Wicked Game: a Billionaire Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

A letter, maybe from a museum.

Maybe from the Met?

My heart raced again, and I stumbled to the kitchenette in the corner.  

I hadn’t expected them to accept my application in a million years, but a letter this expensive looking had to be from them, didn’t it?  I couldn’t remember receiving a rejection from them.  I had assumed their lack of an answer had been them laughing too hard to bother writing back, but maybe my lucky stars were looking out for me for once in my life.

My shaking fingers patted through the drawers and snatched a butter knife.  I scooted up to sit on the counter as I cut it open.  Please, please, please.  God, karma, whatever’s out there.  If this was an acceptance for a position at the Met, I’d never gossip or eavesdrop again.  I’d floss after brushing, eat my vegetables, and stop calling Eileen the Wicked Bitch of the Vest in my head.  

Anything.  Just let me have this.

I cut a ragged line against the envelope’s top and wrenched the letter out, too excited to be delicate.  The paper was rich and thick, and my trembling thumb nudged it open.  

I sucked my bottom lip as my gaze ran over it, desperate to see the words ACCEPTED or YOUR CURATORSHIP BEGINS NEXT MONTH or CONGRATS, CLEO BISHOP, PLEASE TAKE ALL OF OUR MONEY.

Instead, my gaze fell on the letterhead at the top.

My heart fell.

Blackwood Enterprises.

No, no, no.  There was no way.

This was even crazier than being evicted.

I closed the note for a moment as teenage memories rushed back to me.  

Mom telling me about her new boss asking her out.  A wedding just months after that.  A crazy year of living in a mansion with my new stepfather and disgustingly sexy stepbrother, always staying with Dad on weekends and complaining about how Bernard Blackwood despised me.  

And then one night, the night before Mom and Mr. Blackwood officially split up, the night Damien finally pulled me into bed.

I groaned.  I had gotten over it by now.  

I had outgrown that silly teenage belief that losing your virginity was some life changing thing, that Damien and I were soulmates and meant to be.  

It didn’t mean I was thrilled at the idea of facing my stepbrother and his family again.  

Losing my virginity may mean nothing in the long run, but losing it to that cocky bastard meant a lot.

He would never let me live that down, would he?

I grimaced and began reading.

Dear Cleopatra,

I winced.  I hated my full name.  The result of a dad with a classics degree and too little common sense.  The same kind of no common sense that led me to getting the same classics degree and ending up with the same unemployment that dogged Dad.

You are hereby invited to the funeral of the late Mr. Bernard Blackwood.

My eyebrows raised.  I hadn’t heard that he had died.  

Not that I cared.  

But weirder still was the idea that he would invite me in the first place.  It was no secret the man hated me for being poor and a hippy.  And I hadn’t made it a secret that I despised living with him.  He and Mom didn’t exactly split up on good terms, either.  He hadn’t even attended Mom’s funeral three years ago—why the hell would he want me at his?

I had already made up my mind that there was no way in hell I was going when my gaze flitted to the bottom of the page.  Written in fountain pen in the same elegant handwriting that had written the address was a tiny note:

P.S.

If you show up, I’ll pay you $5,000.

My stomach turned again.  

Not because of the confusion, not because of the shock, not because of the huge amount of money he was offering.  (Well, huge at least for a suddenly homeless twenty-two-year-old with a useless degree.)  

Hell, I wasn’t even sick because I had just found out the last “parent” I had was dead.  

No, I was sick because I finally realized who that handwriting belonged to…  

Because the words right after that were:

Can’t wait to see you, Sis.

- Damien.

My eyes sank closed.

Damien Blackwood.  

Once again slipping into my life, passing notes, drawing me back into his web.  I had sworn to myself years ago as a heartbroken teenager that I would never see him again.  Fool me once, shame on me.  Fool me twice, I would have to climb into my stepbrother’s bedroom and strangle him in his sleep.  

But as I glanced down at the note in my hands, my thumb tracing over the number 5,000, I sighed.

I needed the money.  Even if the last thing I needed was to see Damien.

Was I really willing to do this?  

See him again to save myself from homelessness?

I huffed to myself and slipped the note into my bag.  Then I grabbed a pen and wrote down the date, time, and place of the funeral on a small pink sticky note.  I slapped it on the fridge.

Even if worse came to worse, I thought to myself, at least I could still steal his kidneys.
 

I tugged against the itchy sleeve of my black dress as the rows of people filed out past me.  

I hate wearing fancy dresses.  It reminded me of my life with Damien.

The funeral had been held in a massive Catholic church in the rich part of town, and I had nearly been killed by three BMWs while weaving my way through the parking lot.  Thank God the service was over—hanging out with the rubbery corpse of my ex-stepdad wasn’t my idea of a good time.  I was pretty sure all this incense was giving me hives.  

Not to mention the cameras outside.  

I had forgotten how well-connected Blackwood was.  He had only gotten more famous since he and Mom split up.  With the number of celebrities here, I’d be beating the paparazzi off with a stick on my way out.  

That was another mystery—why the hell would Bernard Blackwood want his hippy ex-stepdaughter to be seen by all his rich celebrity friends?  I always figured your poor ex-wife and embarrassment of a stepdaughter were some kind of dark, horrifying secret to be kept chained up in the basement.  Not trotted around to remind everyone at your funeral.

Anyway, I wasn’t looking forward to fighting my way through the parking lot again.

Of course, I couldn’t leave yet.  

Not without my money.

I fanned myself with the program while looking out for any lawyer types, especially any that were holding thick wads of cash.  So far, I hadn’t seen that $3,000.

If I didn’t get that money soon, Blackwood wasn’t going to be the only dead person here.

The crucifix on the wall glared down at me.

Calm down, Jesus
, I internally grumbled.  
You wouldn’t have been so happy go lucky if you’d been evicted from your apartment too.

“Cleopatra?”

I jumped in the pew, then stumbled to my feet.  A man in a pressed black suit stood before me, his hands clasped and his hair in a serious comb over.  Finally, a lawyer.  This would be the first and last time I would ever be happy to see one of those, I thought to myself.

“Yes.”  I stuck out my hand awkwardly, then wondered if that was the right thing to do.  Luckily, he took it and gave me a firm handshake.  “And you are?”

“Ellison.  Greg Ellison.”

“Oh, I’m Cleopatra Bishop.”

He smiled.  “Yes, I know.”

Crap, of course he knew.  He had called me by my name.  I fought back an embarrassed cringe.   

That was another thing I had forgotten about life with the Blackwoods—everybody knew your name, because everybody wanted to get close to the billionaire Blackwoods.  For a socially awkward weirdo and aspiring hermit like myself, that was not a good thing.

“I was told that I … um,” I started, not sure how to tactfully put ‘give me my goddamn money so I can leave and forget this dead guy ever existed.’  “Was supposed to pick up something while I’m here.”

“Yes, of course.”  He pulled me softly to the side, turning our backs to the rest of the crowd.  “Mr. Blackwood would like to keep this quiet for the moment.  I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I don’t.  Why would Bernard ask me to be here?” I said, shaking my head.  “I mean, wanting to keep this quiet?  He obviously still wants me out of the way.  There’s no reason I should be here in the first place, so why invite me?”

“Bernard?” Ellison asked, tilting his head.  “He didn’t.”

“What?”

“I’m … I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but I’m sure you know how he felt about your family.  He was a bit … unwelcome toward you.”

“He hated my fucking guts because he cheated on Mom, and I called him out.”

Ellison frowned, but it twitched in a way that looked suspiciously like a smile.  I think he would have laughed, had Bernard’s dead body not been judging us from five feet away.  

“Yes, that’s one way to put it.”

“So why did the late great Mr. Blackwood ask his dirty laundry to come to his funeral?”

Ellison smiled openly now.  “That’s not the Mr. Blackwood I meant.”

Oh, hell.

I knew which Blackwood as soon as the shadow passed over me.  

Ellison’s growing smile assured me that, yes, it was in fact my worst panty-dropping memory coming back to haunt me.

I closed my eyes, hoping I could pretend this was all a dream.  

“Cleopatra,” said a familiar voice that sent shivers down my spine.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.  

I wanted to snap at him—“It’s Cleo, just Cleo”—like I had the first day we met as teenagers.  But this time I was paralyzed, completely unable to speak or move.

Not by fear.  

By that voice.

Jesus, that voice.

I had thought I would never hear that voice again.  Deep and sweet with just a hint of bitter, like good rich dark chocolate.  Masculine and rough in a way that still made my knees wobble and my heart flutter.  A hint of amusement, like you were just a joke to him.  And a thick, syrupy topping of insufferably cocky for good measure.  Absolutely irritating.  Absolutely addictive.  

I was a junkie for that voice, and I knew it.

I knew he knew it too, but I refused to admit it.

I’m here for the money, I reminded myself.  Whatever Damien and I once were—step siblings, lovers, enemies—it meant nothing now.  It didn’t matter that he was irresistibly mysterious, that my legs were aching for a little bit of that cocky step-enemy between them, or that his voice was pure sex.  And it didn’t matter that I still hated him.  

What mattered is that I need his money.

That’s all this was.

I turned to face him, and what I saw froze me where I stood.

“Damien,” I said, my voice strained.  

“Long time no see, Cleo.  It’s been awhile since I got to say that name.”

I couldn’t answer.  

I was too captivated by the man standing in front of me.  

This wasn’t the tattooed, muscled teenage boy I remembered, the one with the messy dark hair and bright blue eyes.  No, there was no way I could call him a boy now.

Damien had turned into a man.

In honor of his dad’s funeral, Damien had done his best to be dead sexy.  

His tight black suit caressed every muscle, and goddamn did that body look tempting right now.  The messy dark hair was now combed back, still long enough to cling to his neck.  His broad shoulders stretched tight below that sharp jawline and a cocky smile that teased me as I took it in.  I remembered those full lips and the sinful things they had done to me.  The lip piercing was gone, replaced only by a small mark where it had once been.  

But the smile … that smile was still there.

The smile that said, “I know you, Cleo.”