LUST (A STEPBROTHER ROMANCE)

My breath caught in my throat.

“No…that can’t…”

“If I were you – and I am so glad that I’m not – I’d ditch town. It’s still fresh in his head. Trent hasn’t totally invested in you. You’re still just some groupie to him, you know? You can get out without hurting his feelings.”

“But that’s not true,” I answered sadly. “We talked so much… he went out of his way to try and prove how much he cares…”

“And you fell for that? What are you, fucking eighteen? Do you know how many girls that asshole has made feel special right before he rips their heart out?”

The sound of his raucous laughter was like a pail of icy water to my face. It snapped me out of the daze I’d been in for the last few days – no, the last few weeks.

I’m just a distraction.

A liability.

His laughter started to die down, and Steven looked at me with something that vaguely resembled pity.

“You see it now,” he told me sympathetically. “How stupid you’ve been. You thought you could change him? You seriously thought that you would be the one girl in the world who would improve him?”

I turned away.

I spoke the only words I could.

“I don’t have any money,” I told him.

“Of fucking course you don’t. Do you think he’d just leave you his credit card or something? He doesn’t trust you, honey. He never really has.”

The words stung. I wanted to run and hide and never come back up for sunlight.

“I can’t get a bus without money.”

Steven went silent.

I looked up at him, afraid that he was angry. But no… he was merely calculating, weighing options in his head.

“Listen. Pack your shit. I’ll take care of the bus ticket. And I’ll even toss you a few hundred bucks to get you on your feet when you’re there.”

“You would… do that?”

“Of course,” he told me. He wasn’t smiling. “You think I’m a bad guy? I’m just doing my fucking job. Ironing out the creases. Cutting off loose ends. It’s what I’m supposed to do. Doesn’t mean I’m a prick. Trent just paints me that way because he doesn’t like it. Who would? I’m sympathetic…”

I nodded quietly.

“Like I said, pack your shit. I’ll have you on a bus in the hour. Where do you need to go? Back to Riverton, or wherever it was called?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I can’t go back there… Not after the way I left…”

“Smart thinking,” Steven agreed. “Maybe you’re more intelligent than I would have figured. So, where are you going instead? Pick a spot, honey. I can have you on a bus to Miami, or Philadelphia, or wherever the fuck you wanna go.”

I sighed heavily. There was only one other place in the world for me… one other place where I knew I really deserved to be. It’s where I should have been all along.

A place so terrible I shut it out.

A place so awful I never thought about it.

I took a deep breath. “It’s time I went back home.”

25

Trent

Two Days Later

I knew something was wrong the second that I stepped foot into my house. Compounding, rising dread twisted its way up in the back of my head, like smoke in the darkness.

I’d felt it from a mile away.

And I didn’t like it.

“Angel?” I called out.

No answer.

Maybe she’s asleep, I wondered. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, though. No…something was definitely wrong.

I dropped my things at the door, scouring for any signs of a break-in. The front door was unharmed, and I didn’t spot any broken windows on my way to the stairs.

Hopping two at a time, I ascended up to my bedroom. Our bedroom. Flicking on the light, I peered around the room like a hunter sniffing for prey.

There was nothing out of place.

No signs of a struggle.

Except…

My heart sank as soon as I spotted the letter on the bed. Scrawled in girlish handwriting, I first spotted her signature at the bottom as I snatched it up under the light.

Trent,

I’ve enjoyed our time together. I really have. But it’s time for me to let you be who you need to be. We both know this wasn’t going to last… Please don’t hate me. And don’t look for me. You won’t find me.

Angel

My hand clenched, but I restrained myself from shredding the letter apart in the instant.

And there, on the pillow?

The tablet I had bought her while we had been on the bus. It was just sitting there, as if it weren’t hers. She’d left it because she’d honestly thought it didn’t really belong to her.

Fury built up inside.

Boiling, pulsating anger.

No, I snarled to myself.

You don’t get to do this to me.

Irrationally, my mind boiling with pain and regret, I felt like I had just been stabbed – right in the fucking heart. The knife twisted again and again as the letter fell to the bed from my lifeless fingers, and I fought the whipping storm of emotion that was threatening to tear me apart.

No, I repeated to myself with rising hostility.

This isn’t happening.

This CAN’T be happening.

But something didn’t add up.

Through the hatred and the anger, a small spark of rationality spoke through. Like a calming knife through the bubbling, snarling flesh of my fury, it cut through the bullshit and whispered something into my ear.

She wouldn’t do this.

I paused, letting the thought continue on. It was calming, soothing, but most of all…it sounded like it was making sense.

This isn’t Angel.

Not without interference.

Not without the right push.

Something had happened…and I was going to find out exactly what. But I didn’t have to think long or hard before a single name popped into my head.

Steven.

He’d hated her from the start.

What was the word he’d used?

Liability.

I picked up the phone, forcing a friendly smile across my face. It was one of the hardest things I’d had to do.

“Steven! Are you around?”

“I’m kinda in the middle of something. Where are you?”

“I’m just picking up my car,” I lied. “I should be home in about forty-five minutes. Think you can meet me there?”

“Now’s not a good time, man.”

He sounded apprehensive.

Which told me I was right.

“It’s important. I think you’re right about Angel – she’s a liability. Time I cut her loose. But you, being my PR guy and all…mind backing me up?”

“What? R-really? But she’s…I mean, uh…”

“Steven, stop fucking babbling. She put herself up in a hotel and she’s on her way to my place. Can you come straight over?”

“I’m not so sure this is a good time…”

“C’mon, Steven. You and I, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Help me out here and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“…Alright. Half an hour?”

“Sounds good to me.”

About thirty minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Through the peephole, I could see the lanky, condescending fucker.

“Door’s open!” I called out, muffling my voice and taking a step out of the way.

The door popped open.

A moment later, Steven walked in.

“H-hello? Angel? Trent?”

I stepped forward from behind the door, slamming it shut. He barely had time to turn before I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and slammed him up into the wall, knocking a large photo frame down and shattering the glass.

“Trent – buddy – what the fuck are you–?”

Roaring with anger, I threw him across the room. He hit the ground hard, trying to scramble to his feet as I rushed towards him.

“Back the fuck off–” he started.

I landed a solid punch against his cheek, sending him sprawling into my sectional couch. As he struggled to climb back up, I jumped on him, landing a knee in his chest and knocking the breath from his lungs.

“Oof!” he cried painfully.