Bad Romance

by Jen McLaughlin

  Bad Romance is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2015 by Jen McLaughlin

  Excerpt from Raven by Ashley Suzanne copyright © 2014 by Ashley Suzanne

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 9780399177903

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover photograph: © zegers06/iStock

  readloveswept.com

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Jen McLaughlin

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Raven

  SEVEN YEARS AGO…

  Jackson

  Walt, my stepfather, frowned at the letter in his hand. “Yale said they would take him, despite his bad grades. I have to buy his way in, but I will.”

  “They did?” Mother gasped, smiling.

  “ ‘He’s’ right here,” I said drily. “And doesn’t want to go to Yale.”

  Neither of them noticed.

  “At least he can amount to something, unlike his father.”

  Mother smiled even wider. “Thanks to you, Walter.”

  “You’ll go at the end of the month,” Walt said, not even looking at me, even though he clearly spoke to me. “You’re dismissed.”

  The hell I was. “I don’t want to go to Yale. I’m joining the army.”

  Walt laughed. “Not in my house.”

  This was bullshit. Everything about it was. Mother was married for the millionth time, and this time to a man who quite clearly didn’t want the extra kid that came along with her. No big shocker, there. His new wife didn’t exactly want me, either.

  She never tried to hide that fact from me.

  Had told me, straight up to my face.

  But to have some pompous prick all up in my business, telling me what I had to do with the rest of my life as if I needed to listen to him, was the last straw. I was eighteen years old. I didn’t have to listen to Walter Hastings. Or to his wife.

  Screw them all.

  They’d only been married a few months, and he wasn’t my damn stepfather, no matter what he thought. I mean, he was. Legally. But I didn’t need him.

  I didn’t need anyone.

  So I stood up, fisting my hands at my sides. “I don’t want to be a lawyer. I already told you that.”

  Walt laughed. “And I told you that, under my roof, you do what I tell you to do, and that’s that. You’ll do it, and you’ll like it. I won’t budge.”

  “Neither will I, Walt.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Walt said, his voice low and seething. His name was Walter, and he hated it when I called him Walt…which was why I did it. “My name is Walter, or Mr. Hastings, or sir. No one calls me Walt. Learn some respect, boy.”

  I didn’t answer. Just smirked.

  Walt could kiss my ass.

  “Jackson, dear…” Mother fidgeted. “It’s a good career. You’ll be lucky if you live to see the other side of twenty if you join the army. Listen to your father. He knows what’s best for you.”

  I stiffened. I might not know my father, but I knew one thing. Walt wasn’t him. “He knows shit, and he sure as hell doesn’t know me because he’s not my father. He has no idea what’s best for me, or who I am. Or what I want. I want to—”

  “Watch your mouth, young man, and how you speak to your mother. You’re going to law school, to Yale. That’s final, so get it into your head. End of discussion.” Walter picked up his newspaper, addressing his wife. “And if he wants to continue living here, he will stop annoying me.”

  I gritted my teeth, because he was a tight-suited asshole. “Then I’ll leave this house. Go out on my own. Make my own way.”

  “Over my dead body. You’re part of this family now, and while you are, you’ll live up to the Hastings name. And that’s all that will be said on this matter. You may go,” Walter said dismissively, flicking a hand my way. “I’m finished with you.”

  There was so much I wanted to say, but why bother? I knew it was a waste of my time, so I walked away from them both. He wouldn’t listen, and, really, it didn’t matter even if he did. Officially, I was an adult now, so I didn’t need their approval to sign up for duty, no matter what they seemed to think. End of discussion. What the fuck was that, anyway? The discussion was over when both parties decided it was. Not one.

  Pompous prick.

  As I left, I heard Walt sigh. “Honestly, Nancy, I don’t know what to do with that boy. Are you sure his father won’t take him off our hands? He’s nothing like my Lilly.”

  Ah…Lilly Hastings. Fifteen. Rich. Smart. Sweet as hell. And gorgeous, to boot. Walter didn’t deserve her, and it boggled my mind that she was the old man’s daughter, because she was nothing like him. Everything she got, she must’ve gotten from her deceased mother. That was the only thing I could figure.

  I initially tried to hate her on principle, but the thing was, I couldn’t. From my first day here, when she brought me chocolate chip cookies because they were my favorite, till today, she’d been nothing but kind to me. She was the only person who made life in the Hastings household bearable. And because Lilly was the total opposite of her father, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hate her.

  And believe me, I tried.

  “Walter, you know he ran as soon as he found out I was pregnant. I had to raise Jackson by myself, and you know how hard that was on me,” Mother said, her voice low. She shouldn’t have bothered. I heard her, anyway. “But if you would consider letting him…”

  I walked away, knowing how this conversation would end. Walt refused to accept that I had all but joined the army—all it needed was a few signatures, and it would be done. I passed all the tests, filled out the papers. It was a done deal, and I would be leaving soon. But once I was gone? Yeah, he’d get the picture pretty damn fast.

  “Psst,” Lilly called out, holding two bottles of Coke. I would rather have a beer, but she wasn’t into rebelling. Not that badly, anyway. “Come here.”

  I walked over, my heart thumping against my chest the closer I got to her. I might be three years older than her, but we connected on a level that couldn’t be ignored or explained. She just got me. And I got her. “What’s up, little girl?”

  She flushed. “I hate it when you call me that.”

  “I know.” I tapped her on her nose. “It’s why I do it.”

  She stole another quick glance at me from under her ridiculously long eyelashes and bit down on her lower lip. My heart rate increased in response, but I ignored it. It was no secret that she ha
d a huge crush on me. I liked her from day one, and I’d tried to keep that concealed as it wasn’t so much a sexual thing for me. Well, okay, she was a babe, so obviously I appreciated that like men did…but my feelings toward her were really more of a protective “I’ll take care of you” thing, if that made any sense at all.

  At least we weren’t blood.

  And thank God for that. I’d kill myself if I were a Hastings like that asshole in the other room. We were a family unit by marriage and legality only. And Lilly was pretty much my only friend, which made her my best friend, and a guy didn’t mess around with his best friend.

  She was too young. Too pretty. Too clean.

  Too good for a guy like me.

  I graduated high school a month ago, five months after our parents married, and she was about to enter eleventh grade. I might only be eighteen, but I’d seen and done shit she had no clue about. And I intended to keep it that way.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Lilly whispered. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He never does.”

  I smiled, because she was trying to make me feel better, and I wanted her to think it was working. She always tried to cheer me up after Walt went on one of his asshole binges with me. “I know. What’s up?”

  “Come here. I want to show you something.” She held her hand out to mine, watching me with those bright green eyes of hers. “Alone.”

  Just the way I liked it.

  Walt laughed from the dining room, and his deep voice boomed as he said to his wife, “The boy is doomed to fail.”

  I knew he talked about me. Just like I knew he hated me. Just like I knew the one way that I would be guaranteed freedom from his overbearing grasp. And it was through his Lilly….Ah. He loved his sweet, innocent Lilly. Everyone did. If I took her, and dirtied her by making her mine, he would flip his shit. Never forgive me. And I would finally be free of his annoying interference in my life.

  Too bad I couldn’t do that to her.

  She meant too much to me.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t want it, or me. She did. If I kissed her, she’d probably have an orgasm right there. But I refused to hurt her. To use her. And that was that.

  “All right. Let’s go,” I said.

  “Hurry, before they see us.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind her, her tiny hand feeling dainty and frail in mine. For some reason, her touch felt different tonight. Like she wasn’t my stepsister, or even my best friend. I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from, but they needed to quit. “Look. They opened the pool. No one’s been in yet, so they won’t think to look for us here.”

  I scanned the area. We were indeed alone. My heart thumped so loudly I couldn’t even hear my thoughts, but that was a good thing. They were confusing the hell out of me. “It looks great,” I said, my voice strained. “I’ve never been in here before.”

  “It’s my favorite part of the house.” She kicked her pink flip-flops off and sank her toes into the clear, blue water. “Come on. Sit next to me and enjoy it.”

  Sighing, I removed my black Chucks and sat directly beside her. She smiled over at me, and I shook my head because she looked so utterly beautiful, staring up at me with adoration in her eyes. Guys like me? Yeah, we didn’t usually get looked at like that.

  Especially not by pretty girls like Lilly.

  “It feels nice,” I said, trying to smile. Her thin legs flexed as she moved her feet in the water, brushing her toes against mine. It wasn’t something we hadn’t done before. Soft touches like that. But tonight…it made me suck in a breath. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something, anything, to say. “I’m not even going to get to swim in it. Even if your dad refuses to admit it, I’m out of here for the army soon.”

  “I know.” She sipped on her Coke, her gaze off in the distance. She looked…sad. Which inexplicably made me sad, like our emotions were tied together or some shit like that. Her small, delicate features looked flawless in the late-afternoon sun. For some reason, I couldn’t stop staring. I was going to miss her when I was gone, but that wouldn’t stop me from going. Nothing would. “I’m sorry he’s such a jerk to you. You deserve better.”

  And that was why I liked Lilly; she was always on my side. She was the only one in this ridiculous family that cared about me. I lifted my own Coke and shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

  “Yeah. You do.” She rested her hand on my thigh, and I tensed. I had board shorts on, so she didn’t touch skin, but still. It felt…intimate. And good. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  No eighteen-year-old guy liked to hear his feelings showed in his eyes. So I scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  “It’s true,” she said a bit defensively.

  No. It. Wasn’t.

  I didn’t care about Walter, or his wife, or anyone but myself…and Lilly. She was the one exception. And I’d show her that, right here. Right now. Her hand was still on my thigh, so I covered it with mine. “The only person whose opinion matters to me in this house is sitting right next to me, and I mean it.”

  She licked her lips and shifted closer. “I care about you very much, Jackson.”

  “Yeah.” My heart sped up, and I smiled. “I know.”

  A laugh escaped her, and she bumped me with her shoulder, her gaze focused on my lips. “Cocky much?”

  “Yep.” The way she looked at me, as if she wanted nothing more than to see what it would feel like if I kissed her…well, there was only so much a guy like me could ignore. And I was leaving, and I wouldn’t see her again, and man, I wanted to find out what she tasted like so damn badly. Just one small, tiny, innocent kiss. That was all I wanted. No one would ever know. Not even Walt. “Know what I see in your eyes?”

  She parted those soft pink lips and stared at me as if I was some sort of god or something. It made me feel a little bit ill, but also as though I could rule the world, if I had her by my side. “What?”

  “You want me to kiss you,” I said, some unknown, greedy man taking over my actions. I trailed my hand up her bare arm, leaving goosebumps in my wake. “To be your first kiss. The one you remember for the rest of your life. To touch you.”

  She trembled and licked her lips. “How did you…?”

  Curling my hand over her chin, I grinned. “Go ahead. If you’re brave enough to do it, to take what you want, kiss me. No one will ever know you kissed your stepbrother but us. It’ll be our little secret…”

  I knew she wasn’t going to, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. It was why I left it up to her. I didn’t have qualms about it. Didn’t think it was wrong, or dirty, because she wasn’t my damn sister. But there was no way she had it in her to—

  “You know what?” Crawling into my lap, facing me, straddling my thighs, she cupped my face and stared into my eyes. I got lost in hers, and some sinking suspicion told me that I was staring at the person I was meant to live the rest of my life with—which was crazy. “I know you think I’m too young, or too good, or too scared to do it…so I’ll prove you wrong. And guess what? You’re going to like it.”

  And then she did it. She kissed me.

  And she was right. I did like it.

  Her soft, sweet lips closed over mine, and she tightened her grip on my cheeks. And, God help me, I finally found out what she tasted like. She smelled like vanilla, sunshine, and innocence, and she tasted like heaven….

  And bubblegum.

  Moaning, I took over the kiss, pressing her perky, soft breasts against my chest and skimming my hands down her sides. When I gripped her ass and arched my erection up against her, she gasped, giving me access to her mouth. I took it….

  And then I took some more.

  My tongue found hers, and she gripped my shoulders, digging her nails in as she pressed down against me, obviously wanting to feel my dick up against her core again.

  And for the first time…

  I thought I’d finally found a home.

  Burying a hand in her hair, leaving the oth
er on her sweet ass, I deepened the kiss, taking it to the next level. Warning bells went off in my head—this was getting too hot, too fast—but I ignored them, because she just felt way too fucking good. What had started off as a lighthearted flirtation backfired, because she was kissing me, and I didn’t want to stop. Having her in my arms made me feel as if I wasn’t alone.

  As if we were meant to—

  “Son of a bitch,” Walter growled from behind me.

  I stiffened and broke off the kiss, my hand still on his daughter’s ass, and knew I’d fucked up. I’d forgotten to listen for anyone coming. “Shit.”

  “Daddy, I—” Lilly started to say, scrambling to climb off me.

  “Don’t talk to me. Go to your room immediately.”

  Lilly gave me one long, panicked look, but did as told.

  She always did.

  “And you?” Walter grabbed me by the arms and yanked me to my feet. “How dare you defile my baby girl? Get out of this house, and don’t come back. You’re cut off. Not welcome here. Out of this family.”

  I forced a careless grin, even though watching Lilly run from me was like watching my own heart leap out of my chest and sprint for the door. “It’s about damn time. I never wanted to be in it, anyway.”

  Yanking free, I walked past the man I hated more than my own father. Walked right past my mother, and didn’t even look at Lilly, who stood paralyzed halfway up the stairs. If I looked at her, I’d waver. I’d want to stay, for her. And I couldn’t afford to do that. Not anymore. So I walked right out the door….

  And I didn’t look back.

  Not even once.

  Chapter 1

  Jackson

  I might’ve only been twenty-five, but I wasn’t waxing poetic when I said I’ve been through hell and back and seen it all. Literally. Twice. I’ve seen death, life, murder, pain, anger, hatred, and joy. Not much of the last one, but I’ve seen it. I just hadn’t really experienced it. But whatever. I wasn’t the type to cry over the life I’ve been handed.