Wicked Game: a Billionaire Stepbrother Romance (9 page)

But, as always, Damien couldn’t just do the normal thing.

I gasped as Damien grabbed me around the waist, sweeping me into his arms dramatically.  With wide eyes, I fell off my already wobbly feet and into his hands.  Damien dipped me down and planted his lips on mine in the most intense kiss in human history.  The audience gasped and laughed as Marlene led another
aaawwww
and wiped a tear from her eye.

I winced, feeling my face burn bright red.  Now I knew I was a tomato.

Wolf whistles and cheers rose from the crowd as Damien’s tongue slipped into my mouth.

Jesus wept, the entire country was going to see my stepbrother tongue-fucking me.

And worse, I
liked
it.

Damien finally released me from the kiss, helping upright me again on my sky high heels and dizzy head.  I wasn’t sure if the dizziness was from being tossed around like a rag doll or from the electricity of the kiss.  Regardless, I didn’t like it.  Not if there were cameras watching.

He patted my ass, making me jump.  The audience laughed again.  

Thank God the cameras were already turned away and the commercials were rolling.  

I froze, paralyzed by the embarrassment.  He dragged me offstage as I collapsed internally.  No, I was definitely not ready for this.  Not ready for cameras, not ready for interviews, not ready for my sociopath fiancé to grope my ass on national television.  Nope, nope, nope.

What have you gotten yourself into, Cleo.

“You did good,” Damien whispered to me as we unclipped our microphones.  By now, the red had drained from my face and I had mostly recovered.  It didn’t change the fact that I hated the eyes that followed us as we walked through the halls.  

Worse, I hated that his cheeky smile was back.  

His tongue licked over his bottom lip suggestively.  “
Very
good.”

“I’ve said it before, Damien, but I have to say it again.  I
hate
you.”

“I know, wifey.”  His finger wound its way around one of my curls, and I swatted him away.  His smile twitched up, growing a fraction of an inch.  “Love you too.”
 

“The dressing room is this way, ma’am,” said one of the producers, leading me through the hallways.  I patted my wet hands down on my skirt, letting the restroom door close behind us as we walked.  The wave of nausea was finally gone after a good spell of vomiting in the studio’s toilet, and I was finally feeling better after splashing cold water on my sweating, deadly white face.  Interviews definitely weren’t my thing, but at least I could say I had made it out alive.

And I only had to keep doing this…

For six more months.  

Internally, I groaned.

I couldn’t wait to be out of this world and back to being a hermit.

“The red door,” the producer said, patting my back and nodding at the last door on the hallway.  I slipped my stilettos off as I walked, taking deep breaths to calm my now empty stomach.  It growled viciously at me as I hobbled down the hallway on my aching feet.  

I know, I know, I grumbled to myself.  It’s your fault we’re like this.  You shouldn’t have thrown up that toast so easily, even if Marlene was groping your knee on live television every five seconds.

Where is Damien
? I thought to myself.  

He was supposed to be back by now.  And we needed to get out and snatch some breakfast before this stomach situation got too bad.  He should remember more than anyone how murderous I got while running on empty.  Teenage Cleo had been dramatic, but hungry teenage Cleo threw bitchfests of epic proportions.

I didn’t have to wonder for long.

Damien was lounging on the black leather couch in the room…

With the most famous actress in the country standing in front of him, waving her arms as she yelled like a banshee.  

My eyes widened.  It couldn’t be.

But it was, wasn’t it?  I peeked through the door, unable to ear my eyes away from her.  Her honey colored hair was pinned into a perfect bun, and her oversized black sunglasses bounced up and down on her nose as she shook her head wildly.  Even when screaming, her voice sounded like music.  Her bloody red lips curled into a snarl as she laid into him, and her matching nails poked viciously into his chest.  She was a classic beauty, the most radiant person I had ever seen, and she looked like she was about to rip my stepbrother’s head off with those manicured claws.

Holy shit
, I thought to myself, freezing in the hallway.  
Audrey Grace?  Seriously?

And she’s currently tearing my sociopath stepbrother a new one.

Can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.

Question is, how exactly did he fuck her over too?

Things got even more confused as the screaming abruptly stopped.  Desperate to see what was happening, I peeked my nose in the crack of the door.

My stomach plummeted as I saw her press her body up against his seductively.  This wasn’t a woman out to kill him, I realized.  This was a woman out to fuck him.  Not that I could blame her.  Damien stepped backwards, but she caught his jaw in her hands and ran a finger across his lips.  Her eyes.  I desperately wished I could see Damien’s expression, but his face was turned from me.

I peeked in just a little further, desperate to hear what they were saying.

“I know you miss me, baby,” she whispered in a husky voice.  “We were so good together.”

My stomach plummeted just a little bit more.

So that’s why she was so pissed.  

A jilted lover.

Damien really hadn’t changed.  I should have known.  Only this time, the women he was jilting were the most glamorous actresses instead of his nerdy stepsister.  

And apparently, this one still had it bad for him.  

Poor chick.

I stumbled on my aching feet through the doorway, having leaned too far in to eavesdrop.  

Crap, I hissed internally as my red face looked up at them.

Damien and Audrey’s heads turned to see me steadying myself upright, desperately trying to chase the dizziness out of my head.  The hatred seeped back into her face.  

Her lip curled even more as her eyes fixed on me.

“So this is
her
?”

Her?  

I was her now?

More importantly, I was
her
to Audrey Fucking Grace?

Exactly how famous had Damien made me?

“Audrey, we’ve talked about this,” Damien said, reaching out a hand as if to protect me.  Audrey began stalking toward me, and I stumbled back.  The hatred was rolling off her in waves, and her eyes were burning with hatred.  

I knew a woman out for blood when I saw one.  My life flashed before my eyes.

“I don’t know who you are,” she snarled as Damien raced after her.  “But I will fucking find out, and I can fucking promise you—”

A producer came scurrying down the hall, her clipboard bouncing in her arms.  Audrey’s eyes widened, and she straightened up immediately.  Damien released her as if he expected this.  In an instant, the evil murderess Audrey was gone, replaced by sweet and cutesy Audrey.  

“Ms. Grace, your publicist is here,” the producer said, popping her head in the doorway.  “Are you ready to leave?  He says it’s urgent.”

“Of course,” Audrey said, her tone full of sugar and honey.  She picked up her purse and flounced out the door, as if she hadn’t just been ready to turn this room into a bloodbath.  

God, this woman’s mood swings were giving me whiplash.  

But they weren’t mood swings, were they?  No, I realized as Damien and I watched her leave.  I leapt back as she passed me, still remembering the hateful gaze that had burned a hole in my forehead.  I remembered this.  This was just like Damien’s father.  One man to his family, and an entirely different one to the public.  And he could switch between them whenever he wanted.

Appearances are everything when you’re famous.

Or at least that’s what Damien had said.

I guess he had learned that firsthand.

I needed to get out of here.  I wasn’t used to this.

“Cleo,” Damien said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Sorry you had to see that.”

“What?  Did you fuck her too?”

He winced.  “It’s a long story.”

Right.  One I’ve heard before.

One I’ve lived before.

I sat down on the couch, steeling myself.  I wasn’t going to let this get to me.  I’d already cried too many tears over Damien Blackwood, and I had decided he meant nothing to me years ago.  So what if he was having a fling with Audrey Grace?  Why should that piss me off?

Nope.  Definitely not pissed.

Look how not pissed I am, I thought as I dug my nails into my palm.

“The driver should be here in a few minutes,” Damien said, tugging at his tie nervously.  Damn, she was getting to him.  I decided I liked her.  “We’ll leave as soon as he does.”

“What were you going to say to me earlier?” I asked, pulling a book out of my bag.  Now that the interview was over and I was no longer facing doom at the hands of a live studio audience (or a Hollywood starlet), memories of this morning were flooding back to me.  I tapped my fingers against the book’s cover, studying him.  

Especially memories of Damien’s voice choking as he said “Cleo—”  There was something in that tone, like the cockiness had drained out of him.  (Which I knew was impossible.  Damien Blackwood was a raging ball of cocky.)  Something was there, and I was going to find out what.

Add to that the fact that he had respected my privacy for once, and I was sure something was up.  Just like I was sure I wouldn’t like whatever it was.

“Earlier?” Damien asked, still looking nervously out the door.

“Earlier, in my bedroom.”  I paused at the weirdness of that.  
My
bedroom.  Like I actually belonged there.  A week at Blackwood Manor, and I was already going native.  Gross.  “You were going to say something, but you stopped.  You said we’d talk about it later, that it was nothing.”

“Oh,” he said, shrugging.  “I guess I forgot.  It really must have been nothing.”

I cut my eyes at him.  “There is no universe in which I am stupid enough to believe that.”

“Really, wifey?  You think I would lie to you like that?”

“I assume everything you say is a lie until proven otherwise.”

Damien sighed and turned back to me.  “Do you always have to be so angry, Cleo?  I don’t know what I’ve done to make you hate me so much.”

“Exist, for starters.”

He rolled his eyes at me and sat at the edge of the couch.  My body braced itself against his presence.  Little sparks of electricity nipped at my skin where his body brushed against it.  I ached to reach out and touch him, and I hated myself for feeling that way.  

“What are you reading?”

“The Odyssey.  Homer.  It’s one of Dad’s old books.”

“How can you even read these hieroglyphs?”

“It’s Greek,” I said dryly.  “Hardly hieroglyphs.”

“You always were smart,” he said, opening to a random page and tracing his fingertips along the print.  “I wasn’t lying in the interview, you know.  You’ve always been smart as hell.  I really did look up to you when we were kids.  Still do.”

“You’re holding the book upside down,” I said, pulling it right side up for him.  

“See?  Smart.”

“Smart enough to know you’re avoiding the question about what you said earlier.”

His mouth twitched.  I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a frown or smile.

“I have a surprise planned for tomorrow,” he said, snapping the book shut and pushing it back into my clumsy hands.  “That’s all.  We’ll talk about it later.”

That was definitely not all, and we both knew it.  I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms as I examined him.  Damien had turned from me, which is how I knew he was lying.  A week together, and I was already remembering all of his old tells.  Like the fact that he looked away from people when he knew they were on to one of his lies.

“And what else?” I asked.  “Don’t lie to me, because you know I can tell.”