Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) (29 page)

“Sounds good. If you can ever convince me to leave this place.”

We had finished our breakfast and were about to get ready to leave when suddenly a couple of photographers popped out of nowhere and started snapping our picture.

“What the fuck!” I exclaimed as the flash suddenly blinded me.

“Hey, buddy, fuck off,” Kiegan exclaimed, grabbing the guy’s camera and ripping it off his head.

“Hey, that’s my stuff!” the guy exclaimed. Kiegan took the memory card out of the camera and threw it back at the guy, but there was another photographer, and this one had the good sense to get out Kiegan’s way before he could take his photos, too.

“Yeah, and it’s Christmas. Leave me the fuck alone,” Kiegan replied, the fury in his face evident. I had never seen him like this before. He was definitely angry.

“Give me back my memory card,” the guy ordered. Kiegan responded by dropping it into the rest of his glass of orange juice as the guy moaned about how much those pictures were worth.

“Yeah, well, better luck next time,” Kiegan replied before getting up to leave. We went and paid for breakfast, but I could tell Kiegan was still pissed. As for me, it had all happened so fast, I wasn’t really sure what to think.

From time to time Kiegan would get hounded by the paparazzi. That was normal, it came with the celebrity, and it had only been getting worse the more popular his show got. But never like this! They were always either waiting outside the clubs where Kiegan was attending, or outside his hotel, but he had never been accosted randomly while eating at a restaurant like this. At least not yet.

The owner of Duke’s came out and apologized, he told Kiegan that in the future he would have his security team patrol the beach behind the restaurant. Kiegan accepted the apology and we were back on our way to his island home.

“Fuck. Sorry about that,” Kiegan told me as we sped along in his Ferrari.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. But it is. If I wasn’t so famous…”

“Well there’s a compliment to yourself if I’ve ever heard one.”

Kiegan couldn’t help but smile at my joke.

“Seriously. It’s fine. Don’t let it bother you, it hasn’t bothered me. Anyway, when we get home I have a present for you.”

“Is it your body covered in whipped cream?”

“It’s not, but I could be convinced to give you two presents pretty easily,” I teased.

“Oooh, nice. I also have something for you,” he told me.

When we got into the house I went up to our room and got the present I’d been hiding inside my travel bag for about a week. After we’d decided to spend Christmas together, I went out and bought Kiegan something I figured he’d really love. He wasn’t an easy person to buy for; what do you get the person who can buy themselves anything? Still, I figured I’d outdone myself.

I pulled out the bottle of 100-year-old scotch I’d found in a high end liquor store when we were in New York and packed in a bag. It was the first time I’d used the fake ID Kiegan gave me, though when you’re buying booze worth hundreds of dollars, the person at the counter doesn’t tend to look too closely at your ID. He probably figured it was for my dad, anyway.

“Here you go. I figured one day you should try for quality over quantity.”

Kiegan pulled the bottle out of the bag and laughed.

“This is awesome. This is
celebration
scotch. Thank you, Tina!” he told me, kissing me softly.

“I’m glad you like it,” I replied, and I could tell from Kiegan’s reaction that he did.

“I’ll have to get some fancy glasses for this, and keep it in my office, and toast something whenever I have a sip,” he joked.

“It’ll be like you’re a real adult!” I told him.

“Exactly. Now here, I want to give you your present.”

Kiegan pulled out a light blue box that could only belong to one company.

My eyes widened as I pulled the top off the box to reveal the most exquisite necklace I’d ever seen. Light gold filaments wrapped around what looked like a million tiny diamonds, each one sparkling individually in the light, in a wave pattern.

“Wow,” I whispered, my voice hushed as I looked at the gift. It was hands down the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I was almost too scared to touch it, so I just stared, moving the box around to make the diamonds glitter in the light.

“Do you like it?” Kiegan asked.

“Like it? I love it!” I replied, falling back on the cliché, but it was true. I did love it. I had never owned anything that nice before in my life.

“Well let’s see how it looks on you,” he told me, and took the box out of my hands, took out the necklace and did up the clasp at the back of my neck. I moved over to a mirror hanging on the wall and smiled. It looked amazing.

If someone had told me just three months ago that I’d get the best Christmas present ever from my brother, that he would have bought me something like this, I would have never believed them. It seemed so impossible. And yet here we were. Maybe Kiegan really wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe he had grown up after all.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying Christmas in bed, before finally getting up and going out to dinner to an amazing seafood restaurant, then headed back to Kiegan’s place.

As we walked along the beach in Waikiki heading back to his car after dinner, hand in hand, in silence, I thought about what I felt for my brother. I had always been attracted to him, physically. There was no denying that. But could I possibly be feeling more than that for him?

Either way, as I felt the little grains of sand wrapping themselves around my feet like perfectly fitting socks, with my brother’s hand in mine, I knew that there was nothing that could ruin what we had right now. Absolutely nothing.

The next day we woke up to Kiegan’s phone ringing at six in the morning.

“What the hell?” he muttered as he sleepily grabbed the phone off the nightstand and looked at the number.

I glimpsed a look and as soon as I saw the 617 area code, I knew. I knew it was his dad calling.

“Whatever, if he wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas he would have called yesterday,” Kiegan muttered, pressing ignore and putting the phone down. I had just snuggled back into his chest, feeling the warm heat of his sleepy body against mine when the phone began to ring again.

“Seriously, what the hell,” Kiegan muttered, pressed ignore again, and then shut the phone off completely.

When we got up Kiegan turned his phone back on.

“Weird, I have ten missed calls from my dad. I better actually call him back,” he told me. I nodded, and went to the kitchen to get breakfast.

While I managed to cook bacon and eggs a lot more successfully than Kiegan’s attempt at pancakes the day before I turned on the TV. It was set to the news, and I watched as there was a story showing people going insane over boxing day sales out east, some heartwarming Christmas stories, then entertainment.

“And now, to entertainment.” I was half listening to the obviously gay man they cut to who would read out the entertainment news for the day.

“Now, here is something juicier than last night’s turkey dinner,” the guy drawled. “You know the Hunt family? Of course you do, everyone knows the Hunt family.
Well
, if yesterday was any indication, they are
definitely
keeping it in the family this Christmas.”

I dropped the spatula on the floor as I turned over to give the TV my full attention. The screen cut to photos taken of Kiegan and I at Duke’s yesterday morning. We were deep in conversation, and to my chagrin, I hadn’t noticed that my hand was resting on his.

“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.

“Now, does that look like just a brother and sister getting breakfast in Hawaii on Christmas?” the guy asked. “I mean, I know, I know, they’re not really blood relatives. Tina Hunt’s mother married new super celebrity Kiegan Hunt’s father Elton when they were teenagers, but
still
. I think this photo speaks for itself, especially since attempts to reach the apparent happy couple have gone unanswered.”

Just then Kiegan walked into the room.

“So. You know what my father wanted to talk about then.”

“That would have been a fun conversation.”

Kiegan shrugged.

“Well, it wasn’t a long one, at any rate.”

“What happened?”

“I got pissed and hung up on him.”

I would have laughed if it wasn’t so god dam insane. Hearing the bacon crackling behind me, I turned off the stove.

“Well, we’re going to deal with breakfast first, before anything else.”

“Works for me.”

Kiegan and I ate in silence, both of us caught up in our own thoughts. How had this happened? I hadn’t realized that my hand was on his when we were having breakfast. Was this really happening? What other news sites were reporting that Kiegan and I were in a taboo relationship? Oh God, I knew the answer to that. I knew it was all of them. They would all be reporting on it, they would all be wanting the scoop. I’d left my phone upstairs when I went to make breakfast, but I could only imagine it had a ton of messages waiting for me.

I knew going into this that there was a risk. I knew that it was possible Kiegan and I would be found out, and I knew that if it happened, there was a very real chance that I would be on the front page of gossip mags and websites as well. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

“Are you ok with this?” Kiegan finally asked, his voice soft as he put his fork and knife down on his plate.

I nodded. “I will be. I think. It’s just a lot to take in at once.”

“I know. It sucks. It’s the downside of fame. If you want to call everything off, if you want to go back to just working for me, or even not working for me, that’s fine.”

I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not going to let some bottom feeders bully me into doing something I don’t want with their shitty reporting. But what do we do? Do we put out a statement? I feel like that’s part of my job, like I should know about it.”

“Yeah. We could do that. We can either deny it, or come straight out and be frank about it, and take the flack that comes with it.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“It depends. On how serious we are, I guess. If we deny it, well it’s a pretty plausible lie. But if our relationship continues, well it’s going to come out for sure at one point or another.”

“True.”

“And of course, not denying it has the added bonus that the family is going to be
beyond
pissed, especially with my Uncle Edward’s run for President.”

“Well that settles it. We’re not denying it.”

“Works for me.”

If it screwed over the Hunt family, well I was willing to take a little bit of a publishing shaming in exchange to see that. Especially if it screwed up Edward Hunt’s chances to be President.

“Should be admit it though?”

“Nah. We’ll hang low for a while. We’ll be like the CIA: no confirming or denying. How does it feel, being a part of a celebrity scandal?” he asked, getting up, standing behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I leaned back against his shoulder, inhaling the sweet scent of his skin.

“I guess I could learn to enjoy it,” I replied playfully, lightly grazing the skin of his forearm with my fingers.

We went up to the pool overlooking the ocean and spent the morning relaxing, drinking colourful drinks and just relaxing.

At one point on the way down to the kitchen to get some snacks for us to share I checked my phone and sure enough, there were about two dozen messages. The only one I replied to was Leanne’s:

So I guess you’ve seen the news?
she asked.

Yup. Merry Christmas to me!
I replied.

So what’s the plan?

Neither confirm nor deny

Well I’m happy for you two

I haven’t confirmed or denied :-P

And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. I’ve known for a lot longer than the media.

Really?

Of course. You weren’t exactly subtle.

Shit. Well thanks for not saying anything to anyone.

Anytime. Enjoy the media uproar you’ve just created.

Haha.  Thanks. See you next week!

You know it.

When I finished chatting to Leanne I went back to the pool with a bowl of chips and some fresh fruit I cut up, then lounged on a chair. I knew I was tempting fate, I always burned instead of tanning, but damn it, I was going to give it a shot.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang.

“That’s weird,” Kiegan muttered. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

It wasn’t until I heard the voices from outside streaming around the side of the house that I realized exactly what was weird about the doorbell ringing – there was a gate, with a code outside. Whoever was at the door had to have the code, and as far as I knew, only Kiegan knew it.

I grabbed a bathrobe from the hook at the edge of the door and made my way into the house. When I got to the staircase I looked over the railing, down to the front door, and my face went white.

Standing there, at the entrance, were our parents.

Holy shit. Why are they here? How did they get here?

I was definitely not ready for this. I figured maybe they hadn’t seen me, but unfortunately my mother had the eyes of a hawk. As I was stepping back from the railing, trying to be as subtle as possible, I heard her yell out my name.

“Tina! Tina, I need to talk to you,” she continued, her shrill voice bouncing off the walls, barging her way past Kiegan and into the house.

I sighed as I realized there was no escaping it at all.

“What, mom, suddenly you care about my problems?” I shouted back at her. I was pissed off. She had no right to come here and tell me what to do. Still, she acted like I was the unreasonable one, overdramatically pretending like my words had physically hurt her.

“Tina, sweetie. I just want to talk to you. Don’t you want to talk to your mom?”

“No, I don’t. I think I’ve made that pretty clear over the past few years.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear to me that you’re obviously not ready to make your own decisions yet.”

I laughed in her face.

“Why? Because Kiegan and I aren’t denying the fact that we’re in a relationship?”

“Yes. It’s wrong. It’s disgusting. And more importantly, you’re ruining your family’s name.”

“Fuck you, mom. Fuck you. The Hunt family name is more fucked up than anything Kiegan and I could possibly do to it, and you know it.”

“Now, now, Sam,” Elton called up to my mother. “No one wants an argument. Why don’t we all sit down and discuss this calmly, like adults.”

“Or you could get off my property before I call the cops,” Kiegan replied. He was obviously as pissed off about this sudden intrusion as I was.

“Please, son. There’s no reason to be so hostile.”

“Really? So you think that when estranged parents show up on their childrens’ doorstep that they should just be greeted like nothing happened?”

“No. Of course not. But there are bigger considerations at stake here than you.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Well, Edward’s run for President, of course. If he is to have the best chance of winning, an incest scandal among his nephew and niece, especially concerning a nephew who’s now a celebrity in his own right, could completely destroy his chances.”

“Good,” I replied from upstairs. This time it was Elton Hunt’s turn to look like he’d been wounded.

“Good? Don’t you realize? I know you don’t like the man, but having an Uncle in the White House can be a very powerful tool indeed, Tina.”

I laughed. “I’d rather rot in hell than ever take advantage of anything that man has to offer,” I replied. “Now get out of the house.”

“Not a chance. We need to talk this through.”

“You heard the lady. Get out of the house, or I’m calling the police,” Kiegan told his father. “We told you. We’re not talking about this, we’re not changing our lives to suit yours. And we never want to hear from you again.”

“You know what? I’ve had it with you,” Elton Hunt started on his son. “Your entire life you’ve used your mother’s death as a crutch to do whatever the fuck you want, to the detriment of this family. We go back generations. We’re rich, we’re powerful men, and you’re none of that. You spent your entire adolescence getting into trouble, rebelling in any way you could. And now you risk destroying the family name completely. And you know what? I’m not going to sit here and let you blow up the work that generations of men before you have put in. It’s time for you to grow the fuck up, and think about more than yourself for once.”