by Lindsey Hart
My Best Friend’s Forbidden Brother
Heartbreakers #2
Lindsey Hart
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
BOOK DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the publisher. While all attempts and efforts have been made to verify the information held within this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or opposing interpretations of the content herein. The book is for entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are those of the author alone and should not be taken as expert instruction or commands.
Copyright © Passion House Publishing Ltd 2020
All rights reserved.
Graphics used inside the book are from pngtree and pixabay.
Cover made by Cosmic Letterz.
You can contact the team at [email protected].
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Never have I ever kissed my best friend's brother... FALSE!
He is a high-profile CEO.
He is my best friend's big brother.
He is absolutely "pinky swear type" forbidden.
And he totally hates me.
BUT he is the only one I can turn to for help.
Add a little blackmail to get that help and voila.
Now, I guess he hates me twice as much.
He thinks I'm a frilly dumb blonde wrapped in pink.
And on the right track to destroy my multi-billion empire.
Well, time to prove him all wrong.
And show him who can also be a boss.
The only problem?
Documents are spilling.
Sparks are flying.
And a kiss is the result.
I know.
I just crossed a line I should never have.
And he still hates me.
Annnnd, I might also end up losing my best friend.
But for some odd reason, I just cannot stop kissing him.
How long can I keep this a secret before everything blows up on me?
Catch Aria and Lucas's enemies to lovers romance in this second book of the Heartbreakers.
They are strong. They are independent. They are Female Bosses.
And they are so ready to break some hearts.
Watch these three best friends get their happily ever after in this hot new series, Heartbreakers.
Each book is a standalone. No cliffhangers. And with a swoony as hell HEA.
CHAPTER 1
Aria
“I used to think you were just a little misguided. Now I know you have a heart of pure evil.”
I flash my bestie, Cassie, my most odious smile. I know it is indeed quite hideous because I’ve spent the better part of my twenty-nine years perfecting it. “No one likes a hairy muff.”
“Why?” Cassie wails, eyeing the double beds. Two. Green. Massage. Beds. Perfect for a couple’s massage. Perfect for a bestie bonding experience.
Except we’re not getting massages.
“Because you’re busy all of next week with your family’s crap, and I need a favor. I have meetings galore this afternoon—you know, the unfortunate by-product of my eighty-four-year-old grandfather running off to Vegas to marry a twenty-two-year-old and formally declaring himself retired and my parent’s not giving two shits about the company because they have enough money to live out the rest of their miserable lives in extreme comfort.”
Cassie has the world’s softest, doe brown eyes. They’d make any horse jealous. They’re that big and beautiful. Framed by thick, dark lashes, I’m pretty sure half the world walks around in envy of her. She’s currently using them to give me the saddest puppy look.
“I agreed to come to your waxing appointment with you. Not like…with you.”
“I know you haven’t taken advantage of all those cards I keep thrusting under your nose. You quit the last place a few years ago when I switched over here, and you never went back. God. What have you been doing all this time? Shaving? Or…going natural?”
“What’s so wrong with going natural?’
“Nothing.” I shudder. “If you’ve gone full-on sixties, they’ll just have to trim you before they start, that’s all.”
“You might be the devil incarnate.”
“I’m sure most people think so.”
“Except your favorite color is pink. Not red.”
“Does the devil really have a favorite color? If he does, I think it would be black. Just like his soul.”
Cassie rolls her eyes. She shakes her head like she really is a horse, and with her flowing waterfall of jet-black hair that falls nearly to her waist, she really does look like she’s an astonishing black stallion with a waving mane.
“You’re not really the devil, Aria. And I’m not getting on that table. I don’t know how much you paid to have them do us at the same time, but I’m not taking part in it.”
“So, you’d rather watch?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“You’re right.”
We’ve known each other since we were twelve. Cassie is one-third of our sisterly trio. The other sister from a different mister, Rin, found herself a prince charming—actually, he used to be a model, so he really does kind of look like one those token, jacked, square-jawed princes from fairy tales—and took off to Denver. Denver. She might as well have gone to the ends of the earth.
We met each other when we were twelve at an all-girls boarding school. It’s been seventeen years, and we’ve pretty much been tearing it up ever since. No matter where we came from, we have one thing in common—our families. No, that’s not really true. Rin and I have terrible upbringings and shitty parents in common, but Cassie’s parents are actually pretty nice. They genuinely care about and love her. Sigh. I stand corrected. The one thing we have in common is that we’re rich.
But only I kind of live like it though. Rin and Cassie are much more sensible and private while I don’t really mind splurging money, be it on fake nails, expensive pink dresses, sparkly pink shoes, a nice penthouse condo and sports cars.
The world may think I’m a spoiled little bitch who cares only about her next nail appointment. And that’s alright. It is more than alright. It’s actually better. This way they’ll have no way of striking me right where it hurts the most. Because let me tell you, when you have money, people do not hesitate to take advantage of you. Any weakness you show will be exploited.
“I’m not doing it. Nope.”
“Fine. Go home and use a two-dollar razor. Don’t come complaining to me when your next date’s dick starts on fire from all the sandpapery friction you have going on down there.”
“It’s not a two-doll
ar razor!” Cassie has that delightful pale skin that contrasts the shock of her dark hair and eyes so sweetly. It’s flawless and creamy, and right now, there are two spots of pink shading her high cheekbones like the blush she never bothers with.
“And you aren’t seeing anyone,” I tack on for her. I know all about Cassie’s woeful lack of a love life. She stays single for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is because every single time she says something about it, I cut her off because I just don’t understand it. Why stay single in your twenties? Your twenties are for mingling. At least that’s the vibe I put out there.
“No, I’m not. So, what’s the point?”
“The point? The point is, you go to the gym. You like buying all these rare vintage finds. You have a house full of antiques. You like to decorate. You eat healthy. Why do you do those things?”
“To take care of myself. To stay healthy. Because you should go to the gym and eat right.” This, by the way, comes from a woman whose parents own a chain of grocery stores. Of course, she has her pick of what she wants to eat whenever she wants to eat it.
“To feel good, you take care of yourself. You do those things for you. Not someone else.”
“Of course not.”
“This is the same.” I point downwards to the juncture of my pink skirt. Cassie rolls her eyes again. “Do this for you. It’s only once every six weeks. Or four weeks, in your case.”
“Hey!”
“Don’t hey me. You have glorious hair. Unfortunately, it’s not limited to your head. I, on the other hand, am blonde and fair. Are you getting up on that bed or not?”
“No!” Cassie puts her hands on her hips.
She’s tall and willowy, like me. We actually look very similar, physically, if you don’t hold our black and blonde hair against us. We have similar sharp features. High cheekbones, straight noses, and heart-shaped faces with delicate jawlines. We’re both tall and slim. Cassie is a little curvier in the hips and bottom than I am, which I used to be jealous of until I sprouted boobs a size bigger.
“Fine. Unzip me.”
Cassie bites the inside of her cheek. I can tell she’s doing it because it looks like someone just jammed a poop popsicle in her mouth. She’s giving me that look. That look that says she’d rather stick me with a pin. Luckily for me, she’s not into voodoo, or I might be in some serious trouble.
Even though she lets out an enraged hiss of breath, she complies. I step out of my dress, leaving my bright pink bra on. I walk over to the table with the white covered sheet draped across it before I lose the panties too.
Cassie has seen me naked approximately two thousand, six hundred, and seventy-eight times in the seventeen years we’ve known each other. I’m kidding. I have no idea how many times we’ve dressed and undressed in the same room. Probably double that. The point is, she no longer gives a shit about my lady bits.
“What the heck did you need to talk to me about that’s so important it couldn’t wait?” Cassie sinks down into a plush red velvet chair at the side of the room and glances around impatiently.
The whole thing looks like a glamour shoot from a fifties themed bathroom. Black and white baroque wallpaper, fancy red velvet furniture, black and white pictures of actresses from the thirties and forties on the walls. It’s classy, alright. I guess it’s nice to have something to look at while you’re spread eagle and having someone tear hair off your who-ha.
The girl who normally does my waxing—and by girl, I actually mean a sixty-year-old lady who has the voice of a woman who smokes eight packs of cigarettes a day and looks like she has enough plastic surgery that she’d probably float like a rubber dingy. Pricilla is the best, though. She has hands that are a combination of steel and melted butter. Precise but gentle.
“I know you’re going to be busy this week, seeing as you’ve been bragging about that massive takeover your brother just bagged for your parent’s company. I know you’re helping with that and won’t be around. You know I’m busy too. Since my grandpa took his shriveled-up dick on a permanent vay-cay and decided to leave me in this pickle.”
“You can blame your parents too.”
Ahh, yes. My parents. I’ll get to them later.
“I know that. I–Er– F it.” Asking for help isn’t exactly in my nature. “I need Lucas.”
“Oh, hell no, you don’t!” Cassie leaps out of her chair, a twisted scowl on her face. “Hire someone else! Anyone else! There are lots of people out there who know how to run a business since that’s what I’m assuming you’re going to do with the hotels. This is your grandfather’s company. Kind of your mother’s, too. Don’t ask me to get involved.”
“Technically, I was asking for your brother.”
“Technically, that’s still a hard no.”
“People are calling him some kind of living legend. A business genius.”
“He’s not. He just has good instincts. He works hard. He has a Master’s in Economics and in Commerce. He’s educated. He’s had a lot of experience. He started helping with the store when he was eighteen. He’s been doing it for seventeen years, on and off. He’s just…good at it. He’s not some kind of legend.”
“He made Miami’s top forty under forty this year, and he’s years away from forty. That’s something.”
“Why do you want him?” Cassie sticks out her bottom lip in a pout.
We have this unspoken rule between us.
Rin and I have no siblings. We are our parents’ only children. The only ones our parents, who hated each other from the start, could bear to have. Having produced one child, our mothers said they’d done their duty and promptly went off to greener pastures. For my mom, that meant pool boys and hotel staff. For my dad, it meant the usual. They tried to out-hump each other with anyone and everything that wasn’t each other. For Rin’s mom, it meant starting her own clothing line and becoming this hotshot, ultra-rich asswipe who eventually went off to the Caymans with a guy half her age, leaving Rin stuck with her empire. Why does that seem to be a theme around here? Her mom? My grandpa?
The point is, we have this unspoken rule about Cassie’s brother. He’s actually her half-brother. Her mom remarried when Cassie was twelve. Lucas was eighteen then. They’ve always gotten along. They like each other. They work together. The whole family does. For my family, it’s hotels. For hers, it’s grocery.
So, we have always had this rule about Lucas. He’s off-limits.
It’s a promise that Cassie made Rin and I swear back in boarding school. Back before we ever came over to her house. Ever. She had this sixth sense or a worry that her brother would tear us apart because we’re girls, and girls can be really damn catty about things like that. Cassie must actually be some kind of fortune-teller or whatever, because yeah. One look at Lucas pretty much did me in for life. Not that I’d breathe a word of it to another living soul.
“Please! Cassie! Please! Talk to him for me. I just need a crash course. For like, a week. On what to do. Who to hire. How to get things in order.”
“Hire someone else.”
“Someone else isn’t going to train me! They’re going to fuck me over and leave me high and dry. They’re not going to help me. They’re just going to grab the control from me and make me a puppet, and like, siphon billions of dollars from the company right under my nose, and then everyone will laugh at me because I’m blonde, and they’ll say I deserved it.”
“Lucas doesn’t like you,” Cassie sniffs, settling back into the chair.
She crosses her legs prettily. She’s wearing an emerald green tunic and black leggings, paired with black flats. She’s not overly fancy. She doesn’t like bothering with fussy things like clothes, hair, and makeup. Fortunately for her, she gets to walk around like a natural goddess anyway. Her no-nonsense style only enhances her beauty.
“I know that. No one likes me. No one but you and Rin. Because you know me. The real me. Not the me everyone else sees. Please? I just need him for a week. One week.”
“
No.”
“Ten days at most.”
“No.”
“He’s the only one I’d trust! At the very least, could he just help me get good people hired who aren’t going to rob me blind and turn my company into dirt?”
“I kind of thought that’s what you wanted. To tank everything your family built. Revenge. Served hot. That’s what you always hinted at.”
This time, I sniff, “I’ve changed my mind”.
“No.”
“Please! I’ll do anything. I’ll pay him anything. I don’t care if he’s the one who robs me, but please! I want to do this! I need to do this!”
I just used please in a sentence twice, and that makes Cassie take notice. She stares at me, all googly-eyed from her corner. Her lips thin out into a hard line, and she mutters something under her breath. I already know she’s caving. She’s right. This is a part of me she’s never seen before. The Aria that the rest of the world sees is a snobby bitch with a snobby name who doesn’t grovel. That Aria has everything. That Aria never needs to say please. That Aria has never wanted for anything in her life.
Except Cassie knows me. The real me. The girl who used to cry herself to sleep every single night at boarding school. The girl who used to dread going home because her parents couldn’t give a shit if she was still alive or not. The sad, unwanted, insecure girl who clung to her two best friends because they were all she ever wanted. The girl who secretly had this desire to make just one person proud of just one thing she did.
That girl just makes a sudden reappearance, and it catches even me off guard.
“Fine!” Cassie humphs. “I’ll ask. That’s all I’m going to do. I’ll tell him straight, and he can decide if he wants to help you or not. Maybe he can suggest someone he trusts if he doesn’t want to do it. He’s busy. Especially right now.”
“I know he’s busy. I’m not asking for him this week. How about next?”
“You’re impossible.”
