Patrick: Yep, plan hasn’t changed. We should sneak in the back just in case.
Lex: Okay. See you then. Looking forward to partying all night ;)
Wow. Just…wow.
So he had been lying to me about something going on between him and Lexie. Here they were making plans to sneakily meet up behind my back and ‘party’ right under my nose. He must have also told her about his relationship with me, considering how she’d asked if I suspected anything, and worst of all, they were laughing at me and how dumb I was for not being suspicious.
That scheming prick. It seemed that Patrick, with his golden hair and silver tongue, had deceived me.
Again.
I guess I didn’t know for an absolute fact that the messages on his phone were seedy, even though they certainly appeared to be so. This time I didn’t want to immediately jump to conclusions despite what was right in front of my face. I was going to try to stay calm and have a rational conversation with him about it, and if it turned out he was cheating, only then would I blow up at him.
“Patrick,” I said as he emerged from the bathroom. It was difficult to keep the stiffness out of my voice. “Can we talk about something?”
He rummaged through a set of drawers to find some socks. “Sorry, babe, but I really need to head out now or I’ll be late. We’ll talk later?”
“It’s kind of important.”
He looked over at me and grinned. “Unfortunately, so is this interview, and I have to shoot scenes all day after that. But I promise we can hang out and talk later, okay?”
“Tonight?”
He rubbed his chin. “Mm…not tonight. I have a meeting with the Six Angels producer tonight. It’ll probably run late, so don’t wait up for me. We’ll talk about whatever you want tomorrow. I’ll take you out for white hot chocolate. Your favorite.”
He gave me a beatific grin and grabbed his phone and wallet. Meeting with the producer tonight? Ha. I knew better.
Liar.
With that he was out the door, and I seethed as I sat there, trying to think of all the things I wanted to say to him. I felt sick to my stomach at his betrayal. How could he do this? He’d been so convincing every time he told me I was the only one for him. We’d talked and shared all kinds of intimate details of our lives, and I honestly thought I knew everything about him. Not only that, he’d helped me so much. He’d saved me the night I thought Jimmy was going to rape me or seriously hurt me, and he’d saved me again when we got into the car accident. Without him, I might be seriously hurt or even dead. So why would he do all that and then screw everything up by cheating on me?
He obviously wasn’t going to let me talk to him anytime soon, and even if he did, I knew what a good liar he was. He’d fooled me more than once, and I’d been dumb enough to fall for his crap again and again…hook, line and sinker.
I suppose I’d been fooling myself the whole time as well. Where could this possibly have gone, anyway? We couldn’t tell our friends. We couldn’t tell our parents. We couldn’t tell anyone.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel something real. I knew I did. That was the worst part of it all. I’d really thought I was falling in love with him…and now this had happened.
Screw it. There was only one thing I wanted to do now.
I wanted to catch him in the act, for real this time, just so I could finally get it through my head once and for all that he was a liar who’d never really love me back. I was going to go to Rossitano’s tonight and walk in on him and Lexie on their cozy little date, and there was no way he’d be able to deny that something was going on between them then.
As I planned out all the things I was going to say to him when I caught him, my phone buzzed. It was my Mom.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, lying back on the bed.
“Hi, honey. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”
“Huh?”
She tut-tutted at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve been working so hard that you forgot our plans.”
Crap. I had forgotten. She’d called me the other day to ask if I was free for dinner, and I’d totally blanked.
I needed a way out of it. I couldn’t go to dinner with her, because I wanted to spend tonight staking out Rossitano’s so I could catch Patrick and his paramour.
“Um…I think I might have double-booked myself, Mom,” I said.
“Nonsense. You can cancel your other thing. I haven’t seen you in ages, because you’ve been so busy. There’s a nice Italian place downtown. I think it’s called Rossitano’s. Shall we go there?”
My eyebrows shot up. Now that was a happy coincidence. Patrick would freak if he saw me walk in with my Mom, and I was going to make damn sure he saw us. He wouldn’t even be able to chase me down and try to deny anything, because he knew full-well that my Mom had no idea about our romantic involvement. Instead, he’d have to awkwardly sit there with his side piece in a haze of torrid guilt until one of us finally decided to leave.
“Oh. Okay. Sure, that sounds good,” I said.
“I’ll pick you up just before eight,” she replied. “See you then, honey.”
I threw myself into my work for the rest of the day, arranging media appearances and charity events for Patrick the duplicitous snake, and by seven I was almost too tired to go anywhere.
Too bad. I was going out to dinner, and I was going to make him squirm.
Mom picked me up at a quarter to eight, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I remembered that Patrick’s texts had said he would be arriving at the restaurant at seven-thirty. At this rate, Mom and I would be arriving there just after eight, so I had plenty of time to walk in and catch him.
I took a deep breath and followed my Mom into the candlelit restaurant. I scanned the room, trying to spot Patrick and Lexie, but they weren’t here. In fact, no one was here. The whole place was empty. There weren’t even any wait staff loitering around the tables, which were quite oddly arranged. A lot of them seemed to be missing, and the rest were arranged closely around the edge, leaving a massive empty space in the middle, kind of like a dance floor.
“What the…?” I said, my voice trailing off.
Mom grinned, and as I spoke, someone blew a party whistle from behind one of the tables. Practically everyone I knew jumped up from where they’d apparently been hiding. Patrick was in the center of the group…minus Lexie. They all grinned wildly at me and shouted out.
“Surprise!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PATRICK
Man, the look on Lucy’s face right now was fucking perfect. With her wide eyes and jaw dropped so low she could probably swallow an animal whole like an anaconda, she’d clearly had absolutely no idea that I’d been planning a surprise party for her.
She’d been so busy and stressed out lately, especially after the drug incident at the fashion party, and I knew she’d probably totally forget that her birthday was coming up soon, so I’d called Claire and Lucy’s Mom and gotten them to help me throw something together. She deserved a nice, drama-free night out once in a while.
Claire had helped me find all the right people to invite, and Lucy’s Mom had booked out Rossitano’s restaurant for the night. Of course neither of the two knew about me and Lucy. They just thought I was being a good, caring stepbrother by throwing the party, and for now that was fine. But not for much longer. I was getting sick of having to hide our relationship from everyone.
We weren’t related by anything more than marriage, so what was sick and disgusting about us being together? Nothing, that’s what. It was getting to the point where I almost didn’t give a shit if the media found out and broke the story everywhere. Yeah, I’d lose my job and probably get sued for breaching my morality clause, but it’d all be worth it if it meant I got to be with Lucy out in the open.
The only thing that was stopping me was Lucy herself. She’d worked so hard to build up my image in recent times, and it was really starting to work. People were taking me a lot more seriously, and offers for serious film
roles were slowly starting to come in. If I went and blew that all up now by admitting my relationship with my stepsister, then all Lucy’s hard work would be down the drain.
She’d barely moved since we all yelled ‘surprise!’ at her, and she finally blinked and looked at me. “You….this…I had no…”
I grinned. “Weren’t expecting this, were you? I totally thought you were onto me this morning when I said I was meeting with my producer this evening, because you looked like you didn’t believe me. But your face when you came in just then…shit, it was perfect!”
My friend Alex sidled up beside me. I’d invited him so I had someone to hang around and chat to if Lucy wanted to spend some time alone with her friends at any point.
“Lucy, I’ve been wanting to meet you for aaaaages,” Alex said in his overly-dramatic voice. “I’m Alex. But you can call me Lex. It sounds way sexier than Alex. Anyway, happy birthday for next week!”
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. You’re Lex. Nice to meet you,” she said with a faltering smile. “And thanks! I actually forgot it was coming up.”
She seemed genuinely shocked to meet Alex, and suddenly something occurred to me. The reason she’d looked so disbelieving this morning when I’d told her the white lie about the producer meeting tonight…the reason she’d said she wanted to talk…holy shit, she must have seen the texts on my phone from Alex and assumed they were from Lexie Greyson. I’d always had his contact stored in my phone as ‘Alex’ but he’d gotten a new phone and new number the other day and insisted I store him as ‘Lex’, seeing as he’d recently decided that he wanted everyone to call him that because Alex was ‘too boring.’
Shit. The only texts on my phone from him were of us discussing the surprise party. If Lucy had seen them, she must have thought it was me and Lexie planning to meet up behind her back or something.
“Give us a sec?” I said to Alex.
He nodded. “Sure. I’m gonna try one of those Toblerone cocktails your housekeeper makes.”
Penelope hadn’t originally been on the invite list, but when she’d discovered what we were doing, she’d told us that she could make us awesome cocktails all night if she were here, seeing as Rossitano’s didn’t exactly have the widest selection of drinks. No one was going to say no to that, so now she was behind the bar of the restaurant, whipping up off-the-menu drinks for all the partygoers.
Alex winked and walked away, and I leaned in close to Lucy. “You saw the texts, didn’t you?”
Her cheeks turned red. “Um. Yes.”
I chuckled. “And you didn’t put two and two together when your Mom just happened to invite you to dinner at the same restaurant I was allegedly sneaking off to with my secret girlfriend?”
Her cheeks turned redder still. “Well, now you put it like that, I feel like an idiot. I was just so mad that it didn’t even occur to me that you were all planning something like this. But thanks. It’s really sweet. Everything looks great.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, my eyes crinkling up as I gave her a cheeky smile. “So if you thought I was cheating, why did you come? Were you planning some big confrontation with me?”
She cast her eyes down, looking truly ashamed. “Yes. I had everything mapped out in my head. I wanted to yell at you in front of everyone and then throw a drink in your face. I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you. I feel like such a crazy bitch now.”
I sighed and slung my arm around her shoulder, taking care to look as brotherly as possible in case anyone was watching us.
“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing her back. “I get it. Perfectly understandable. Those messages wouldn’t have looked good if you thought they were from the same girl who jumped on me in the nude the other week.”
“No, it’s not understandable. You’ve been really good to me these last few weeks, and I keep screwing everything up by not trusting you, even though I promised to try,” she said.
“Yeah, but I was also really shitty to you for two years before the last few weeks. So I get it. It might take a while for you to fully trust me. But yeah, we did say we’d try.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I was a total bitch for thinking the worst. Give me a chance to make it up to you?”
I pretended to look angry. ‘Hmm, I dunno if I can...I might have to give Lexie Greyson a call and see if she wants to date me instead,” I teased.
She swatted me in the ribs, and I laughed. “Fine, fine, you know I’m kidding. I’d give you a million chances, Lucy. After all, you’ve given me approximately the same amount in the past. I don’t deserve you.”
She smiled. “I don’t deserve you. I’m insane. I guess I just assumed the worst because nothing’s ever gone right for me before, and I thought something would inevitably go wrong because I feel like I really lo…”
She was cut off by Alex returning with a drink. “I got some party snacks for you two,” he chimed in, holding out a plate of bruschetta.
I grabbed some and said thanks to him, staring at Lucy all the while.
I knew exactly what she’d been about to say to me. She was going to say she’d been terrified of everything going wrong and losing me because she was in love with me. I knew she was going to say that because I felt exactly the same. I think a little part of me had always loved her, despite all my attempts to shove those feelings away over the years.
“Ooh, is that your Dad, Lucy?” Alex said, pointing across the room at Ron.
Lucy and I both nodded, and he gave us a conspiratorial smile. “You guys should introduce me to him. Then he might give me a role on a new show. A guy’s gotta eat, after all!”
Lucy laughed and took him over to meet her Dad, and I chatted with Claire and Penelope for a while up at the bar before accosting Lucy near the main food table half an hour later.
“Your ass looks fucking hot in those pants,” I murmured, and she swatted me away.
“Careful. Someone might see or hear,” she whispered.
“Well, come with me,” I said, arching an eyebrow and nodding towards the passageway that led out of the main dining room in the restaurant.
We managed to sneak away without anyone noticing, and I opened the door to a large supply closet and pushed her in before shutting the door behind us.
“This is romantic,” she said, gazing around at the boxes and shelves. “Happy birthday to me…?”
“Sorry, it’s the best I could come up with on such short notice. You just look so fucking good that I’ve gotta have you right now,” I murmured, circling my arm around her.
“I guess it’s actually kinda hot in a weird way,” she replied. “Because I know we aren’t meant to be in here.”
I chuckled and nuzzled her throat. “You’re amazing,” I said. “Fucking amazing.”
My hand found her legs and tried to pry them apart, and she moaned and locked her knees together.
“Patrick, someone could walk in here at any moment. Maybe we should stop and wait till later,” she said reluctantly.
“You sure you want me to stop?” I asked softly, my hand moving higher on her thigh.
She threw her head back and sighed with arduous desire as I kissed her neck again. Her perfume filled my head, and I could barely see straight as I slid a condom out of my pocket.
“Well?” I continued, unbuttoning her pants and slowly pulling the zipper down.
She let out a little moan of an answer. “No, don’t stop.”
I smirked and pushed her down on a pile of freshly-laundered spare tablecloths. She helped me roll her pants down past her ankles, and I pulled her shirt up and unhooked her bra.
And then, right there in the dim supply closet, she spread her legs, guiding me into her slippery entrance. I tried to stifle my groans as I thrust deeply into her, quickly and deliberately, and Lucy was barely able to contain her whimpers of pleasure. She’d never been wetter, and I’d never wanted it so much.
Gritting my teeth as she wrapped her legs around my back, I relished every movement as her tigh
t little pussy swallowed me up and massaged me with its warm perfection. I slid a hand in between our writhing bodies and gently rubbed at her clit, and her soft moans and wildly-contracting muscles spurred me on as she started to come.
“Fuck, yeah,” I murmured in her ear. “Come for me, baby.”
I quickened my pace as she exploded around me, and then I groaned and jerked inside of her, my cock still throbbing as I pulled out and rolled over.
“You better hope no one saw us sneak off in here,” she said, leaning over and nuzzling my neck as I pulled my pants back up.
“I’m sure they didn’t,” I said, before pulling her in for a tender kiss.
“Hold on.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you shut that door when we came in?” she hissed, pointing to the entrance to the supply closet.
I had definitely closed it, but now it was very slightly ajar, as if someone had come in and seen us, then quietly tried to close it without us seeing them there.
“Shit.”
Her eyes were wide. “Oh God. We need to get back out there. For all we know, someone saw us and they’re telling everyone! Crap, crap, crap!”
As she spoke, my phone went off, and my blood ran cold as I saw that it was P.G. again. Fuck. I thought he or she was finally leaving me alone, but this was the worst message yet. The picture in the snap had been taken through the crack in the door when it was ajar, and it showed me on top of Lucy, her face contorted in ecstasy as I plunged deep inside her.
“Shit.”
I showed it to Lucy before it vanished, and her face went white. “Oh, God. We shouldn’t have done this. Of course we were going to get caught. We’re so dumb.”
It wasn’t that we were dumb. Okay, maybe we were kinda dumb. But mostly it was that whenever we were around each other, all logic and reason went out the window, and our minds focused purely on one thing - each other. Nothing else.
As romantic as that was, it didn’t change the fact that we were well and truly fucked. P.G. had been here at the party and seen us screwing, and for all we knew, they’d told everyone. Worse, they could have taken a regular picture and sent it into the media.
Trick - A Stepbrother Romance Page 14
