Page 117 of Caught Between Two Billionaires
A feeling of melancholy settles over me like falling leaves on the front lawn.
Downstairs I find Sutton with a bottle of wine and two glasses. That’s how we end up in front of the fireplace, my toes warm from the gas fire. The scent of pine cones fills the air—an affectation from the expensive fake log. It’s not exactly a rustic scene, but it pretends to be one.
“So what’s the deal with your not-sister?” I ask, taking a sip of wine.
“My what?”
“The woman I met at your ranch earlier this year.”
“Ah.” He stares into the fire, his jaw square and shadowed. “I already told you I worked on a ranch. My daddy was a drunk and a bastard, but he had a way with horses, which is why they kept him around as long as they did.”
How many frat boys have I sat with, taking confessions from them like I’m some kind of female priest? Never has it been as important to me as now, never have I strained forward, hungry for every word out of his mouth.
“He had a way with women, too. Slept with most every woman in a hundred miles, despite the fact that he had no money and not a speck of kindness.”
If he had half his son’s good looks, it didn’t exactly surprise me. Those blue eyes could charm anyone into anything… in my case, they charmed a virgin into a threesome. “You hated him.”
“Everyone hated him, but no one more than me. There were all these blue-eyed kids. People whispered about it. But in the end they got to live somewhere else. I was the only one stuck with him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hell… I don’t… It’s old news around here. Everyone knew about it. Except maybe Whitney. She was younger than me. Maybe people were more careful about what they said around her.”
“And she had a crush on you?” It’s disturbing enough to have a crush on my stepbrother; I know what that’s like. But it would be way more disturbing to have had a crush on an actual blood relative. That would be hard to live down.
“I tried to discourage her without telling her. In the end it was some kid at school who gave her the bad news, and by then she was humiliated. Didn’t speak to me for a year. She forgave me in the end, but it was unfortunate.”
“You probably just… made her feel safe. When you’re young, that feels like love.”
“The ranch was worn at the edges when I worked there. By the time I grew up, her daddy had died and the place was in debt. It was the first property I ever bought.”
“Not the last.”
He comes to stand in front of me. “The library was the last.”
Only a foot of air separates us now. I have to look up to meet his gaze. “Christopher has a way of ruining a person, doesn’t he? You meet him and boom, it’s all over.”
That earns me a faint smile. “You’re pretty destructive yourself.”
I place my palm on his chest, feeling the steady rise of his breath, the beat of his heart. “You feel nice and solid. Put together. Not broken at all.”
“A trick of the light,” he says softly, blue eyes intent on mine.
“Have you told him?” I whisper because confessions can’t come too loud.
A slow shake of his head. He retreats to the armchair opposite mine. “What would I say? He makes me want to punch him in the face. He makes me want to climb out of my skin. There’s not a word for what I feel when he’s in the room.”
“Desire?”
“The closest thing would be… maybe obsession. The most unhealthy, fucked-up kind of obsession. It made me throw my money in with his. Made me go after the woman he loves.”
Obsession. “Do people ever just meet and fall in love and get married?”
That earns me a soft laugh. “I’m sure you’ve met plenty of well-adjusted guys in college. Why aren’t you married to one of them already?”
“I don’t know,” I say, but that’s a lie. I wanted magic and fireworks and the kind of explosive chemistry that changes my DNA. It makes me sound too naive to admit that.
“I’ll tell you why. Because none of them could have kept up with you, none of those pumpkin cocks would have been enough.”
His words echo on my skin with total truth. Those frat boys who brought me lukewarm beer in a plastic cup, the ones who lured me into an upstairs bedroom only to collapse into confessions at the slightest sign of kindness. They couldn’t have handled the real me, and the thought gives me a sense of power. A sense that, amid my confusion and doubt, I’m in the right place.
I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt, my makeup smudged after a long day, drops of water on my shirt from helping my mother shower before bed. This is the least sexy I’ve ever been, but I become a siren right here in this armchair. I’m a seductress for the ages as I stand up in front of Sutton. His blue eyes darken, proving me right, goading me on.
