Romance: The Billionaires Collection (Watched By A Billionaire, Stranded With A Billionaire, Caught By A Billionaire, Billionaire Stepbrother) (40 page)

I follow her orders, happy for an excuse to leave the
party without my absence being questioned. I pass the lawns and the
courtyard and go into the mansion, returning up the main staircase to
the room I slept in the first night I came here.

I lie on the bed and listen to the festivities outside,
and a tear begins drifting down my cheek for all the emotion inside
me.

For a while I lie there, on my side, just listening to
the world outside and feeling increasingly like I don't want to
rejoin it. When I hear the door open behind me I assume my mother has
come to see how I am.

And then I hear Tyler's voice.

“
Abby?”

I roll over and look into his eyes, hooded and written
with a tender countenance at the sight of my feeble frame.

“
What's wrong?”

He paces quickly toward me at seeing my expression,
dropping down next to me on the bed and stroking my hair.

“
Nothing...I just didn't expect to feel this way.”

“
What way?” he asks quietly, eyes burrowing into me.

“
You know what, Tyler.”

He nods, and runs his thumb across my eye to catch a
tear.

“
We made a pact, Abby.
You
made a pact.”

“
I know, and I know we have to stick to it...but it's
hard.”

“
Do we?” he asks quickly.

A frown drops over my eyes.

“
What do you mean?”

He shuffles his weight, his body language turning almost
defiant.

“
I mean, do we have to stick to the pact. Why the hell
should we, anyway. We should do what makes us happy, and to hell with
anyone who disagrees.”

“
That's not what we agreed.”

“
I don't care.” His words build in ferocity. “I
care about
you
, Abby, much more than what someone might think.
I think we should just tell them and face whatever stupid moral
consequences are thrown at us. I know our parents will understand
when they know the details.”

“
The details! What, the fact that we met online and
fucked in a hotel room the day before officially met each other! I
don't want anyone to know
those
details.”

“
Well we'll make something up then, whatever. What
matters is the way we feel about it each.”

His voice holds a seriousness that it never has before.
His face an expression of rebellion against anyone who''d stand
against us.

“
And...how
do
you feel about me?”

His jaw suddenly tightens, his posture straightening as
if the question makes him uncomfortable.

“
You know how I feel about you.”

“
No...I don't.”

I lift my hand to his cheek, and turn his eyes back to
mine. The stoicism inside them melts, his expression betraying him.

He takes a breath, his eyes shifting this way and that,
before finally settling on mine.

“
I've never said it before,” he says, and my heart
thuds.

“
Say it,” I whisper.

“
I...love...you.” He's almost unsure of his own
words, stuttering them out and losing all his usual poise, all his
occasional arrogance and charm and ego and allure all falling away,
stripping him to his core.

I smile and feel another tear forming, this one of joy.

“
I love you too.”

And then we kiss, and I know that things have only
gotten more complicated. And that somehow we're going to have to make
this work, we're going to have to figure this out.

Because right now, I'd rather die than be without him.

Chapter Five

“
What is this?”

I'm torn from the spell of Tyler's lips, and watch as
his eyes spring wide open. Over his shoulder, my eyes raise to see
the form of my beautiful mother, perfect in her wedding gown, looking
at us with her face plastered in shock.

I instinctively push Tyler away, and he turns around on
the bed, and we all look at each other for several long moments
without speaking.

My mother steps forward, her head shaking in disbelief.

“
What's going on...you're kissing...I....”

“
It's not what it looks like mom,” I blurt out, even
though it's exactly what it looks like and probably a lot worse.

“
Yes it is.”

Tyler's voice cuts the room in half, and both mine and
my mother's eyes meet him in shock..

What is he doing!

“
There's no point in denying it, Abby,” he says,
turning to me. “We've been caught red handed. The cat's out of the
bag.”

“
I...I don't understand...”

My mother is still walking forward like a zombie, not
knowing what to do with herself or where to look.

“
But Abby, he's your brother...”

“
I'm not her brother,” cuts in Tyler. “We are
adults who can do what we want.”

“
Tyler!” I shout. “Don't speak like that.”

“
I'm sorry, Sue,” he says. “I'm not trying to be
rude and would hate to spoil your special day, but what you've just
seen is exactly what it looks like and more. Abby and I have been
seeing each other since we met.”

My mom still looks to be having a hard time coming to
terms with it. Her face is still so ruffled that she suddenly looks
10 years older with all the extra wrinkles.

“
You're seeing each other?”

She directs the question at me, looking for
confirmation.

I nod, slowly, and dip my eyes in semi shame.

“
We didn't intend on it. We had already met before
that night first night here.”

“
Met? What do you mean, met?”

“
We were at a bar,” Tyler says quickly, cutting in
before I can speak and ridding me of the burden of lying. “We both
got a bit drunk and ended up... together. And then we met here. I can
assure you, Sue, we had no intention of doing anything. But, it just
happened. We were spending so much time together here and in the
Caribbean and with the wedding that something just developed. I'm
going to make no excuses for it, because there don't need to be any.”

He speaks with the confidence of a businessman
addressing the board, clinical and to the point and leaving no space
for interpretation.

We're together, and that's the way it is.

My mom takes a moment to process everything before
speaking again.

“
Tyler, would you give me a moment with my daughter.
Why don't you go and rejoin your father.”

Tyler looks at me, and I nod, and he departs the room
while silently looking back.

“
Is that all true, Abs?”

My mom sits beside me on the bed, taking up Tyler's
previous position.

“
It's true. I...I love him, mom.”

Her face has lost the shock and alarm. Now she's just
gone pensive.

“
Well, it's not the sort of news I expected on my
wedding day...but I guess you can't fight love.”

The slant of a smile hits her lips and she even manages
a little laugh. It's enough to break the tension.

“
I can't say I'll know how Stephen's going to react,
though. Are you going to continue seeing each other?”

“
I love him mom.”

“
I'll take that as a yes. In that case, I'll keep it
quiet from Stephen for now and we can all tell him together when we
return from our honeymoon.”

She stands, and takes my hand to usher me up off the
bed.

“
Now come on, Abby, it's my wedding. Let's try to
enjoy ourselves!”

After her initial shock, her reaction is almost
completely unexpected. But then, I hadn't even considered how she
might react after catching us together like that. Before we reach the
end of the corridor and step out into the warm evening air, I stop
her and hug her tight.

“
I love you, mom. You know that, right?”

She smiles and touches my cheek.

“
I love you more.”

And with that she drags me straight to the dance floor
and proceeds to embarrass us both in front of everyone.

Chapter Six

For the next two weeks I feel as though a huge weight
has been lifted from my shoulders, and then gradually redeposited.

With my mom finding out about Tyler and I, and with
Tyler's admission that he loves me, I find myself in a perpetual
state of delirium for several days.

It's right after the wedding that Stephen and my mother
go on their honeymoon, while Tyler and I stay to make sure that the
estate is put back in order. It takes a couple of days for everything
to return to normal and, once the work is done, we set about enjoying
our freedom for a while.

At night, we quickly fall back into our pattern of rabid
lust, fucking in every conceivable position and in every area of the
house. As night dawns each evening, and all of the staff retreat to
their lodgings away from the main mansion, we remove our clothes and
don't put them back on again until morning.

We put films on the giant screen in the home cinema,
fucking as our favorite movies play in the background. At one point,
we spend the night watching porn films, attempting to act out the
scenes as they play.

“
We're much better than them,” says Tyler with a
smile as he tries to manipulate me into some sort of strange
wheelbarrow position.

“
Babe, I just don't stretch like that,” I tell him,
before saying 'screw the film' and then acting our our own little
fantasy instead.

After a few days of bliss in the mansion, however, we
have to return to reality, and Tyler goes back to work in Manhattan,
while I begrudgingly have to settle with spending the rest of the
week in my apartment.

By the weekend, we're back at the mansion, spending our
evenings naked and entwined in each other's arms and covered in each
other's bodily fluids. Only when the time comes for my mother and
Stephen's return does that weight begin to settle on my shoulders
once more.

“
Babe, don't worry, my father will be fine. He
understand the affairs of the heart as well as anyone. Your mom was
fine, wasn't she?”

I'd already told him just how fine she was, and it
certainly made me believe that perhaps what we were doing wasn't
quite so bad, so forbidden.

Frowned upon, perhaps, but nothing worse than that.

The day they returned, looking incredibly fit and tanned
and euphorically happy, my nerves were more jangled than ever. We all
planned to get together
as a family
– a phrase that always
sent a shot of guilt through me – and catch up over dinner in the
mansion.

All the smiles and the laughter, however, come to a
fairly abrupt end when Tyler stands up, takes my hand in his, and
tells his father he has something to say.

“
What's going on?” asks Stephen, looking at the
tender vision of our intertwined fingers with a confused expression.

“
We didn't want to tell you before or on you wedding,
but Abby and I...are in love.”

“
In love?! That's preposterous. You're siblings.”

“
Step-siblings, father,” he corrects him as he did
my mother. “We tried to fight our feelings off, but you know as
well as anyone that it's impossible to do so sometimes.”

Stephen seems to be in some sort of stunned silence, and
I can hardly look at him.

Tyler, meanwhile, stands tall and strong, unwilling to
take a backward step. He speaks with control and with such persuasion
that soon Stephen's expression has dampened and his eyes tell me
they're already accepting the truth.

Tyler recites the story he told my mother, who stays
quiet the entire time. Only when her new husband looks to her and
asks her what she thinks does she tell him she already knew.

“
I found them kissing on our wedding day, darling. I
didn't tell you then because I didn't want to ruin it, or our
honeymoon.”

Stephen, to his eternal credit, simply nods and says: “I
understand. You did the right thing.”

Most people, I'm sure, would have been shouting
'conspiracy' and storming out of the room by now.

But not Stephen Black, the most level headed and
sympathetic man I've ever met. We continue to talk it out, fine
combing the entire thing until he accepts the truth, just like my
mother did, and showing me that, yes, they are just about the most
perfect couple of parents anyone could ever wish for.

And when Stephen ventures a joke, I know all is going to
be well.

“
I suppose it's probably best if you don't call me
dad,” he says.

At first, I'm not sure if he's making a serious point or
joking, until his laughter fills the room and any remaining tension
is quickly dispelled.