Parker and Bryce. For some weird reason it’s not because of what I did but because I’m going to have to hide it from them.
But surprisingly, I fall into a fitful sleep and I dream.
I’m fifteen and I’m at the same house where we partied earlier. In the same kitchen where I received my first kiss. The lights go out and I feel mys
tery guy’s lips on mine. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, so I’m prepared. I turn on the flashlight on my phone and I see his face: it’s Chase, it’s Parker, it’s Bryce.
When I wake up, shortly after noon, I realize why I had that dream: in the whirlwind of events of last night, I didn’t stop to think that while Chase definitely wasn’t mystery guy, his kiss made me feel the same way my first kiss did. So now I know there are three guys who can make me melt with one single kiss. I’m in love with all three of them but one is forbidden.
Parker
I CLOSE THE FRONT DOOR as softly as possible: Dustin and Karen are away until later tonight but by the absence of any lights on and the almost eerie silence that shrouds the house like a blanket, I’m sure that everyone is asleep.
I was hoping to spend some time with Kaya but I don’t want to go to her room and wake her up. I’ll make sure to spend some time with her later, maybe take her out to lunch or for ice cream once she’s up.
I step into the kitchen and put the brewer on: I’m too wound up to sleep, so might as well grab a coffee and go sit outside until the rest of the house wakes up.
Bryce follows my lead holding his own cup of coffee and taking a seat on the chair next to mine.
“What a fucking mess! I’m relieved that it all worked out but Chase doesn’t even know how lucky he is that that Marc guy is a real fucking piece of work, or he’d be knee deep in shit right now.”
Bryce’s assessment of the situation isn’t completely wrong but I shoot him a sideways glance and give him a reality check.
“Can you fucking blame him? We both know that the reason why it was Chase who beat the shit out of him and not one or both of us, is that he got to him first.”
Bryce offers me a lopsided smirk and admits it, his eyes fixed on the pool that glimmers like a sapphire in the early morning sunshine.
Forbidden (Perfect for them Book 1) Page 22