Stepbrother Takes (His Twisted Game, Book Five)

STEPBROTHER TAKES (His Twisted Game, Book Five)

By Chloe Hawk

Copyright
2015, Chloe Hawk, all rights reserved.
 
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 
All characters are eighteen or older.

AVERY

It was unbearable.

I couldn’t take standing here at this
stupid photo shoot, trying to pretend everything was okay.
 

I tapped my foot against the floor
impatiently, counting the seconds until I could be alone with Cole again.

Why?
 
So you can ask him why he never
mentioned he was engaged to Lucy Caro, ask him what she has to do with the man
who followed you, with whatever secrets he’s hiding?
 
He’s not going to tell you anything, and you know it.
 

Could it really be a coincidence that
Jeffrey had mentioned Lucy to me just an hour before she showed up at Cole’s
photo shoot?
 
Had Cole requested
her to be the model for his ad?
 
And how else was Lucy involved with Cole?
 
There was no way Jeffrey would have mentioned her if she was
just someone Cole had been involved with romantically.
 
There had to be more to it than that.

I blinked away the tears threatening to
spill down my cheeks.

Every one of my nerves was on high alert,
my body so tightly wound I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin.

Kalia glared at me, shaking her head at
the sound of my foot tapping on the hardwood floor.
 
“Can you stop that?” she asked.
 
“The photographer needs to concentrate.”

I wasn’t in the mood to put up with her
attitude.
 
But before I could come
up with a bratty reply, Cole came walking out of the dressing room, knocking
the breath right out of me.

He was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans that
hugged his tight ass and muscular thighs.
 
A black t-shirt under a dark grey leather jacket set off his broad
shoulders and his hair had been slicked back.
 
His eyes burned bright blue, and there was just a hint of
stubble on his cheeks, giving him an air of mystery and danger.
 

“Okay,” the photographer said.
 
“Let’s get started with the shots of
the two of you, then we’ll let Lucy go and we’ll shoot Cole’s solos.”

From what I could tell, the photo shoot
was part of the mega advertising blitz for Cole’s dating app.
 
The app was a mix between Tinder and
Facebook – it would show you people in your immediate area who were
looking to date, but they were all friends of friends, so there was at least a
little bit of a vetting process.

The premise of the spot they were
shooting was that Cole, the founder, actually used the app himself and Lucy was
the girl he met.
 

All of this information had been relayed
to me by Kalia as soon as I came out of the bathroom.
 
I couldn’t believe I’d been able to retain any of it.

Lucy took her place with Cole behind the
white backdrop.

“Any instructions?’ she asked as a makeup
assistant adjusted her hair around her shoulders so that it looked perfectly
tousled.

“Just go with it,” the photographer
said.
 
“We’re looking for playful,
yet sexy.”

“That won’t be hard,” Lucy said.
 
“Will it, Cole?”
 
She laughed and pushed her back into
his chest as he slid his arms around her waist.
 
The photographer began snapping away.

Cole was tall and broad-shouldered,
dwarfing Lucy, even though she must have been at least five-foot ten.
 
They looked perfect together, so
naturally beautiful.
 
This was the
kind of girl Cole should be with – gorgeous and successful and
confident.
 
Not someone like me, who
had nothing figured out and nothing to offer.

Stop,
Avery,
I told
myself.
 
It’s just acting.
 
They’re
in a photo shoot together. It’s pretend.
 
She’s a model.
 
She said herself
that they’re not together anymore.

It was true.
 
Actors did this kind of thing all the time, even kissing and
shooting sex scenes with each other.

But still.
 
Cole wasn’t really playing a role.
 
He was playing himself.
 
And Lucy was playing his girlfriend, and the fact that the
two of them had a history I knew nothing about made it that much worse.

Lucy was leaning into Cole now, tilting
her head up to look at him as his hands encircled her tiny waist.

“Whisper something in her ear, Cole,” the
photographer instructed.

Cole whispered something to Lucy and she
laughed hard, throwing her head back like it was the funniest thing she’d ever
heard.
 
A hint of a smile tugged at
Cole’s lips, like he was pleased with himself for having made her laugh.

I looked away, because it was making me
slightly nauseous, seeing the two of them like that.

Kalia was standing next to me, and I saw
the same look on her face – she was jealous too.

And that was the problem.
  
Cole could have any woman he
wanted.
 
He’d
had
any woman he wanted – Kalia, Lucy, and now me.
 
It was stupid to think he would ever choose
me over them (or the thousands of other beautiful women in New York), even if
we
had
grown up together, even if we
did have a history.

I forced myself to look back at him.

My realization about how I could never
have him, not all of him, not in the way I wanted, did nothing to diminish my
attraction to him.
 
He was just as
beautiful as ever.

Cole’s eyes locked on mine, and I sucked
in a breath.
 
Electricity pulsed
between us.
 
How could you?
I wanted to scream.
 
How could you hold her
like this, right in front of me, after what we did last night?
 
How could you fail to mention you’d had
a fiancé?

.For a moment, I thought I saw something
pass over his face, some kind of regret or hesitation.
 
And then he looked away and leaned back
into Lucy, turned her chin toward his the way he’d done to me just a few
moments ago in his car.

A look of contentment came over her face
as the two of them stared at each other, their lips just inches apart, the
chemistry between them shining so bright it was almost visible.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I backed away slowly, moving toward the
exit.

No one noticed – they were all
transfixed on what was going on between Cole and Lucy.
 
I stepped into the elevator and took it
all the way down to the lobby.

I was leaving.

Not just the building.

But New York.

***

I didn’t belong here.
 

The city, which earlier had seemed alive
and full of possibility, now suddenly felt cold and unwavering, the kind of
harsh place that would chew you up and spit you out.

I wasn’t meant to be here.

The only reason I even
was
here was because of Cole.
 
And he didn’t care about me.
 
All he cared about was himself.

Otherwise, he would tell me what was
going on.
 
He wouldn’t hide things
from me and then sneak into my bed, all the while telling me it was wrong before
doing it all over again.
 

He kept saying he needed to protect
me.
 
When the truth of the matter
was, all he cared about was protecting himself.

I’d made it two blocks when I heard him
calling after me.

“Avery!”

Don’t
turn around,
I told
myself.
 
Don’t turn around and let him see how upset you are.
 

“Avery!”
 
His hand was on my arm then, forcing me to turn around.

“Don’t touch me!” I said, wrenching out
of his grasp.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he
asked.
 
“Why did you just run out
like that?”

“I’m going home,” I said.
 

His eyes narrowed.
 
“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”
 
I turned away from him again, but this time he grabbed me
around the waist with one hand, pulled me into a coffee shop and herded me over
to an empty corner.

“Okay,” he said, his tone measured, like
he was talking to a mental patient and needed to tread lightly.
 
“Now will you please tell me why you’re
acting insane?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were
engaged?” I blurted.
 
 
I hadn’t wanted to ask him, hadn’t
wanted him to know that I even cared.

“Who told you that?” he demanded.

“Lucy.
 
I ran into her in the bathroom.”

“And that’s why you ran out of there?”

“Yes.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his
hair.
 
“I don’t tell you
everything, Avery,” he said.
 
“Are
you going to tell me about all the guys you’ve been with since I’ve been
gone?”
 
He squared his shoulders,
like the thought of it made him want to beat the shit out of any guy who’d
touched me.

“No,” I said.
 
“But if I was engaged to someone I certainly would have told
you.”

“Just like you told about hanging out
with Jeffrey?” he countered.

“That’s different.”

“Oh, yeah?
 
How?”

“Because it just is.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
 
“You brought a girl you were engaged
with to a photo shoot, Cole.
 
I had
to watch you put your hands all over her.”

“It was a photo shoot, Avery.
 
It’s not real.”

“It looked real to me.”

“Do you trust me?” he demanded.

“How can I trust you when you won’t tell
me anything?”

“There was nothing to tell!”

“Forget it,” I said.
 
“Cole, please, I just… ” I trailed off,
tears welling up in my eyes again.
 
I hated that he was seeing me so upset, hated even more that I actually
was
this upset.
 
“I can’t do this.
 
I thought I could live by your rules, I
thought I could deal with this wall you have up, but I… I can’t.”

“Stop,” he said.
 
“You’re talking crazy.
 
Go back to my apartment and wait for me
there.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
Going back to his apartment would be a quick fix, just a way to prolong
the inevitable.
 
He wasn’t ever
going to let me in.
 
And I wanted
all of him.
 
He hadn’t made me any
promises – he’d told me this is how it would be.
 
And I’d thought I could live with
that.
 
But it was too painful.
 
“Please, Cole,” I said.
 
“Please, just let me go.”

I could tell he was fighting against his
urge to control me, his urge to never let me out of his sight and protect me at
all costs.

Tell
me to stay.
 
Tell me you’ll try to
let me in, tell me we’ll figure it out together.

But he didn’t.

Instead he just looked away.

I pushed past him, moving toward the
door.
 

He didn’t call after me.

He didn’t try to stop me.

He didn’t want me.

Because when you got right down to it,
the truth was, he didn’t think I was worth it.

***

I walked all the way to Grand Central
Station.
 
By the time I got there,
my heels were biting into my toes, and the soles of my feet felt as if they’d
been scraped raw.

I had no money, and no plan for how I was
going to get home.

When I got to Grand Central, I asked a
middle-aged woman wearing a belt bag if I could borrow her phone.
 
She gave it to me, but stayed close,
hovering over me, her lips pursed like she was afraid I was going to take off
with it.