BOSS: A Stepbrother Billionaire Romance

by Victoria Villeneuve

  “Seriously, what the hell,” Kiegan muttered, pressed ignore again, and then shut the phone off completely.

  When we got up Kiegan turned his phone back on.

  “Weird, I have ten missed calls from my dad. I better actually call him back,” he told me. I nodded, and went to the kitchen to get breakfast.

  While I managed to cook bacon and eggs a lot more successfully than Kiegan’s attempt at pancakes the day before I turned on the TV. It was set to the news, and I watched as there was a story showing people going insane over boxing day sales out east, some heartwarming Christmas stories, then entertainment.

  “And now, to entertainment.” I was half listening to the obviously gay man they cut to who would read out the entertainment news for the day.

  “Now, here is something juicier than last night’s turkey dinner,” the guy drawled. “You know the Hunt family? Of course you do, everyone knows the Hunt family. Well, if yesterday was any indication, they are definitely keeping it in the family this Christmas.”

  I dropped the spatula on the floor as I turned over to give the TV my full attention. The screen cut to photos taken of Kiegan and I at Duke’s yesterday morning. We were deep in conversation, and to my chagrin, I hadn’t noticed that my hand was resting on his.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Now, does that look like just a brother and sister getting breakfast in Hawaii on Christmas?” the guy asked. “I mean, I know, I know, they’re not really blood relatives. Tina Hunt’s mother married new super celebrity Kiegan Hunt’s father Elton when they were teenagers, but still. I think this photo speaks for itself, especially since attempts to reach the apparent happy couple have gone unanswered.”

  Just then Kiegan walked into the room.

  “So. You know what my father wanted to talk about then.”

  “That would have been a fun conversation.”

  Kiegan shrugged.

  “Well, it wasn’t a long one, at any rate.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got pissed and hung up on him.”

  I would have laughed if it wasn’t so god dam insane. Hearing the bacon crackling behind me, I turned off the stove.

  “Well, we’re going to deal with breakfast first, before anything else.”

  “Works for me.”

  Kiegan and I ate in silence, both of us caught up in our own thoughts. How had this happened? I hadn’t realized that my hand was on his when we were having breakfast. Was this really happening? What other news sites were reporting that Kiegan and I were in a taboo relationship? Oh God, I knew the answer to that. I knew it was all of them. They would all be reporting on it, they would all be wanting the scoop. I’d left my phone upstairs when I went to make breakfast, but I could only imagine it had a ton of messages waiting for me.

  I knew going into this that there was a risk. I knew that it was possible Kiegan and I would be found out, and I knew that if it happened, there was a very real chance that I would be on the front page of gossip mags and websites as well. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

  “Are you ok with this?” Kiegan finally asked, his voice soft as he put his fork and knife down on his plate.

  I nodded. “I will be. I think. It’s just a lot to take in at once.”

  “I know. It sucks. It’s the downside of fame. If you want to call everything off, if you want to go back to just working for me, or even not working for me, that’s fine.”

  I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not going to let some bottom feeders bully me into doing something I don’t want with their shitty reporting. But what do we do? Do we put out a statement? I feel like that’s part of my job, like I should know about it.”

  “Yeah. We could do that. We can either deny it, or come straight out and be frank about it, and take the flack that comes with it.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “It depends. On how serious we are, I guess. If we deny it, well it’s a pretty plausible lie. But if our relationship continues, well it’s going to come out for sure at one point or another.”

  “True.”

  “And of course, not denying it has the added bonus that the family is going to be beyond pissed, especially with my Uncle Edward’s run for President.”

  “Well that settles it. We’re not denying it.”

  “Works for me.”

  If it screwed over the Hunt family, well I was willing to take a little bit of a publishing shaming in exchange to see that. Especially if it screwed up Edward Hunt’s chances to be President.

  “Should be admit it though?”

  “Nah. We’ll hang low for a while. We’ll be like the CIA: no confirming or denying. How does it feel, being a part of a celebrity scandal?” he asked, getting up, standing behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I leaned back against his shoulder, inhaling the sweet scent of his skin.

  “I guess I could learn to enjoy it,” I replied playfully, lightly grazing the skin of his forearm with my fingers.

  We went up to the pool overlooking the ocean and spent the morning relaxing, drinking colourful drinks and just relaxing.

  At one point on the way down to the kitchen to get some snacks for us to share I checked my phone and sure enough, there were about two dozen messages. The only one I replied to was Leanne’s:

  So I guess you’ve seen the news? she asked.

  Yup. Merry Christmas to me! I replied.

  So what’s the plan?

  Neither confirm nor deny

  Well I’m happy for you two

  I haven’t confirmed or denied :-P

  And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. I’ve known for a lot longer than the media.

  Really?

  Of course. You weren’t exactly subtle.

  Shit. Well thanks for not saying anything to anyone.

  Anytime. Enjoy the media uproar you’ve just created.

  Haha. Thanks. See you next week!

  You know it.

  When I finished chatting to Leanne I went back to the pool with a bowl of chips and some fresh fruit I cut up, then lounged on a chair. I knew I was tempting fate, I always burned instead of tanning, but damn it, I was going to give it a shot.

  A few hours later, the doorbell rang.

  “That’s weird,” Kiegan muttered. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  It wasn’t until I heard the voices from outside streaming around the side of the house that I realized exactly what was weird about the doorbell ringing – there was a gate, with a code outside. Whoever was at the door had to have the code, and as far as I knew, only Kiegan knew it.

  I grabbed a bathrobe from the hook at the edge of the door and made my way into the house. When I got to the staircase I looked over the railing, down to the front door, and my face went white.

  Standing there, at the entrance, were our parents.

  Holy shit. Why are they here? How did they get here?

  I was definitely not ready for this. I figured maybe they hadn’t seen me, but unfortunately my mother had the eyes of a hawk. As I was stepping back from the railing, trying to be as subtle as possible, I heard her yell out my name.

  “Tina! Tina, I need to talk to you,” she continued, her shrill voice bouncing off the walls, barging her way past Kiegan and into the house.

  I sighed as I realized there was no escaping it at all.

  “What, mom, suddenly you care about my problems?” I shouted back at her. I was pissed off. She had no right to come here and tell me what to do. Still, she acted like I was the unreasonable one, overdramatically pretending like my words had physically hurt her.

  “Tina, sweetie. I just want to talk to you. Don’t you want to talk to your mom?”

  “No, I don’t. I think I’ve made that pretty clear over the past few years.”

  “Well, it’s pretty clear to me that you’re obviously not ready to make your own decisions yet.”

  I laughed in her face.


  “Why? Because Kiegan and I aren’t denying the fact that we’re in a relationship?”

  “Yes. It’s wrong. It’s disgusting. And more importantly, you’re ruining your family’s name.”

  “Fuck you, mom. Fuck you. The Hunt family name is more fucked up than anything Kiegan and I could possibly do to it, and you know it.”

  “Now, now, Sam,” Elton called up to my mother. “No one wants an argument. Why don’t we all sit down and discuss this calmly, like adults.”

  “Or you could get off my property before I call the cops,” Kiegan replied. He was obviously as pissed off about this sudden intrusion as I was.

  “Please, son. There’s no reason to be so hostile.”

  “Really? So you think that when estranged parents show up on their childrens’ doorstep that they should just be greeted like nothing happened?”

  “No. Of course not. But there are bigger considerations at stake here than you.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Well, Edward’s run for President, of course. If he is to have the best chance of winning, an incest scandal among his nephew and niece, especially concerning a nephew who’s now a celebrity in his own right, could completely destroy his chances.”

  “Good,” I replied from upstairs. This time it was Elton Hunt’s turn to look like he’d been wounded.

  “Good? Don’t you realize? I know you don’t like the man, but having an Uncle in the White House can be a very powerful tool indeed, Tina.”

  I laughed. “I’d rather rot in hell than ever take advantage of anything that man has to offer,” I replied. “Now get out of the house.”

  “Not a chance. We need to talk this through.”

  “You heard the lady. Get out of the house, or I’m calling the police,” Kiegan told his father. “We told you. We’re not talking about this, we’re not changing our lives to suit yours. And we never want to hear from you again.”

  “You know what? I’ve had it with you,” Elton Hunt started on his son. “Your entire life you’ve used your mother’s death as a crutch to do whatever the fuck you want, to the detriment of this family. We go back generations. We’re rich, we’re powerful men, and you’re none of that. You spent your entire adolescence getting into trouble, rebelling in any way you could. And now you risk destroying the family name completely. And you know what? I’m not going to sit here and let you blow up the work that generations of men before you have put in. It’s time for you to grow the fuck up, and think about more than yourself for once.”

  “Really?” Kiegan answered. “I have to think about myself because I’m the only one who will. After mom died it was all about the family, and keeping the family name, and making sure the family is in good repute. No one ever had time for me, as an individual. You couldn’t give less of a shit about me if it wasn’t for the fact that my last name was the same as yours. So don’t give me that shit about what’s good for the family, because I don’t care. I’m making my own way in the world. As far as I’m concerned, the glory and prestige of the family name can die with you.”

  I had to admit, I was pretty proud of Kiegan for what he’d said just then. His father, on the other hand, looked like his face was going to explode. I had never seen it go so red, a purple vein was pulsing on the side of his head.

  “Fine, you don’t want to be a Hunt anymore? That’s up to you. Maybe my next child will be a little bit more grateful for the opportunities given to her.”

  “Wait, your next child?” I asked suddenly. “Her?”

  My mom smiled.

  “Yes, your desire to stay away from this family for all its worth means you’ll never get to know your new sister. She’s due in four months.” My mother cradled her belly, and I suddenly realized why she was wearing a loose-fitting maxi dress. I assumed it was the climate, but it was to hide the growing bump underneath her.

  My face drained of blood. Surely not. Surely my mother wasn’t going to do this.

  “You are kidding me. I can’t believe… I cannot believe you would… get out.”

  Kiegan opened the door and stared down his father. Finally, Elton nodded.

  “It’s pointless trying to talk some sense into them, Sam. Let’s go.”

  Kiegan closed the door on them, and the sudden silence in the house after all the arguing gave the whole place a bit of an eerie feel.

  I grabbed the banister, the memory of my mom telling me she was pregnant with a daughter still running through my mind. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.

  “Tina? Are you ok?” Kiegan called up. I just shook my head and ran back out to the balcony. I didn’t know what to do. I felt crushed, I felt small, I felt like there was something I had to do, but I just didn’t know what.

  What can you do when you know something terrible is going to happen, but you just can’t prevent it?

  Without having anything else to do, I sat down on the edge of the balcony and began to cry. I wrapped my arms against my knees, which I pulled up to my chest, and just sobbed my way through all the emotions coursing through me.

  I was going to have a sister. For the first time, a sibling. A little sister, and I wouldn’t be able to protect her. I wouldn’t be able to protect her at all.

  I didn’t hear Kiegan come out and find me. But I felt him sit down next to me, and I felt his strong arm wrap around me. I leaned my head against the tattoo on his bicep and let him hold me.

  He didn’t ask what was the matter. He didn’t ask what I was so emotional about. And it was perfect. He just held me, leaning his head against mine, and let me cry out the demons that were eating me up inside.

  As for me, I just let the tears flow. I don’t know how long we sat there. All I know is that by the time my eyes would no longer allow for any more tears to fall, I was completely and totally exhausted. My body was spent in every sense of the word. I sat there, motionless, no longer crying, but not doing anything else either except stare into space.

  Finally, Kiegan realized and got up.

  “Come on, Tina. You’re going to go have a nap, and I’m going to order in some food for after.”

  I nodded mutely, barely registering the words Kiegan said as he helped me up from the ground. He tucked me in to bed, and I lay on the matress, staring at the wall, thinking about my new sister, and how her life would be ruined by being a part of that family.

  I don’t know how long it took for me to fall asleep, but by the time I woke up it was mid-afternoon.

  Kiegan was in the living room, sitting on the couch with an open bowl of Udon noodles, some chicken Tempura and a six pack box of donuts with two missing, a tiny bit of icing in the corner of Kiegan’s mouth telling me exactly where they went.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” he told me softly, inviting me over to the couch. “I just got back with the food about twenty minutes ago, your noodles should still be hot,” he told me, nodding at the closed container with chopsticks sitting nicely on top.

  “Thanks,” I muttered groggily. I didn’t really feel that hungry, but as soon as I thought that, my stomach grumbled in disagreement. I unwrapped the chopsticks and dug into the noodles. I could feel Kiegan’s gaze on me, and I knew he had questions, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer them.

  “It’s going to be ok, you know,” he told me eventually. “We made a choice, but we can always change it. If it’s going to be too hard, we can always deny our relationship.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that.”

  “Ok. I thought there was something at the end. When your mom said she was pregnant, your face just went completely white. But it’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it. Eat up,” he told me, and turned on the TV. Of course the news was back to being about us. Not too much happened on boxing day, it seemed. Kiegan quickly changed the channel to a Grey’s Anatomy repeat.

  I ate the noodles, barely tasting them, my insides feeling like they were going to explode. I had to tell someone. Every cell in my body was desperate to ask
Kiegan for his opinion, to have him tell me what to do. He was so good at this sort of stuff.

  But at the same time, I was scared. The last time I’d told someone I’d been called a liar, ostracized, and it had led to me leaving my family completely.

  What if the same thing happened again?

  What if Kiegan decided he wanted nothing to do with me if I told him?

  I could feel the tears welling up inside of me again. There was a certain irony to it; after all this time, after I’d spent years of my life hating my brother, I was now debating as to whether or not telling him my greatest secret would drive him away from me completely.

  If he can’t handle your worst secret, then what do you expect to ever get out of this relationship? My brain asked the most sensible question of all, and I debated it. What was I expecting to get out of this relationship? Great sex? National scandal? This was serious. If Kiegan and I were both willing public embarrassment by coming out, then it had to mean we were both pretty serious about this, right?

  And that meant I almost owed it to us, to the relationship, to tell him. No matter what the consequences.

  Finally, I spoke.

  “What would you do, if you knew someone would be in trouble, but there was nothing you could do about it?”

  Kiegan looked at me. “I don’t know. I guess I would maybe try and tell someone who could do something about it?”

  “What if they don’t care?”

  “I guess it would depend on the situation, and how much I cared about the person. If it was someone I really cared about, I would probably do whatever it took to make sure I could do something about it.”

  I nodded and thought about what he said.

  “You always wanted to know why I left the family and ran to Seattle, right?”

  “Yeah. But seriously, if you’re uncomfortable, you don’t need to tell me.”

  “No. I do need to tell you. You need to know.”

  I stared down at the coffee table as Kiegan subtly turned off the TV. Tried to gather my thoughts. How do you tell someone something like this, how do you admit it? Finally, I just came out and said it.

  “Your Uncle Edward molested me.”