Torn (The Fosters of New York 3)

She's delusional. When I took a set of photographs of celebrity chef, Tyler Monroe, in his new restaurant, Nova, he commented that I had nice legs. That's a far cry from wanting to fuck me.

"He never said that, Maya."

"They never come right out and say it," she begins. "Actually, sometimes they do but sometimes you have to read between the lines."

I don't respond. Instead I look over her shoulder at an approaching cab.

"I know for a fact that Drake Sullivan wanted in your panties bad."

"Drake Sullivan?" I stifle a giggle. "You're talking about that baseball player who donated all that money to the children's charity?"

"I was there when you took his picture. The man had a hard-on the size of the Empire State building."

"He was standing behind a podium giving a speech at a dedication ceremony, Maya." I rub my hand across my chin before I wave at the cab as it nears us. "There's no way you saw anything from where we were standing."

She raises both eyebrows. "He was staring at you. He had that look in his eyes."

"I was hired to take his picture. He had to look at me." This conversation is going nowhere fast. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, or never. I need to crash."

"Don't let Asher Foster slip through your fingers. You've got nothing to lose."

CHAPTER 14

Asher

"You're staring at me." His voice is ras

py. "I'm so goddamn good-looking you can't take your eyes off of me, can you?"

I want to laugh, but I can't. Any other day I would have. All I can do is say something, anything back to my brother. "You're getting old, Caleb. I'm staring at the wrinkles on your forehead."

His right hand darts to his brow. "Fuck you, Asher. I don't have wrinkles. I'm only six years older than you."

There it is. That's the relationship I've longed to have with him. It's that easy banter that ends with him telling me to fuck off or go to hell. Anyone else might be offended when Caleb says those words to them, but I know for him, they're a token of affection.

I wanted this for years. Caleb couldn't be around me when I was using. My addictions scared the shit out of him. He withdrew from me then, instead using anger to deal with it all. He'd scream at me to quit, call me degrading names to try and guilt me into rehab and then one day, he had me arrested because he thought I was using again. He thought I physically hurt someone who worked for me at Foster Enterprises so he had my ass thrown in jail.

I should have hated him for that. I should have walked out of his life for good but his wife, Bell, was the one who brought us back together.

Caleb has no idea that Bell confided in me about the morning that the police called Caleb after he filed a missing person's report because I'd taken off. A man's body had been found in a cheap motel room littered with needles.

He thought it was me. He lost it. Bell told me how Caleb had cried when he thought I was dead. She shared what he said about wanting another chance with me. I'll never forget that.

Caleb's always been the one just out of my reach. He's been the one I've worked the hardest to prove myself to. We've gotten close since I started my career in music. He's proud of me. He tells me every chance he can. He's finally the brother I've always needed and now, I'm questioning whether that'll change if I tell him what I discovered about our family two days ago.

"Gabe said you were taking off soon." He glances at me. "You know I would have been pissed if you left New York without telling me."

I lean back in the leather chair I'm sitting in. "Gabriel hates when you call him that."

"That's why I do it." He takes a long, slow sip from the bottle of water he grabbed out of the refrigerator when he showed up at my apartment. "You seem on edge."

I feel my jaw tighten. After he called fifteen minutes ago saying he was on his way over, I put the envelope Daniel dropped off in the safe that's built into the wall of the closet in my bedroom. I hid those secrets away so no one would stumble on them, especially my brothers.

"It's a woman, isn't it? You must have them lining up."

I turn to look at him, blinking at the sight of his eyes. They're a different shade of brown than mine. I never noticed that until now. "I met someone the other day. She used to work for Noah."

"Noah? Our cousin? Doing what?"