Royal Brit Bastard: a badboy stepbrother romance (4 page)

Following nothing but my feet, I drifted alone through the crowds, up Madison and across to Park Avenue. Down by Grand Central, I saw a Hamptons Jitney minibus pull up. On a whim, I jumped on the little bus and took off for an afternoon at the beach.

The Jitney was full of immaculately dressed refugees from Manhattan to the Hamptons. Quiet voices with long vowels spoke the weary drawl of Long Island natives.

The long journey soothed me. As the dark, shiny Hudson slipped by below the ridge, the high canyons of the city gave way to scraggy suburbs. Along the endless roadwork delays and stop-start of the Long Island Expressway, I thought,
This must be one of the worst-named roads on the planet
.

Four passengers alighted at the Southampton stop with me. None of them wore drab jeans and dirty sneakers, or a grayish t-shirt. None of the other passengers departed without a car to meet them or an SUV parked nearby.

The route on foot from the Jitney stop to the beach came back to me like I was there yesterday. The bigger sky and a little salt in the breeze lifted my step as I crossed the dry grasses and my feet sank into the pale sand.

It wasn’t a place people came to be miserable. Or ‘contemplative.’ I wasn’t the only person on the beach carrying their shoes, but I was the only one wearing normal clothes. Everyone else wore this season’s beach colors, the shorts all at exactly this week’s length, t-shirts with this morning’s logo or ironic slogan.

More than that, I probably stood out for not wearing expensive shades. It didn’t matter to me. My slo-mo life was heading for such a
 
dull and drab wreck, I couldn’t care less how I appeared. After I wandered a while in the salty air, my eyes drifted gradually up from the sand and found the misty horizon.
 

At that point, I had no clue whether I could make up enough grades to pass the year, or even if it was worth trying at this point. Next year, I’d only have to work even harder than I did this year, just to stay in place.

If I did flunk, then all that I’d worked for and spent on classes would be wasted–I didn’t believe at that point that I’d ever find the energy to go back and pick up my studies later.

On the other hand, would there be any point making the effort? Wouldn’t I just be throwing more good money after bad? A shudder went through me, like it did whenever I caught a cliché that I associated with Father.
 

It was only because of him that I knew this beach though. Him and Roger. The bright afternoon wasn’t exactly cheering me up, but at least getting some distance had lightened the load some. It all seemed as awful as it had back in the city, but out on the ocean shore, it didn’t feel as if it mattered quite so much.

Hunger called, and I looked around for somewhere to get food. It was stupid of me not to eat in Union Square or Madison Square Park where food would have been way less expensive than out here. I was determined to find something that I would enjoy, though.

I’d scrimped as long as I could remember. This one afternoon was going to be mine, even if it meant walking a few miles for a train back.

A white clapperboard cafe in the distance had a wide deck around the outside. Gray roofs sloped to the surrounding tufts of pale grasses and my pace picked up as I trudged towards the promise of refreshment.
 

When I stepped up onto the deck, a waiter in smart whites with a sliver tray gave me a look up and down. Most of the tables were vacant and heavy white linen tablecloths rose just a little in the sea breeze.

I picked a table in the shade, the one with the most empty space around it. Solitude wasn’t a great comfort, but I wasn’t ready to give it up yet. The same waiter gave me a sideways glance as he set a menu card on the tablecloth in front of me. He raised an eyebrow as he stood with his pad poised.

“Something to drink, madam?” he had a trace of a European accent, maybe Dutch.

“A glass of white wine.”

He turned the menu card and pointed. There was a whole column of white wines by the glass. I chose a white Spanish Rioja. The waiter didn’t hide his surprise and looked me up and down again.

His eyebrow curled. I had the sense that he was going to repeat it,
White Rioja
. The look I gave him changed his mind.
 

The sails of a few little boats wove along the horizon. Seagulls squawked above. I wished I had a pair of shades, even cheap ones.

The deck shuddered under the pounding weight of a tall, blond-haired man in a gray suit. Surrounded by a milling entourage, he strode to the table next to mine. Maybe half a dozen boys and girls in their twenties buzzed around him. They all wore similar pale khaki pants and short-sleeved shirts. All of them carried little black tablets, little folders and flappy little shoulder bags.
 

The way they hung back, made space for him, cocked their heads to everything he said, they were like minions, attached in clusters to do his bidding. They all wore very nice shades, although not as nice as his. I shifted my chair so my back faced the group.

The waiter brought my wine in a high-stemmed glass on a sliver tray. He set it out nicely and took my order for a club sandwich. The deep, plummy English voice at the next table was one that could not be ignored. He drawled instructions loudly into a phone. I thought it was funny how people in the best places often had the worst manners.

“I want a Gulfstream G 150 ready for my pilot to collect.” A lump of ice dropped through me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not the words, those didn’t matter, but the voice was so familiar. “I want it at LAX, certified and fueled up the day after tomorrow. Call me back at four on the dot with your best price. No second chance, understand?” It couldn’t be true. I was afraid to turn my head.

“When you call back, tell me only your finished, all-inclusive price. One number. Nothing more.” I turned. It
was
him. “It will be a straight cash purchase for the best bid of six.” And he hung up. I turned and he looked up, over his shades. Those pale gray eyes shone into mine, and way down inside me a depth charge thudded.

The entourage fell silent and their eyes all swiveled to me. I hadn’t seen him in, like, forever. I almost didn’t recognize him with the short, dark stubble.

The sound of his voice was what I had responded to. And, I mean, I responded. God, the purring rasp of that voice had reached down inside me and stirred me up like a Long Island Iced Tea.

He raised a hand. All of the entourage turned their heads to his hand like baby birds, waiting for his hand to feed them. His fingers flicked like they dusted the air. Silently the group gathered their tablets, notepads, and bags, and they melted away.

When he stood, my heart pounded. His muscles were tense, but not as tense as the expensive fabric on the front of his elegant pants. That was tented tense. A weight pressed against them. It prodded familiar feelings in me. The deck shook under his feet as he strode the short distance to my table.

He stood with his feet apart. He was so near, so tall, that I had to crane my neck to look up to him. He stared at me, although I couldn’t see his eyes through the Oakleys or whatever they were.

The waiter came up behind him with my sandwich on the silver tray, but he couldn’t get around and he was flustered. Roger didn’t even turn his head, he just took the tray.

“This your sandwich, Sis?”

When he said, ‘
Sis
’ my stomach fell down a hole. My thighs slackened apart. My throat tightened and my breath caught. All the feelings, all the wrong sensations that I had experienced around him, time after time when we were younger, all the things I thought I’d never have to go through again.

They all flooded back at once. I felt thoroughly drenched. He was still waiting for me to answer, with that half smile on his face that I remembered from the first time I saw him.

“Well?” that familiar sarcastic edge, that slightly superior tone was in his voice. His scent was unmistakable; he had on some elegant and probably expensive, exotic cologne, but behind it was a darker note. A note that lit a sense memory. It revived thoughts and feelings that I knew I shouldn’t have had at the time. But I loved them and I wanted them then. And I wanted them still.
 

His head cocked a little to one side. He’d asked me a question. I’d forgotten. I realized that he was still holding the tray.

“Yes,” I told him, “It’s my sandwich.”

He set the tray down. My eyes didn’t leave his as he bent with the tray. The waiter clearly wanted his tray back but he couldn’t find the nerve to ask Roger to return it. He bobbed his head uncertainly. Roger showed no sign of noticing. The waiter shuffled away with a little bow, trayless and dejected.

“Aren’t you going to eat it?”

“While you stand there and watch me?”

“I’ve watched you eat before. I never noticed it troubling you.”

“I seem to have lost my appetite.”

“Oh. I put you off your food?”

No!
I wanted to shout at him but I held back. I said, “I’m very surprised to see you, that’s all.”

“Likewise.” My stomach curled at the sound of his voice.

I said, “Are you going to just stand there?”

“Until you invite me to sit, of course.” His manners were much more polished. He had reinvented himself. That same spirit burned from his eyes but he had a kind of an assured confidence, a new certainty.
 

I told him, “Then, it’s my pleasure.” Try to match him. I didn’t feel like I succeeded. “Won’t you please join me?” My voice trembled as I waved my hand to the chair, and my hand shook.

He hitched the knees of his gorgeous suit and his lithe, athletic frame settled into the seat. He laid his phone on the table with his hand on top of it.

He sat in front of me with his thighs spread, like he had when he was a teenager. The bulge was prominent, high and strong. He made no attempt to hide it.

Finally he said, “It’s been a long time, Sis.” My stomach flipped again when he said ‘Sis.’

I said, “You didn’t exactly keep in close touch.”

“With the family?” His lip curled.

“With me.” I was aware of sounding pouty. I hated that.

“It was partly because of you that I left.” It was like a slap in the face.

“For all that you said, I think deep down, I always knew that you hated me.” Now I really did sound whiny and hard done by. Suddenly the whole of the day, my professor, the prospect of flunking college, the yawning sense of failure, everything threatened to well up behind my eyes. I held my breath, but still my chest shuddered.

Trying to make my voice stronger I said, “I don’t blame you. I would have hated a whiny little pup following me around everywhere.” I choked, “Making me look stupid.”

“I never hated you.” A breeze blew my hair into my face. He reached over to brush it away. I knew that it couldn’t stand it if he did. I would collapse. More than anything, I didn’t want to go to pieces in front of him.
 

As his hand approached my face, I seized his wrist to stop him. I misjudged and I used a little too much force so I smacked against the inside of his wrist. But when my skin came in touch with his, it was like all the lights went on in a huge room inside me with a great
whump
.

He looked at me as I held his wrist.

“Nobody else would dare to do that. You know that, Sis?”

It didn’t matter how hard I peered at his sunglasses, I couldn’t see his eyes behind them. My mouth tightened. “You said you left because of me.”

“I did. Not because I hated you, though.” His lip twitched. His fingers drummed on his phone.

His voice was flat as he rose. “Enjoy your sandwich.”

“Yeah,” I said stiffly. “Keep in touch.”

There was a sharpness when he said, “Like you did?”

“You mean like you did.”

“I left my phone numbers, Facebook, email. You had plenty of ways to be in contact.”

“Likewise, Roger…” I stopped myself. Even now, I couldn’t break off. Not completely.

The deck rumbled as he left me with the sandwich I could hardly afford, and now, almost certainly couldn’t bring myself to eat. As I glanced at the plate, I saw his phone. My head whipped around, but he was out of sight. I picked up the phone to run after him.

As I got up from the chair, a huge noise shook the air from behind the restaurant. I was just a couple of steps across the deck when a helicopter roared overhead, close enough to blow all the linen. Somebody’s glass blew over and waiters came running towards the protesting howls.

As the helicopter rose and arced out across the beach, it threw up a small sandstorm in its wake. It headed straight for the ocean. It was a small dark fish halfway to the horizon before it baked to the left and veered out of sight.

Even though I had a strong hunch that Roger had left in the helicopter, I carried on to the edge of the deck to look around. He was nowhere to be seen. So I made my way back to my table and tried to decide, should I leave his phone at the restaurant so he could come back for it, or should I take it?

He would be bound to have a way to track the phone, so if I took it he could find it easily enough. And me with it, if he cared. But that was what I knew I would do. So perhaps that was what he meant me to do. To pick up the phone and take it.

My heart jumped at the idea. Then I realized I was just bein an idiot, all over again. Believing something impossible, just because it was what I wanted. Just because it was him.

I decided, I would not take his phone.

The wine was fresh and crisp, and I did my best to enjoy it. Any taste that I had for the sandwich was gone, but the waiter was pleasant enough when I asked him to bag it for me. I knew that I would need to eat, and I hoped that a walk along the shore would revive my appetite.

Watching the water’s edge, seeing the ocean lap at the shore, I wanted to dip my toes in. I tried to make some sense out of my feelings about the day, with no success. It was a day of disasters. And in the middle of it, Roger showed up. My pulse raced again at the thought. It looked like he had managed to make himself pretty wealthy.