Protector: A Billionaire Step-Brother Romance

ew other doodads; a few drawings of animals, what looked like letters from relatives, and some old pictures of herself and a friend. One friend, I noticed. She must not be the most social person in the world. Chelsea was always shy, too. I remember her never leaving my side, even when she had birthday parties with the other actors’ kids.

As I perused the room, I started wondering whether Chelsea’s room wouldn’t look something like this by now, too. The closet held a pretty wide variety of outfits that seemed to get a lot of use—the more formal stuff was probably in one of the walk-in closets around the house, top-of-the-line dresses that Chelsea would be wearing to her first prom sometime this year.

I turned to the drawer where I’d set up the camera next. I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to find anything of use at this point. After all, who keeps incriminating evidence somewhere they just moved? All the better that I got the camera set up early, then: I wouldn’t miss it when it happened. The drawers were pretty mundane. There were socks and underwear in the top drawers, surprisingly lacy little pieces for someone who seemed so shy. I shut that one quickly and moved on, looking through designer jeans, short-shorts, spaghetti straps, and…what was that?

The sound of something hard rolling on the bottom drawer caught my attention. I pulled it open and stuck my hand in under some pajama pants, feeling around until—

Bzzzzzz!

“Fuck!” I whispered loudly, my face going red as I fumbled to shut off the vibrator I’d just turned on. It finally went off with a click when I turned the base of the thing. After my heart stopped pounding and I’d made sure nobody had heard that racket, I looked back at the little device I held in my hand. Well, maybe not so little. Fuck, this thing must be almost a foot long. It was a mild-looking, slightly curved piece of lilac material that was soft yet firm.

A thought occurred to me that made my face redden unexpectedly. Would Chelsea have one of these at this age? I realized that I could very well have been holding my own sister’s vibrator, and I quickly put it back where I found it and shut the drawer. I had to get out of here before everyone got back, anyway.

The way out was even easier than the way in. Back up the chute, out into the now-empty bathroom, out the window, and across the yard I went, and except for the serving woman who’d been so desperate to have me come on her, nobody even knew I had been anywhere near the house. A short walk later, I was back on my motorcycle and headed home.

Back home, I was relieved to find that my equipment worked just fine. I had just sat down with a beer at my computer, and after a couple of minutes setting up the connection, live feed of Mackenzie’s room was up on display on my screen. I smiled to myself and leaned back. Everything had gone as planned, and now I just had to wait until she got back. As I took a swig of my beer, my phone buzzed.

“Hey, c u 2nite at the usual club? missed u yesterday, had to take care of myself ;)”

I frowned a little and glanced back up at the screen. Normally, I’d be getting ready to head out already, and might even have a couple girls over already for a few shots. But right now, if there was one thing I knew, it was that Mackenzie had to be my first priority. No fooling around until she was absolutely safe. Until then, I had to watch her every move. I left the text unanswered and turned my attention back to the screen. The only girl I wanted to see tonight was Mackenzie.

MacKenzie

My phone lit up and vibrated several times in a row, and I scrambled to reach it before it could fall of the edge of my bed, already knowing who it was. Sure enough, when I slid the phone open, there was a barrage of text messages from Jessica. Just as I moved my thumb to hit “reply,” another message illuminated the screen.

“girrrllllll. i’m outside. this place is a fucking castle!!!”

I wracked my brain for the gate password, then suddenly recalled the ten-digit sequence and dialed the front gate access line to type it in. Amid follow-up texts from Jessica, I managed to get the number in and received the notification which said in bold letters “UNLOCKED.” About five minutes later, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I hopped up to answer it and Jessica burst into the room wearing a maroon halter top and a tight black skirt that barely reached mid-thigh. She strutted past me to lean against the wall with her arms crossed. Gazing around the room wide-eyed, she nodded approvingly and said, “Kenz, this is fucking sweet.”

I giggled and sat down on the bed, pulling my legs up and wrapping my arms around them. “Yeah, it’s alright,” I said coolly, resting my chin on my knees.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh please. I’m so jealous! This is amazing! You’ve gotta be a little excited to live somewhere like this. What’s the square footage?”

“No idea. Maybe 11,000?”

Jessica gaped at me and shook her head. “Holy shit, girl. Julie did real good.”

Deciding just to let that one slide, I changed the subject. “So what are you doing tonight? I know you’re not staying in with a movie and a blanket dressed like that.”

“Oh, this?” she asked with a little smirk. “I’ve got plans.” She twirled her hair around her pinkie finger, coyly avoiding my eyes. She did this all the time: play the coquette. I wondered how much of it was real; how much of Jessica’s personality was real.

When we were younger, I had always thought she was genuine—a real, live movie character. She was every teen girl stereotype, one after another. In high school, she played each role separately. Freshman year, she was a mousy band geek with thick glasses and thick, frizzy hair, and she had her first kiss with the first chair of the trombone section. As a sophomore, she took up art and photography, trading in her ugly old spectacles and band uniform for stylish thick-rimmed glasses and a sleek new hairstyle. Junior year, she dyed her hair blonde and spontaneously joined the cheerleading team. After a meteoric rise to the head of the squad, she made out with her co-captain’s ex-boyfriend under the bleachers after the homecoming game and quit the team in a blaze of bad-girl glory. This image was only further cultivated and intensified over the summer, so that when senior year rolled back into session in September, Jessica waltzed into school in studded black leather, heavy eyeliner, and dark red lipstick. She was suspended during the first very month of school for smoking in the boys’ restroom.

I hadn’t even known her to pick up a cigarette before then. And throughout all those years, I hardly changed. Too afraid to dye my hair, to change my clothes, to color outside the lines my whole life, I was relatively content to play sidekick to Jessica. It was safer to just watch from the sidelines, to live vicariously through her crazy exploits. It was a symbiotic relationship: I got to stand on the edge of something exciting without any real risk, and Jessica got a built-in second-fiddle, the character who made her look better, cooler by comparison.

“What kind of plans?” I asked, leaning back on my bed and affixing an interested look on my face for her benefit. I already knew it was probably just some guy, but maybe it came with a good story or two.

“Just going to meet this guy I’ve been seeing,” was the sly response.

I cocked my head to the side and pursed my lips. “What guy?”

“You’re gonna freak out if I tell you who it is,” she confessed.

There it was. The typical Jessica response. The bait-and-drop. The I’ve got a secret, but oh! I just can’t tell you. I knew it all too well. I also knew that with a little push, she would easily spill. She always did.

“Oh my god, Jess. You can’t do that! Just tell me!” I exclaimed, just as I had done a gazillion times before. She slowly met my gaze and shrugged, a smile creeping to her lips.

“I, uh, started hanging out with this dude. It’s not exactly illegal, what we’re doing. But it’s… um… frowned upon.”