by May Sage
Chapter One
Shane
She had been thinner back when they’d been married, but the new curves made her even more stunning. Shane forced a smile and nodded her way, hoping she’d go on and spend the rest of the evening pretending he didn’t exist; he’d certainly planned to do the same.
However, unexpectedly, his ex-wife crossed the room and there she was, next to him, her huge new, and definitely fake tits practically resting on the bar.
“Hi handsome. Long time no see.”
“What do you want Fiona?”
She gave him her trademark smile, tossing her blond hair.
“I don’t know… How about a fuck, for old time sake?”
Shane saw right through it. She’d tried the same thing three years ago, when the guy she’d left him for had found himself unable to pay for her shopping sprees.
At the time, he’d pushed her away, knowing just what she was trying to do: get him back.
Now, he knew there was no way, no way in hell, that would ever happened, so he smirked.
Oh, yes. A fuck for old time’s sake sounded pretty damn amazing.
He paid for the most expensive room in the most exclusive hotel, making a point of showing her just what she’d thrown away, and then, he took her. Against a wall, on a sofa, on the balcony. He fucked her so hard she yelled, making her reach three mind blowing orgasms.
Shane chuckled when he was done; he hadn’t been that happy in years.
Three years.
He grabbed every single bill out of his wallet and left them next to her, generously paying for her service, before leaving the room.
Whoever said revenge was best served cold had obviously not tried it hot and heavy.
•
He didn’t feel that good the next day, when the alcohol had left his system.
Fuck. There was a reason why he didn’t get plastered on a regular basis.
Sure, Fiona was going to be seething, embarrassed and angry when she woke up – just like he had been – but on the other hand… he’d fucked her.
Shit. He couldn’t believe he’d done that viper again. He really needed to get his shit together.
Shane scrubbed himself hard, in the hottest shower he could withstand. If memory served, he’d used a condom, so there was that to be thankful for; but he still felt soiled, dirty down to the soul.
When he made it out of the bathroom, a text was waiting for him, cheering him up.
Damn; sometimes, mothers were a wonderful thing.
Shane avoided turning up at his parents’ place when he was expected, since the time they'd invited every single eligible women and called it a “dinner party.”
It had been a trap, end of story.
They meant well, he knew that. Their marriage had been the stuff of fairy tale, with a side dish of yelling and shooting water pistol when they drove each other to the brink of madness – and needless to say, all of that was seasoned with a fair bit of make-up sex.
The Vaughan siblings knew to make themselves scarce pretty damn quick whenever the parental unit headed towards the bedroom in broad daylight.
As they had it all, they truly believed that a happily ever after was waiting in the side line for everyone.
Shane had been there, done that, and nothing, nothing would ever make him stand down the aisle again.
Today, he was safe: he didn’t give his mother any warning. Just turning up could be dangerous, as the parents could fuck like bunnies, but he risked it nonetheless.
He needed to: his mother had made brownies.
No one could understand just how important that particular trip was, until they’d tried Mara Vaughan’s soft, slightly gooey, buttery brownie filled with walnut and whatever secret ingredient she rammed in there.
He’d just parked on the driveway when his phone bipped, indicating an incoming text from Jack.
Need to run something by you, are you home?
Shane hesitated a second; sharing brownies was no joking matter.
I’m at the parents. Mum baked.
The response came faster than light.
On my way.
Jack Barnes was as welcome as Shane in the Vaughan household. The Barnes folks were the kind of socialite who turned up their nose at everything that wasn’t sprinkled with gold so, growing up, his best friend had been welcomed with open arms in his family.
Thinking back to their earlier acquaintance, Shane smiled one of his rare, full on ear to ear smirk, and amended: his best friend and his annoyingly awesome runt of a little sister.
Brooke.
It had been way too long since he’d seen that girl. Shane wondered how she was doing... but he wasn’t sure he was ready for a face-to-face, yet.
When they’d first met, she’d been shy, uncomfortable in her own skin. She’d been a bit chubby and Shane knew her parents – and some kids – had given her a hard time.
By the end of that summer, she’d shed the few extra pounds, the timidity and she’d turned into what she’d been for ten years now: Jack and Shane’s absolute nightmare.
It wasn’t only that she loved nothing more than teasing the hell out of them; she also had no respect for her own safety, driving the quickest bikes, skiing black slopes like they were going out of fashion, bungee jumping, eating deadly fish...
Shane thought about Brooke every time he saw Jack, and as Jack was his business partner – not to mention, his roommate, on a temporary basis – that was a daily occurrence. However, he hadn’t seen her in a while.
Good thing, too.
Recalling their last meeting, and that haunting drunken kiss he should never, ever have started, he forced himself to concentrate on something else. Anything else.
Brownie. Brownie was a good focus point.
The smell hit him right in the stomach as soon as he passed the threshold. Fuck. He ran all the way to the kitchen, and descended upon the poor unsuspecting pieces of heaven before even acknowledging anyone in the room.
Shane had secretly attempted to make brownies for years now, but none of his tries ever came close to this. Some day, he’d get his mother to spill the secret.
“Hi to you too, son,” Mara smiled.
He kissed the top of her head, his mouth still full, another brownie in hand.
“Love you Mother,” he said as soon as he’d swallowed. “But to what do we owe the pleasure?”
Mara baked any given day, however the brownies were reserved to special occasions, like Christmas.
“Do you have to ask? Nothing but the best for the BB’s return!”
The next piece of cake went down through the wrong pipe.
Shit. He’d heard that wrong, right?
He knew without a shadow of a doubt that BB – otherwise known as Brooke Barnes – was in New York. She’d been employed right out of college by a tech company that paid her a six figure start up salary, and she loved her job.
She hadn’t set foot in San Francisco since she’d turned eighteen and she had no reason to come back. Her relationship with her parents was frosty at best, and the only person she cared about here, her brother, flew to New York on a regular basis.
“Hi Shane.”
He turned slowly, and for some inexplicable reason, there she was, crazy brown curls, dark smoldering eyes and all.
Fuck.
“Baby.”
It always sounded that way when he tried to say BB, which is why he liked to call her Chubs, instead. That, and the fact that she hated the nickname.
In the distance, he could hear a doorbell, and by the time he could force his gaze away from the girl sitting on his mother’s kitchen counter, he saw Jack was there, flirting with Mara and eating his fair share of brownie.
“Shit. Welcome home,” he managed to say, opening his arms wide, and she jumped between them, welcoming his hug for one second, before moving on to her brother. “What are you doing here Chubs? How long are you staying?”
She shrugged, saying: “As long as it takes. I’m starting up my own business; website designing, apps, that kinda thing.”
That did sound like something she’d enjoyed, but Shane frowned; that was exactly what she’d been doing in New York.
“Wow. Congrats, I guess. Branching out on your own is…”
Not like you.
Reckless as she was, sometimes, that didn’t apply to her character, professionally.
The Brooke he knew would have done the leg work for months, if not years, and started up when she was good and ready, not so suddenly her brother hadn’t even known about it.
Shane was pretty sure that Jack hadn’t known; he would have mentioned something. Sure, he didn’t tell him everything about BB, but he shared the grand lines – her graduation, her new job…
“Where are you staying anyway?”
“My parent’s.”
That was it: now he definitely knew that something was up.
“For now, anyway. I need to save money if I want an effective launch.”
Oh hell. Thinking back to Jack’s text, Shane was pretty sure of what his friend had wanted to run by him.
Jack had been given access to some of his trust fund when they’d graduated; with it, they’d bought a humongous foreclosure and, putting Shane’s architectural degree to good use, they’d turned it into an amazing, eco-friendly, unique house that made them their first, second and third million.
Investing most of their money right back, they’d bought another five properties, and the rest was history.
Shane lived in a spacious penthouse in the middle of the city; as Jack was having some work done in his home, he’d temporarily moved in, too. They’d sell the place, eventually, but right now, it fit their purpose – although five en suite bedrooms, two offices, a library, a billiard room, an humongous lounge and a rooftop pool was a bit of an overkill for two single guys.
So Shane would have sworn Jack wanted to offer one of the spare rooms to Brooke. Of course he did; her place was there with them, not in the cold house, with parents who made her feel like crap on a daily basis.
However, seeing her everyday at home might become problematic.
Shane had never forgotten The Kiss.
His cheating wife had just left him, and they’d been drunk as hell, so he convinced himself that it was a mistake he should regret…
But it had also been the best kiss he’d ever had. Soft at first, then hungry, deepening as she straddled him, feeling so damn good against him. He cock had been harder than steel, pulsing to come out; she must have felt it through their jeans.
If it had been any other girl, he would have opened his fly, torn her damn trousers and dived right inside her.
But it had been Brooke. Brooke Barnes. She was not rebound material. She was – she should be – just like one of his sisters, dammit!
Shane had high tailed it out of her flat, hurried back to San Francisco, and he’d never visited her since, reducing their contact to the occasional email, and lame gift cards for her birthdays.
But now, that shit had come to an abrupt close.
The brat was back.
Chapter Two
Nine years ago.
They were on cloud nine; winning the regional championship just before college was the crazy cherry on top of the pie.
Nothing would ruin that night for them; nothing.
Jack passed him the trophy when he spotted his sister running towards him, her big brown eyes full of tears, smiling so bright she outshone the lights around the stadium.
People were talking to him, patting his back, congratulating him for the last minute goal. He could see his own parents waving, calling him to them.
Fuck that.
He entrusted the golden cup to coach, before jogging towards Jack, who was hugging the only family who’d bothered to be there for him like she was his lifeline.
Unabashedly, without any apology for it, Shane intruded in their hug, embracing them both in his arms.
They were family, too.
Now
Brooke
He’d offered; of course he’d offered. He was a good guy, to the bone.
However, she could see how he forced the words out of his mouth, how desperate he was for her to decline the invitation to stay at his place.
So, she did.
“Nah, thanks. I’ll be fine, the parents are barely there, these days.”
Hopefully.
But because she wasn’t inclined to submit herself to too much of Helena and Patrick Barnes’ company if she could help it, she added:
“But when they’re around, I’d love to pop by and work at your office, if you’ve got an empty desk?”
Jack shook his head.
“Sorry, we’ve sold the office. Got a good offer on it. And it’s just the two of us, anyway – we do most of the work from home. You can work there, though, there’s plenty enough room.”
Jack turned towards Shane as he said that, his gaze holding a question; Shane nodded, emphasizing:
“Of course you can.”
She didn’t know if she should sigh in relief or cry.
Nothing had changed, despite The Kiss.
The kiss that had redefined everything she knew.
Before, she’d truly believed Shane Vaughan had been so far out of her league he would have laughed if he’d known how big a crush she had on him. After, she wasn’t so sure.
Because yeah, he’d regretted it – that much was obvious, given the fact that he hadn’t even seen her once in three years – but it had been the most passionate kiss she’d ever had; not a half hearted little peck, or the kinda kiss you gave someone who was just there at the right time.
Not again, she scolded herself. Five minutes in his presence and she was right back to daydreaming about stuffs that were probably just in her own head.
She looked away from his mesmerizing blue eyes, and her eyes caught something that woke her out of her funk quicker than a bucket of cold water could have.
Brooke didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry.
Shane Vaughan was still wearing his wedding band, a reminder of his wedding to his perfect stepford wife who was the very opposite of Brooke Barnes.
Ten years ago.
Brooke realized boys didn’t have cooties at thirteen. As they say, better late than never.
One afternoon, she’d been on her favorite spot – the breakfast bar, next to the cookies basket the housekeeper never stopped replenishing – when that revelation hit her like a punch in the face.
Jack always brought his friends around after football practice, and as far as she was concerned, that bunch of smelly heathen who threatened her haven by stealing her cake definitely had cooties.
But that day, along with the usual bunch of jocks, he brought him.
The guy was somewhere close to her brother’s age, seventeen, maybe even eighteen. His hair was longer than Jack’s and the rest of the group – and there was a little wave to it, making him look like something a painter should have immortalized. Adonis and Legolas sprung to her mind; it was the most beautiful man who wasn’t wearing tights she’d even seen.
Normally, she jumped and ran away as soon as the guys came in, but today, Brook couldn’t have moved from her spot if her butt had been on fire.
“Hi Chubs,” Jack said fondly, throwing her a lollipop.
Brooke could feel her entire face burning, which meant that she’d turned an attractive shade of tomato. And a chubby tomato at that.
Jack hadn’t meant it in a nasty way; he always called her Chubs, and she’d never minded. Her mother had desperately tried to coax her into losing weight, but Brooke had never been interested. The doctor said she wasn’t obese, so whatever. Jack wasn’t ashamed of her, unlike her p
arents, and nothing else had mattered.
Today though, she got why mother wanted her to look better. Being called chubby – and deserving it – in front of Mr. Perfect had embarrassed her.
Brooke smiled faintly before getting to her feet and making a bee-line for her bedroom. She tried to run for it, but halfway up the stairs, she was out of breath. Dammit.
Locking the door behind her, she made a decision she was going to stick to for the rest of her life; not for Mr. Perfect – he was so far off her league he might as well exist in another stratosphere – but because she didn’t want to be embarrassed of who she was.
She was going to do her best. At everything.
Seven years ago.
Shane
She had a lollipop in her mouth. Of course she did.
Shane wondered if he should make an appointment with a shrink. Was he a pedophile?
“Jesus, Chubs, wear some clothes, would you?”
The girl just shrugged, which in the international brat language could mean anything from “yeah, of course,” to “whatever.”
“Not my fault if seeing me in shorts makes you hard,” she replied, glancing down towards his strained trousers.
Hell if she wasn’t right.
The last time he'd seen her, she'd been flat-chested, and had had braces, which had distracted him from the shape of her mouth as well as the sexiness of her grin.
Fuck. How old was she again?
Seventeen. He was hard for a girl who wasn’t even an adult. Shane wondered about the age of consent in the state, before chastising himself.
No, dammit. Ignore her. Just ignore her…
But there was no running from the attraction. Brooke Barnes, his best friend’s baby sister, had her own room in the Vaughan household, and she occupied it often; from what Shane understood, their own home wasn't all that.
It had never bothered him. She stuck to Alice or Katie, helped clean up and didn't generally affect any part of his life; unless she was up to her usual pranks.
