Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance

by Nenia Campbell

  Seeing his smile, Owen Parker turned to him and said, “So what did you think?”

  “I'll let you know my final decision tomorrow,” Nicholas said absently, and the other man looked disappointed but not entirely surprised. “Thank you for the presentation.”

  Damn the presentation, he thought, as the other secretary looked pointedly away from him. He hadn't come four hundred miles to sit through a three-hour long bullshit session about the merits of soap and bath oil and scented candles. What a waste of his time.

  He went to Bana anyway, just to give her a fair chance. It was a Turkish bar that was known for its raki, but they had appetizers and liqueur-based cocktails, as well as a limited tapas menu. Nicholas stayed for an hour: he had two drinks, left a generous tip, and then left, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his blazer to keep out the encroaching chill of the fog.

  San Francisco was surprisingly cold. So much more so than Hollybrook. Only fools and masochists would tread along these inhospitable beaches, or swim in that iron gray water. He couldn't see how Jay could possibly enjoy living in this dump. She'd always seemed to like L.A.

  Until you, that dark, niggling voice whispered. You made her run.

  Nicholas returned to his hotel, greeting the clerk—a trick he'd learned from Jay. She said hello to people because she genuinely seemed to like people; he did it because the service was so much better. Once he was alone, he leaned against the closed door of his hotel room. Then he stalked towards the bed, shrugging his coat off and tossing it on a nearby chair as he began to undo the pristine white fabric that had been beneath it, balling that up and tossing it, too.

  The sheets had been soft enough last night but now they chafed against his skin. The king-sized bed was too big for one person, but he hadn't thought he'd be returning here alone. He slid off his belt with a musical jangle and unzipped his jeans, pulling them down just enough to free himself. Mr. Beaucroft, she had called him, in that soft, mellifluous voice. Not as good as what he wanted, but better than Nick: it had just enough reverence to get him hard.

  A sound escaped his lips as he began to stroke himself. As his mind hazed over with pleasure, he began thinking about how he was going to get his flighty bird to come to him.

  It would be harder this time. He couldn't just grab her off the street or buy her off the way her mother could be bought off, which meant he was going to have to resort to his old games and fuck with her trusting little head. Nicholas arched back, slowly rocking his hips into his own jerking fist. God, he wished she were a secret deviant. If he was going to blackmail her, he needed something more on her than just a stripper mother, or a mildly salacious tape.

  Everyone else in our family was depraved, he thought. Her mother, fucking the pool boy. My father, fucking everyone else. Even he had done his share of the illicit, largely because of his father, who had seen that first faint spark of depravity burning inside him and encouraged it to burn. He still remembered that trip to the brothel when he was eighteen. How that whore named Ivy had looked and sounded so right in some ways, but so wrong in the ways that mattered.

  He climaxed with a vengeance, spattering hot come on his tensed stomach. Nicholas leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the nightstand, cleaning himself off as his breathing eased. No, it hadn't been the same, and that was why he had stopped seeing her. It was why he had stopped seeing all women, really, regardless of how prettily they sucked his cock or begged.

  There was only one woman who belonged beneath him, so he might as well delete the—

  It hit him, in a burst of insight: the photograph.

  He knew exactly how to trap Jay.

  Chapter Three

  2017

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  No new meetings to schedule.

  It should have been reassuring, but instead it was ominous; she felt like someone was holding a gun to her head and she was kneeling in the dark, waiting to see if it would or wouldn't fire. Jay couldn't believe that he would come all this way to see her and then simply . . . give up.

  Really, it wasn't her fault. Considering everything that had happened between them, Nick couldn't be surprised that she would never want to see him again.

  No new meetings to schedule.

  He had her home phone number. He probably had her cell phone number, too—too bad that was stolen. Her mouth twisted. Hell, who was she kidding? He probably had a thousand ways of looking her up. There was no shortage of resources in the world for a man like him. He could make her life very painful if he wanted to. The question was, did he want to?

  Jay looked at the door. Maybe he's going to confront me in person and make a scene.

  The thought made her sick. She'd always hated scenes. But Nick seemed to get off on them.

  “Laundry day again?” Lily asked, walking by with a cup of coffee from Jumpin' Java.

  Jay clutched at the fuzzy neck of her turtleneck sweater. “I'm just trying something new.”

  “The Cat Grandma Fashion Handbook?” she quipped. “Step one: wear a cat hair sweater?”

  “It's mohair,” said Jay. “And I'm not a cat grandma—at the most, I'm a cat aunt.”

  I could be an aunt, she realized. Nick's twenty-seven now. I could be an aunt multiple times over. He could be married—divorced. Why did that make her feel as if she had a fever? She tugged at her sweater, as if to fan the heated skin beneath. I don't know anything about him now.

  “Okay,” said Lily. “Seriously, Jay. What's going on? You keep staring at that door like you think it's going to bite you. Are you expecting someone?”

  “No,” said Jay. “I'm just not feeling well.”

  The door behind them burst open, chatter escaping. “Ms. Varens.” Owen walked towards her with his arm around—no. “Have you met Mr. Beaucroft?”

  “Yes,” she said, furiously modulating her voice. “Yesterday. In reception.”

  “Jay is such a delight. So is Lily. Sherry and I love these girls. Yesterday, the two of them were in here dancing to K-Bop music, or whatever it's called, if you can believe that.”

  “I can,” said Nick, smiling humorlessly.

  “You're a lucky girl, Jay,” said Owen. “Nick here would like to take you out to lunch.”

  Lunch? The thought of being seated across a table from this man sent her thoughts into a tailspin. “Oh no,” she said, falteringly. “I couldn't—”

  “I find administrative assistants often have their finger on the pulse of the company.” Nick stepped forward as Owen let his arm drop, his eyes locked with hers. “I'd love to pick your mind, Jay.”

  “Just don't give him too much,” Owen said, with a wink. “Remember your loyalties.”

  My loyalties, thought Jay, feeling her face pale. She sneaked another glance at Nick, arms folded, head tilted at an angle that could only be described as predatory.

  “Don't worry about marking it off on your time sheet,” said Owen. “It's company business.”

  Painfully aware of everyone's eyes, but especially his, Jay got to her feet. When she didn't immediately collapse, she grabbed her cheap bag off the desk. “Okay,” she said. “Let's go.”

  “Have fun.” Owen waved cheekily, like he was doing her a favor. He probably thought he was. Being paid to take lunch with a good-looking man probably would have made most people's days. But she was not most people, and Nick was not just any man.

  And she was in big trouble.

  He walked at her side, looming over her. She hadn't worn her boots today because they had made the balls of her feet hurt, but now she wished she had. She would have liked those extra two inches, so he didn't loom over her quite as much. Even though four inches wasn't much better than six, it would have made her feel like less of a pushover.

  She glanced up at him warily. His face was harsh in profile, shaded by afternoon shadow. His pale eyes were trained straight ahead on the busy sidewalk, like he knew exactly where he was going. His dark hair was, as it had always been, in casual disarray. Any sort of ha
zard, be it rain, wind, or even his own fingers, put a curl in his forelock that no amount of hairspray or gel could tame. And then there was his mouth, firm and unsmiling—

  Jay found she could not stand to look at his mouth. Her eyes quickly dropped.

  His clothes were darker today, perhaps because his mood was darker. His pants and belt were black and the suit coat was charcoal; the only contrast to all that shadow was a white shirt, left open at the throat to show off his golden tan.

  “Like what you see?”

  “I . . . I'm sorry?”

  “You should be.” Nick's voice dragged her eyes back up to his face. He still wasn't looking at her—he had hardly looked at her at all since leaving the office, in fact—but his anger all but rumbled from him now and he had clearly noticed her staring. “You stood me up.”

  “I thought I could make it. Something came up.” When his eyes shifted towards her, Jay flicked her gaze away, studying the crosswalk sign with rapt interest. “I'm busy.”

  “So am I.” His low voice deepened, hitting a register that sent a shiver down her spine. “I don't particularly like it when people waste my time, Jay. It's worth a lot these days. You're lucky I don't bill you for it.”

  They were approaching a building with a familiar green sign. The Green Grill. She actually really liked this place, but it wasn't the type of joint that popped up right away in a search. Jay looked at him in alarm, her mother's words on the phone floating back to her—he was always slinking around. “Have you been spying on me?” she demanded, crossing her arms.

  She had spoken too loudly. Several people looked over, drawn to that illicit word, spying. A muscle in Nick's jaw jumped when he noticed the extra attention. “We're not discussing that here.”

  “It's a yes or no question,” said Jay. “I think you can manage.”

  He gave her another measuring look and this one scared her where the anger had not fully succeeded because it was deliberately impassive, gilt in swirls of darker emotions that colored his features like an impressionistic overlay of pure menace. “Yes, then,” he said coolly. “I hired someone.”

  A waitress approached before Jay could demand the obvious follow-ups: What the fuck? Who? Why would you do that? And, Are you completely insane?

  They were seated in the back behind a potted Guiana chestnut that looked fake and probably was. The table was right next to the open kitchen and Jay could feel the torrents of oppressive heat from the grill, even from across the aisle. Nick shrugged off his coat and began cuffing his shirtsleeves, revealing a watch that probably cost a month of her rent.

  Jay fidgeted uncomfortably, pushing up her own sleeves and tugging at the restrictive neck of her sweater. There was no way she was going to (take your top off and kiss me) take it off in here. “You hired someone,” she reminded him tightly.

  “Just a private investigator, Jay. It's not like I took out a hit on you.”

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” asked the waitress. “Tea? Soda? Wine?”

  “I'll have your house red,” said Nick, which sent another cold chill through Jay. The last time she'd seen him, he hadn't been old enough to legally drink. “Go ahead and bring the bottle.”

  “Water,” said Jay. “Sparkling, please.” She could feel a headache coming on.

  “So here we are.” Nick picked up the menu. “What remains of the happy family.”

  “We're not family,” Jay said, more defensively than she wanted to. “Not really. Your father never legally adopted me.” She wouldn't let herself think about why.

  “Poor little bird.” He glanced at her over the laminated folds. “You tried so hard to get them to love you.”

  “Stop calling me bird names.” She hated herself for saying it, for rising to the bait, even as the words that followed them sank into her like hooks drawing blood. “Why did you want to see me, anyway? It's been eight years. I doubt you invited me here to ask about soap.”

  “I did come here to invest.” Nick set the menu aside. “I happen to believe it's very important to take the moral fiber of a company into account before sinking a ton of money into it.”

  Jay scoffed. “Bet your father didn't teach you that.”

  “No. You did.”

  Another chill. She locked her shoulders against it. “What would you know about morals?”

  “I know a lot about morals.” He dipped to rifle through his briefcase, pausing to smile up at the waitress who had arrived with the bottles of Pellegrino and red wine. She took their orders—he got the cauliflower steak and she got avocado fries—and when she was gone, he slid a piece of paper towards her, face-down, across the table. “And I know how much they matter to you, blue jay.”

  His face revealed nothing. She slid the paper to the edge of the table, making it easier to tilt it up. Deep down, she already knew she wouldn't like what she was about to see, or he wouldn't be sitting there looking at her so smugly, but this—

  The woman in the photograph was naked, and it was the sort of pose meant to titillate. Her back was arched, her nipples stiff, fingers parting herself to reveal her glistening . . . everything. The cameraman, whoever that was—she glanced at Nick—had obviously been kneeling between her legs, shooting up with a very expensive camera. The resolution was crisp.

  “Classy,” she said sarcastically, setting it down. “Who's this?”

  “Her name is Ivy. She lives in Mound House, Nevada. It's where I got you that gypsum rose you decided to sell. You look a little flushed,” he added pointedly. “Maybe you'd be more comfortable without the sweater.”

  “Is this your girlfriend or something?” She pushed the paper back. “Did you think I'd be jealous?”

  “She's a whore from a brothel,” he said bluntly, which made her flinch as he'd undoubtedly intended. Plucking the paper off the table, Nick looked briefly at the photo before turning it over again. “I've always thought that she looks quite a bit like you.”

  It took Jay a moment to speak; she was horrified to realize her mouth had fallen open in shock. Like me? There was so much in there she didn't want to touch that she was afraid of where to even begin without springing open some kind of trap. She began to fidget, struggling against the itchy wool as the heat became unbearably oppressive.

  “She's 'ambiguously ethnic,'” said Jay, putting quotes around the words, “and she has dark, curly hair. Apart from that, she looks nothing like me.” You goddamn asshole.

  “Oh, I don't know about that.” Nick slipped the photo back into his briefcase just as soon as it occurred to her to grab it. “I think if people saw this photo online, labeled with your name, they'd take it at face value—don't you think so? Ivy isn't on social media, so there's really no one to trace it back to. Except for you.”

  Jay felt a bead of sweat roll down her spine. “It's online?” With my name?

  “No.” His smile was wolfish. “Not yet.”

  Her hands began to shake and she pulled them hastily into her lap, but when she tried to take her plate from the waitress, she ended up dumping half of the fries on the table as a tremor tore down her arm. “Oh my God,” said Jay, so upset that the waitress immediately lost her faint look of annoyance and began to apologize profusely to her as she fetched a trash can. “No, I'm so, so sorry. Thank—” She swallowed raspily. “Thank you.”

  “Always so nice to the help,” Nick murmured, following the waitress with his eyes. “You were constantly sucking up to Yelena. I annoyed her—but she liked you. Everyone did.”

  The waitress had given him two glasses. He filled both with wine but she shook her head when he pushed one at her, glaring at him hatefully.

  This isn't happening. This can't be happening.

  “Do you remember,” he continued, swirling his own glass, “the first day we met? When you saved that little cat that was caught up in the tree? I remember being so jealous of that furry beast. Nobody ever went to bat for me the way you did for that damn cat.” He laughed bitterly as he took a sip of his wine. “It was a
fucking cat.”

  Jay picked up her water glass and drained it. His dark mood was as oppressive as a weight. “What do you expect me to say?” she asked, after a pause. “That I remember? That it was an insight into your true character? That I'm sorry? I'm not sorry.”

  Nick cut his eyes at her and she stopped speaking.

  “I told your boss that I'd make my decision tomorrow. That I needed to think about it. But maybe you've given me doubts, Ms. Varens. Maybe I did some digging about the company and found that photo of you online cemented what I already suspected. That your little company isn't worth my time or my money, and you're not the delight your boss thinks you are.”

  Jay felt her breath escape her in a rush. “I'd lose my job. No one would hire me.”

  “I wouldn't say that.” He tapped his briefcase. “I think there's a few places that would.”

  Oh God. Her eyes were filling up with what she thought might be tears. Inhaling sharply, she focused on a button that had been fastened crookedly on his shirt, staring at that small piece of imperfection as she struggled to compose herself. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Take off your sweater.”

  Jay widened her eyes. “I don't have anything on under it.”

  “Bullshit, Jay. You always wear at least two layers.” His smile faded. “Lose it. Now.”

  Fighting him on this point seemed fruitless. She yanked angrily at the hem and got tangled in the hot, woolen mess of it. When she had it over her head, her hair was a frizzy cloud from the static and one of the straps of her camisole was halfway down her shoulder. He looked at it and Jay hastily slid her top back into place, fighting the urge to cover herself as his eyes roved over her torso.

  “That's nice.” He lingered on the lacy neckline of her camisole before lifting his gaze to meet hers. Jay wasn't sure what her face looked like; she was trying so hard not to give in to the urge to cry that she felt like everything else in it might have been all screwed up. “How you came out of your foolish whore of a mother is something I'll never understand. One of the universe's greatest unsolved mysteries,” he scoffed, spearing a piece of cauliflower.