Shackled: A Stepbrother Romance Novel (2 page)

I
started to laugh
. Uncontrollably. This was one hell of a joke.

Number one—Mom had never even told me she was dating anyone.

Number two—There was no way she would have gotten engaged so fast, not after everything she went through with her first husband, the man who came before my father.

Number three—Even if she
were
engaged, she wouldn’t tell me like this.

It’s got to be a prank. They’re just messing with me.

I managed to calm myself down enough to ask, “So where are the hidden cameras? I’m being punked, right?”

Any minute now, whoever was recording my reaction would come popping out and we would all laugh together. I was still chuckling as I walked around the kitchen, encouraging whoever it was to come out of hiding.

My mom grabbed my arm to stop me and frowned, her eyebrows drawn tightly together with confusion. “I don’t know what that means. Gerald, what does
‘punked’
mean?”

“It means this is a
joke
, right?” I demanded.

I had a nasty feeling in my gut telling me that this wasn’t a prank. It was real. I just didn’t want to believe it.

No one moved for a long moment after my outburst. I refused to allow my eyes to wander over to where Jonathan was watching the entire interaction with a pensive frown.

Mom finally scoffed and narrowed her eyes at me. “Of course not! Now I know this may be quite the surprise, but—”

I slammed my hands on the counter and shouted, “You
think?!
I didn’t even know you were
dating
anyone!”

Did she really expect me to have a pleasant reaction to this? There had been no discussion. No visit so we could talk about it together. I just come home to find that she’s moved the man I used to love and his father into our home and she never even bothered to mention it to me.

The only thing that was stopping me from completely flipping out was the fact that I had nowhere else to stay. I was stuck.

“How could you not tell me something like this?” I knew I was practically whining, but I didn’t particularly care.

A voice in my head reminded me that I hadn’t told her when I was considering dropping out of college because I didn’t want her to try to talk me out of it. If I had been thinking rationally, I would have realized that she’d probably had the same fear.

I never told her why I suddenly stopped being friends with Jonathan, but she was well aware that my best friend had quickly become an enemy in my eyes. My paranoia kicked in and I wondered if Jonathan had told her the reason for our falling out.

If he had, I was pretty certain I would die of embarrassment.

“Just calm down, Fiona. It’s not like they planned it,” Jonathan cut in with a roll of his eyes.

Funny thing was, I
had
calmed down—until he spoke. He just made my blood boil again.

“Don’t speak to me,” I said with a snarl, then turned back to my mom and pointed a finger at her. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.”

She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry, but I knew you’d react this way. I don’t know what happened between you and Jonathan, but you two used to be best friends! Can’t you just try to be happy for me?”

My eyes softened and I lowered my finger. “It’s not that I’m not happy for you, I just… I don’t know,” I softly admitted. “I’m just sad that you thought you couldn’t tell me.”

“Sweetheart, I’m telling you now. Do you think you can be okay with this?”

I sighed, my eyes glancing between my mom’s sad smile and Gerald’s wide eyes. He knew my feelings meant a lot to my mom, and he was silently begging me to be okay with it.

Ignoring the elephant in the room, I let out a sigh and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah… it’s just… weird.”

Gerald chuckled and gave me another fatherly hug while Jonathan glided out of the room behind me. The moment he left, I was finally able to redirect my focus on the only person who was really important to me.

“Congratulations, mom. You, too, Gerald.”

I tried to sound cheerful, but I wasn’t much of an actress. Never had been, although I really wished I was because my reaction had come out all wrong. I was only thinking of myself. I needed to push those thoughts aside and think of mom’s happiness.

But what about Dad? This was a big change for both of us. Since my father died, mom never even spoke about dating. Sure, I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be with someone.

Just not
him
. Not the father of the one man that I never wanted to see again.

Now that man was living in my childhood home, and soon, I would be living here again as well. Mom didn’t even know about that part yet.

“Thank you, dear. I don’t know what happened between you and Jonathan, but I’m sure it’s nothing that you can’t work out by talking through it.”

I just barely managed to hold back my snort.

If only they knew...

“I just had a wonderful idea!” my mom cried, dropping the rolling pin back to the counter as she shouted, “Jonathan!”

He returned to the room a moment later, his eyes immediately seeking me out for a brief second before letting them lock on my mom.

“Yeah?”

She pointed between the two of us, a sly smile appearing on her lips that made dread rise in my stomach.

“I think you two need a chance to bond again. A friendship like yours is something to be
treasured
, not thrown away over a silly argument.”

Really?
With everything that was going on, she was worried about Jonathan and me being friends again?

The thought was another reminder that I really needed to share my own news with her. Soon.

But first things first. I frowned and opened my mouth to point out that she had no idea why we were fighting in the first place, but Jonathan’s soft voice cut me off.

“I completely agree, Leslie.”

They’re on a first name basis now? Also—
What?

My mom grinned triumphantly. “I’m glad you agree. Because I think you two should go spend the weekend at the cabin for the weekend and re-bond.”

The words that should have come out of my mouth were,
‘What about what
I
think?
’ But it was already too late. Jonathan had agreed so easily that I would look like a total bitch if I started a war over this.

God, Mom was practically beaming at me.

Mr. Parker chimed in with his agreement. “That sounds like a great idea.”

I finally turned to glare at Jonathan, who was steadfastly refusing to look at me. When he wouldn’t meet my gaze, I turned incredulous eyes to my mom.

I shook my head, thinking no, I just couldn’t do this. I was kidding myself. I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. The last thing I wanted to do was go have a bonding session with
him
.

“Um,
excuse me?
I don’t need to
bond
. I’m perfectly fine without any bonding.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because we’re about to be a family and you’re looking at Jonathan like he’s a leper, or whatever you kids say. Fiona, please. Do this for me.”

The woman definitely used every weapon in her arsenal—this time it was the wide, sad eyes and a pout that I’d inherited and used more often than I wanted to admit. I tried to think of a way out of it—the reminder that I still needed to admit to dropping out of college lingering around in the back of my head.

Maybe I could tell her right now and hope that she’ll be so angry at me that she’ll retract the offer for us to stay in the cabin. Or I could just pretend to cave in and then call Brenda to pick me up the moment we get there.

I was going to be in the doghouse soon. If I didn’t agree, I would probably be homeless. Well, not quite, but living here might not be an option. God, I was so damn confused—the only thing I could do was comply.

“Fine. Whatever,” I said with a resigned sigh. “When are we going?”

“You can leave Friday and spend the weekend up there reconnecting. We’ll drive you there and pick you up first thing Monday morning. I’m sure that after you two catch up, you’ll forget all about whatever tiff you had.”

I wasn’t as sure about that as she seemed to be, but I kept that thought to myself. That gave me today and tomorrow to decide whether or not I should break the news and run, even though my instincts told me that it’d go over like a lead balloon.

I’d be better off going to the cabin with Jonathan, calling Brenda to come get me and ditching him there. At least then I’d actually be able to enjoy a few days of my first week out of school and I could also use the time to tell her that I was moving back.

Hell, maybe I’d even have her drive me around to pick up some job applications.

Regardless of what we did, one thing was for sure.

There was no way in
hell
I was staying at that damn cabin.

T
here’s
no way in hell she’s staying at that cabin.

She might have been able to fool her mom, but she couldn’t fool me. Fiona seemed to have forgotten that I knew her better then she knew herself. I damn well knew that she had no intention of spending an entire weekend with me.

Whether she realized I had caught on to her lie or whether she just didn’t care was another matter entirely.

After she agreed to the ‘bonding’ trip, I made a quiet exit from the kitchen and went to my bedroom. I locked the door behind me, then sat on the edge of my bed and started mentally going through my options.

I had the sneaking suspicion that her plan was to call one of her friends, most likely Brenda. They had a pact to pick each other up whenever one of them got in trouble. Fiona frequently borrowed Leslie’s car to retrieve Brenda from her bad dates, and Brenda used to pick Fiona up whenever she ended up somewhere she didn’t want to be.

It didn’t take a genius to know that being stuck in a cabin with me fell into that category.

But our parents were right. We
did
need to talk.

Among other things.

The question now was—how could I possibly keep her from leaving? If she called a friend and arranged a ride beforehand, I’d be totally screwed. The only chance I had was if she waited until we were at the cabin before she made the call. If she spoke to Brenda early and pre-arranged the ride, anything I did to make her stay wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

But knowing her, I had a feeling she wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t just going to pass up an opportunity to privately ream me for what happened at prom before she waltzed out of my life just as fast as she did the first time.

Even if I did something to her phone to keep her from making the call after we got there, she would probably just start walking. It was only an hour ride out to the cabin—a distance that would take a few hours to walk, but she was stubborn enough to do it.

And she was certainly pretty enough to hitch a ride even without raising her thumb. There were a number of men who would slam on brakes just for the chance to possibly get her into their car.

The thought made my stomach twist.

As I glanced around my bedroom, the small red toolbox in the corner caught my eye and an idea popped into my mind like a lightbulb turning on.

I hopped off the bed and rushed into the hallway, making sure the others were still in the kitchen before I snuck into the garage to open my full-sized toolbox. I pulled open the bottom drawer—hoping like hell that I still had what I was looking for.

Inside the drawer, I spotted the shiny metal item and grinned. I eased the chain out of the box and placed it in the backseat of my dad’s car, tossing my jacket over the pile to hide it from view.

When I went back inside, I put a mask of indifference back on my face as I stepped into the kitchen and interrupted their conversation. To my great annoyance, Fiona didn’t even glance in my direction. She stared straight ahead at her mother like I never even stepped into the room.

But that would change soon enough. All I needed was to get everything ready.

“Dad, can I borrow the car for a few hours? Jimmy needs an extra set of hands in the shop. I guess everyone’s rushing in to get their tires changed before we close up for the holiday.”

“Of course,” he agreed readily, reaching into his pocket to pull out the keys before handing them over to me. “Would you mind filling up the tank on your way home? I want to make sure we’ll have enough gas to get you two out to the cabin and back.”

“Will do,” I agreed, shoving the keys in my pocket and swiftly taking my leave.

Once I was alone in my room again, I quickly changed into a set of my typical work clothes to avoid raising suspicion and stopped trying to fight the smile off my face.

This certainly was going to be a
bonding
weekend.

“
T
his is
bullshit
,” I mumbled to myself as I dug through my luggage to pull out a few sets of clothes for the weekend.

I ignored pretty much everything that would be suitable for a typical cabin trip and instead grabbed my sexiest clothes, knowing damn well that Brenda would drag me out to the club to go dancing every chance she could. Not that I really minded. Since starting college, I had grown to love men’s attention.

Which was something that in high school, I’d only wanted from
one
guy. One guy who wouldn’t give me the time of day—at least not in the way I wanted it.

But that was all in the past now. I rolled my head around on my shoulders and willed myself to relax, sighing with relief when I felt some of the tension draining from my muscles. I reminded myself that I wasn’t going to have to spend more than an hour with him before Brenda picked me up.

I was definitely going to take advantage of that short time to lay into Jonathan with the myriad of reasons why we would never be friends—let alone
family
—ever again.

As long as I could keep my emotions in check long enough to do so.

Even thinking of how he’d looked yesterday when he walked into the kitchen was enough to cause my body to react in a way I wished I could stop. Jonathan had been affecting me like this since I’d turned sixteen and realized that he meant a lot more to me than just a friend.

Too bad that by the time I had the nerve to admit it, I was forced to face the reality that my attraction was one-sided in the most horrible way imaginable. While I often wished that I never worked up the courage to tell him how I felt so I wouldn’t have ended up so heartbroken, I
really
wished that I had never developed feelings for him in the first place.

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, roughly scrubbing away my tears as I relived prom night for the thousandth time.
God
, why was I still hung up on that night? On
him?
It’s not like I hadn’t already had seven months to process it and move on. Or so I’d thought.

I supposed the biggest problem was that I’d never expected to see him again. Just having him standing in front of me was enough to totally throw me off my game. At least while I was away at college, I was too busy obsessing about trying to be a good student to think about him as much.

Now though? Now I was stuck with having to confront both my feelings and Jonathan himself.

Maybe I wouldn’t even bother to ream him about the past. Doing so would likely end up with me being an emotional wreck as he harshly told me to get over it.

Would if I could.

I scowled down at my suitcase and dug out the remainder of the clothes I wanted to bring, shoving them into the small bag Mom was loaning me so I didn’t have to cart my entire suitcase to the cabin. I pushed away the thoughts of Jonathan and focused on my guilt over the fact that I still hadn’t told my mom that I’d dropped out of college.

I dug into the bottom of the bag and searched for the letter, scanning it with my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time. I had been carrying it around with me for the past two weeks. The more I looked at the letter confirming that I was no longer a student, the more the reality of the situation sunk in. Eventually, accepting responsibility for the choice I made would give me the courage I needed to tell her the truth.

Well, that’s what I told myself anyways.

It was easy enough to rationalize my guilt away with the fact that it would be awful to tell her and just run off—even though this stupid trip had been her idea in the first place. No, I’d tell her first thing Monday morning.

Of course, that’d be right around the time that she and Gerald would be driving out to pick us up at the cabin and would arrive to find out that I wasn’t there.

Well… shit.

This double dose of disappointment had the potential to ruin Christmas.

But what other choice did I have?

After letting out a harsh stream of breath, I shoved the letter back into my bag and buried it beneath all the sweaters and jeans that I wasn’t taking with me to the cabin. Once it was securely tucked away, I zipped the suitcase back up and glanced back at my bedroom door in a moment of paranoia.

I felt like the letter would be safer here than at the cabin. Even though I had no intention of staying, I didn’t want to risk Jonathan getting his hands on it and letting the cat out of the bag before I found a diplomatic way to raise the issue myself.

Better safe than sorry.