The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

“Don’t play coy, Isaac,” I say, fighting the urge to cross my arms in front of myself in a defensive move Isaac is too smart not to read. “We both know I didn’t tell you who I was taking a trip with.”

“And yet, I’m your brother,” he reminds me, an undertone of accusation in his words. He’s suspicious about the trip. I’ve questioned the recalls. I’ve tried to see paperwork he won’t let me see.

/> “My stepbrother,” I say, and then I dare to go to the place I don’t want to go. “One who doesn’t act like a brother and we both know it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have—”

“I get it,” he snaps, straightening, clearly intending to shut me down before I can go down an awkward rabbit hole of unbrotherly love. “You don’t want to tell me who you’re fucking,” he snaps. “I get it, but I want to know this isn’t a distraction from your job.”

“I live for this place.”

“You haven’t been here,” he replies dryly. “And I have an issue that needed to be dealt with yesterday. You weren’t here to handle it.”

“I had my phone with me at all times. What issue and why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t call because this problem needs your full attention, and obviously, that wasn’t here.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “The union’s bitching about the women’s bathroom in the plant. I have no clue what the problem is, but it’s a distraction I don’t need right now. I need you to run front line on this issue—deal with them. Get them pink fucking toilet paper if you have to. They want to start negotiations tomorrow. I’ll email you the details.” And with that, he disappears into the hallway.

Pink toilet paper is what he wants me to handle? He wants me to negotiate with the union, which isn’t my job. We have someone who’s an expert in this area. Angry now, I round my desk and head down the hallway and follow him all the way toward the corner office that he calls his castle, quite literally. He disappears inside and I pass his secretary’s desk, but she’s not there right now. Not that it would matter. Belinda is in her fifties, quiet, reserved, and a mouse in a cat’s cave who couldn’t be more submissive to Isaac. That’s how Isaac likes everyone.

Submissive.

He tries to shut his door and I catch it. “Why can’t the union negotiator handle pink toilet paper, Isaac?” I ask, certain this is all about keeping me busy.

He stares down at me, his green eyes cool and calculating. “You really aren’t good at taking orders.” He leaves me in the doorway and enters his fancy office, rounding his mahogany desk, a grand mountain view and expensive artwork on the walls on either side of us because he’s showy. The entire Kingston family is showy, while my father instilled humility and graciousness in my mind. Though he spoiled my mother in ways that seem to have made a showy appeal to her or we wouldn’t be here now.

Isaac presses his hands on the desk. “Just do your job,” he snaps. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”

“Since when does a member of the family, a managing member of the executive team, just do their job without asking questions?” I ask, stepping into the room without closing the door. I don’t do small spaces with Isaac. I learned that lesson the hard way years ago. I stop behind a leather chair and settle my hands on the back. “That’s not what your father taught me. He said—”

“The union is breathing down our throats,” he snaps. “Our product is good. If we have a flaw, it’s human. They don’t like my attitude on this.”

Finally, he’s actually talking about the problem. “How can you be sure our product is good? What have we done to ensure—”

“Everything,” he says. “I have this under control. Just appease the union.”

“Appease the union, or stay busy and out of your hair?”

“Both, Harper,” he bites out. “I have this under control. I have everything under control.”

“From where I’m standing, that’s questionable.”

Shock runs through me at the sound of Eric’s voice. I rotate to face the door to find him standing there, looking like a rebel with rumpled hair and that one-day stubble, and apparently, he left his suits in his hotel room, at least today. He’s in faded jeans and a Bennett Enterprises T-shirt that hugs his hard body, his brightly inked arms in full, colorful display, his message clear: The bastard is home. What are you going to do about it? And when his blue eyes meet mine, they burn a path along my nerve endings, the message in their depths changes with clarity—I’m here for you.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Harper

I can’t breathe with Eric’s unexpected appearance, with the proof that he didn’t ignore my email, that he didn’t ignore my plea for help. He simply answered me in person, but when Isaac demands, “What the fuck are you doing here, Eric?” I’m suddenly trapped, a rat in a cage between two bigger beasts, and I don’t know how to react. I don’t know if this is what Eric wanted.

“Good to see you, too,” Eric says dryly.

Isaac leans on the desk, perfectly manicured hands pressed to the hardwood surface. “Seriously, Eric,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Eric doesn’t look at me. He focuses on his brother, his lips, those beautiful lips that I know to be oh-so-punishing when he wants them to be, lifting ever so slightly. “I’m family,” he says, those words pure sarcasm. “Why the fuck haven’t I been here sooner should be your question, but you know, you never call, you never write. It’s really heartbreaking.”

Isaac narrows his eyes on Eric and pushes off the desk, unbuttoning his suit jacket and settling his hands on his hips, his gaze raking over his brother—no, his bastard brother. “You can’t afford a suit with all those millions I hear you made?”

“A billion,” I say before I can stop myself. “He’s a billionaire now.”

Isaac’s attention rockets to me. “Bullshit.”