by Nikki Wild
Tristan had been an absolute terror when we were in our teens. He’d discovered girls long before the two of us had met, and was more than popular with the younger members of the serving staff. His father, of course, never approved of the way he conducted himself, but I admired his freedom more than I admitted. My mother had always had me under a tight leash, constantly dictating my behavior and my choices in friends—even controlling which pieces of my wardrobe would be worn on different days. It was like I had two mother rolled up into one—both of them overbearing and controlling.
But my stepbrother could do as he liked, disapproval be damned. The fact that he was so bound and determined to gain back his father’s title after the announcement of my soon-to-be brother’s birth came almost as a shock, given Tristan’s utter aversion to authority, which was just what I had thought when he’d joined Her Majesty’s Royal Army. It was as though just as you thought Tristan would go one way, he decided to veer in a completely different direction simply for the thrill of throwing everyone else in the world off their kilter.
And how he was trying to get married—married to a woman who was, for all intents and purposes, the exact same as myself in personality and temperament. Just the thought of that had my mouth running dry. I felt my chest tighten as I bit down on my lip nervously. How could he do such a thing? How, after all of this time could I be the perfect match for him and he had never once said a word? If anything I had always felt as though Tristan hated me when we were younger, his constant chiding that I was a stuffy, stuck-up mother’s-girl still ringing in my ears like church bells.
“No matter,” I said to myself in the darkness of my office as I pressed the pulsating power button on my computer to bring it to life. “This is for the best, after all.”
Even I had a hard time believing that.
With trembling hands I brought up the database of my female clients, all of their personality traits indexed and coded so that I could simply type in my stepbrother’s preferences into the required fields and before I could even blink there was a list of gorgeous women almost a hundred strong. Surely, one of them would be an appropriate match for Tristan. One of them might just be my future sister-in-law if this crazy plan of his actually worked.
Despite my forced professionalism, I couldn’t shake the feeling of my stomach having dropped somewhere close to my feet. The thought of Tristan with someone else, some woman that he barely knew brought a sickening taste to my mouth. Deep down a part of me wanted to close down the database and simply tell him that there had been no matches, that no woman I had in my considerable list was what he wanted. I think I wanted more than anything for him to realize that it was me that had always wanted him—me that was his perfect idea of a woman. Did he even know that the kind of woman that he wanted had been sitting in front of him all this time?
He’s your stepbrother, I thought, chiding myself on my incestuous desires. To even think of the things that I wanted to do to Tristan would have been enough to cause a scandal the likes of which the aristocracy hadn’t seen in a decade. Sure the two of us were not technically related, but the bonds of marriage mean a lot to the rest of the world, and scandal is something that I know that my mother would not at all appreciate.
That doesn’t make me want him any less, I answered my own chiding. I knew that if I set Tristan up—got him married to some member of the aristocracy—then he’d be lost to me forever, and I’d lose any chance that I had at making him mine like I’d always wanted. But he was my stepbrother, fruit of the forbidden tree, and I knew that just one taste would be enough to have me smote low and ejected from the garden of my family’s favor.
I knew that my feelings for Tristan would never come to fruition, never give me the satisfaction of having him in my arms, inside of me the way I’d dreamed about since I’d become an adult. But maybe that was for the best.
If I could get Tristan tied off to someone that spent most of their time away from London, and away from me, then I could protect myself against the thoughts that I knew would betray me sooner or later. In a way having Tristan matched was my only hope of protecting myself from the effect that he head on me.
I began to work my way through the list, clicking through the collected entries Tina and I had spent our professional lives cultivating. Blondes, brunettes, and even a few exotic redheads crossed over my screen, though I felt utterly unsatisfied with all of them. None of them felt right for Tristan. I’d met countless times with each of them, and no matter how well they seemed to match on paper I felt as though Tristan would never have them for his wife. Something didn’t seem right.
It’s because you want him for yourself, I thought, my stomach tying itself into knots. I hated myself for thinking it, for telling me the harsh and unwanted truth and I could only have wished for a comforting lie. I wished I was only protective of him, wished that I was simply playing the role of the dutiful sister in charge of her brother’s romantic interest—that I merely wanted him to have a more suitable chance at love. All of this was true, but with the condition that I was the one that he fell for.
I rested my head in my hands in frustration. I couldn’t just disregard all the women who matched my stepbrother’s parameters for his ideal match. He was counting on me to find him a woman that would make him a suitable wife and these women were all also hoping that I would find them a romantic match, as well. I had two people whose wishes I needed to make come true, regardless of what I wanted—needed—to have.
Romance, for me, had been touch and go all of these years. Holding down a boyfriend was difficult, harder still when marriage is expected to happen fairly quickly, especially where my mother is involved. She’d been trying to get me married off since before I was even old enough to walk, scheduling playdates with the boys she’d see as the up-and-coming members of high society that she hoped I’d fall all over as I grew into a young woman. It never worked out well. High society can make men into monsters, their heads filled with entitlement and expectations of what a woman is meant to do for them. I had little time for useless men like those.
Tristan had always been different, though. While he was an arrogant pig at times, he still maintained a kind of charm that always made my heart start to hammer like I’d just run a mile. He could be kind and cunning, that grin of his always belying the inner workings of that gloriously brilliant brain of his. That quick wit was never in short supply, never failing to bring a smile to my face whenever we’d been stuck at one of our family’s dinners while the two of us were in our teens. Just the fact that he was back in town had brought me back to the feeling of being a teen once again, awkward and shy, just hoping that my dashing stepbrother would notice me and take me into his arms like I’d dreamed of since the day we met.
None of these women are right for him, I thought, shaking my head as I poured over the list again and again. But I knew that I had to pick one for him no matter what I felt. I needed to end this fascination with him, this sinful desire that I knew would never be brought to fruition. I needed to be free from my own wants, from the very thing that could ruin my life and my reputation.
“You have to do this, Gwendolyn,” I said aloud in an attempt to steel my resolve, to bring myself to let go of the man that I had desired for almost a decade. It was like torture, but it had to be done. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Duty. That was what it meant to be British, wasn’t it?
After another few minutes of agonizing over who I would give Tristan to I settled at last on a pretty little blonde woman that had enlisted my services almost a week previously. She had exactly the kind of traits that my stepbrother was looking for, exactly the right personality that he was looking for in his ideal match. She was even prettier that I was.
But she’s not you, I thought, grimacing as I began to draft the email to inquire whether the young woman would be interested in my stepbrother’s company. She had notes detailing her eagerness for a match, for someone who could excite her and make her laugh—and fulfill her sexually.
<
br /> I felt my heart grow cold as I wrote to the young lady, Patricia Attmore. It felt like I was signing my own death warrant, and once I sent that email Tristan might as well have been gone forever. I swallowed nervously, trying to calm my nerves, strengthen my resolve as I moved my cursor over the “send” button in the upper right corner of the screen. Tristan would be mad not to take a woman like Patricia and beg for engagement, and the logical part of me hoped that he would to save both of us from a scandal, but it wasn’t the logical part of my brain that was screaming the loudest in my mind.
I closed my eyes, tensing for some kind of harsh immediate repercussion as I let the email out into the world of the internet to find its destination in the blink of an eye. I was almost disappointed that the world hadn’t crumbled down around me, perhaps then I would have felt that the utter devastation in my stomach would have been justified. I almost felt like a fool; a foolish schoolgirl with a foolish little crush that would have never gone anywhere much less amounted to anything.
Buck up, Gwendolyn, I thought, taking a slow, calming breath through my nose before letting it out through my quivering lips. It’s better this way. And even if you can’t have him, then at least you can give him the life that he deserves with a woman that he loves. That’s your job, after all.
“But I want him,” I whispered to the chilly silence of my office, reclining back in my chair as I wiped a spot of errant moisture from my eyes.
But you can’t have him, I told myself. You can’t let your feelings get in the way of your job. This is what you do.
I was already tipsy, and it was bad enough that I was practically talking to myself. I felt enough like a loon already, and pining over my stepbrother was hardly going to help matters. No matter what I desired, Tristan deserved my best work, and I was determined to give it to him.
6
The very next afternoon Gwendolyn had called me to tell me that she’d found me a match among all of her hundreds of female clients. Needless to say, I was impressed to have been matched up so quickly, but when your firm has a reputation like hers, I would have expected nothing less than exceptional.
My date was, apparently, a woman named Patricia—her last name hardly mattered, since the success of my time with her would result in a rather permanent change of it. She looked pretty enough, especially from the pictures Gwen showed me from her Facebook, some of which were very much to my liking—risqué and just barely within the bounds of propriety. Despite how eager I was to take a stab at this marriage business, the more I sat there, the less I actually wanted to go through with any of this. It wasn’t like me to succumb to nerves but something about this made me feel on edge.
I’d been there for almost half an hour before I began to even wonder if this woman would show up, the entire time Gwendolyn’s eyes hardly left me. She hovered like a hawk, making sure I had something to occupy myself with. I watched as she waited, it seemed often more nervously than even I was, for Patricia to walk through the door while Gwen’s assistant tried to get her to calm down.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said, trying to convince myself just as much as I was trying to convince her. “I’m a charming man. She’ll never be able to resist my charm.”
Honestly, it wasn’t bedding her that I was concerned about—I knew better than anyone I could get a woman naked and wet in the time it took most people to say “hello”—but that didn’t seem to be the reason why I was so… off.
“Yes, I know very well how charming you can be, Tristan,” she said, “but the question is whether that makes you husband material or not.”
“I thought we were looking for women that were wife material, not the other way around,” I said.
“It’s whether they actually do you the favor of even considering you for marriage that should be your concern,” Gwen said, frowning at me, her arms crossed over her chest. “You’re not exactly what most women are looking for in a husband.”
Something was off about her, and I definitely got the feeling that she wasn’t normally this neurotic when it came to matching up her clients. Just before I could ask her what she meant by that, the door to the office opened and the unmistakable bombshell that was Patricia stepped inside, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood floors.
She was certainly a beautiful woman who had no fear of flaunting the parts of her that she was proudest of—namely, her chest. Her blonde hair stretched down all the way passed her backside where it hung in a wavy sheet.
“Hello!” she called as she entered, looking me right in the eyes as she took a seat across from me in the waiting area. She crossed her legs, as she smiled at me, laying her purse on the seat beside her own. “This must be my arm candy for the evening.”
The way Patricia looked at me, you might assume that I was some kind of candy. In fact, the entire time we sat there I was quite certain she was going to take a bite out of me. She was certainly young enough, though I could tell that if she was left in the dating game long enough, Patricia would have become a ravenous cougar with all the shameless lust that came along with it.
“Tristan, this is Patricia Atmore. Ms. Atmore is the daughter of a software magnate, and she shares your love of the classics.”
“A pleasure,” I said, smiling at her stiffly, even I wouldn’t have bought its genuineness. It was forced, and I had little interest in hiding it. Maybe it was nerves, some irrational fear or misgiving about my whole elaborate plot. Either way, something felt off the moment that woman sat down, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was her.
“I’ve heard about you,” she said, biting on her lip ever so slightly. Already I could tell there were less than savory thoughts brewing behind those eyes of hers. Patricia was definitely the usual type of woman I would have been with, though part of me wasn’t sure if that was why I was so shaky on this date.
“Yes, I’ve heard that my reputation proceeds me,” I said, trying my best to sound charming.
“And it’s definitely quite a reputation,” Ms. Atmore giggled, her eyes dropping below my waist. I instinctively crossed my legs, frowning ever so slightly as I cast a glance over at Gwendolyn for some kind of help. Was this what it was like to go on a date with myself?
“Your car should be waiting out front,” Gwen said in a less than graceful save. Her voice was nearly breaking from the tension. “Your reservations are already made and everything is ready for you at the restaurant.”
I almost felt like my stepsister was rushing us out the door, desperate to see me out of her office and perhaps even out of her life. I wasn’t sure why, but that thought brought a lump to my throat. Why did she want to see me go so badly?
We stood and before I could react, Patricia had slipped her arm under mine as Tina and my sister escorted us to the elevator. I tried to get a look at Gwen’s face, perhaps see if I could divine some reason for her odd behavior, but no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get her to look me in the eye. I wasn’t sure why, but her behavior had me on edge.
We were both escorted down to the lobby, Tina and Gwen both seeing us off from the front doors as the limo driver stood at the ready, the door already open for Patricia and I to step inside. I should have appreciated all of the things that Gwen was doing, how facilitating she was being to my plan for revenge against my father, but now that it was all underway I was almost a little annoyed with her effort. Why was she trying so hard on this? I couldn’t imagine she put this much effort into her other clients, or that she cared this much about me even receiving my inheritance. So what was it that was making her go the extra mile, all while pretending she didn’t even give a damn enough to look me in the eye.
“Your sister told me that you were in the military,” Patricia said as the limo merged into traffic, quickly on our way to the restaurant that Gwen had picked out for our dinner reservations. “That must have been terribly exciting.”
“Not as much as you’d imagine,” I said, shrugging half-heartedly. “They don’t permit the aristocracy to engage
in much excitement when they’re serving in the Royal Army. You’re usually there to look nice and stay out of harm’s way. They liked to handle men like me with kid gloves.”
“It couldn’t have been all bad,” she said, scooting herself a little closer to me on the seat. “Must have had your pick of the local girls, did you? Cute boy like you?”
“No,” I said, frowning as I gave myself a bit of room from Ms. Atmore. “The Afghani women don’t take kindly to soldiers defiling their daughters and wives.”
My date frowned, obviously displeased that I’d rebuffed her flirtations. Normally I’d have played along, teased and flirted for the entire car ride and on in through dinner, but something felt wrong about all of this. It was almost like the setting was right, but the person that was on it with me was entirely wrong. I didn’t want Patricia. I wanted someone else.
The driver pulled us up just in front of the restaurant’s main doors, opening the door for the two of us as we made our way inside. The car ride had gone on with an uncomfortable amount of silence, one that perhaps would be fixed once the two of us were happily filling ourselves with food.
While Patricia and I were both from money, it seemed that neither of us were particularly fond of the stuck-up attitude of London’s upper class, something that Gwen must have known when she picked the place that we’d be sharing dinner. The dress code was rather lax, sort of an “upscale casual” feel with a modern twist in the decor that I actually rather enjoyed, especially over those faux-French-style places that you’d find people of our “class” inhabiting.
The two of us were seated at a secluded table toward the back of the restaurant, all the better for a romantic evening. At least that must have been what my sister had thought. There was wine already chilling for us as we sat down and a centerpiece of roses that I’d not seen on any of the other tables. Gwen was pulling out all the stops for this, and that only seemed to make me feel worse about it.
