Shackled: A Stepbrother Romance Novel

by Arabella Abbing

  But what about Dad? This was a big change for both of us. Since my father died, mom never even spoke about dating. Sure, I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be with someone.

  Just not him. Not the father of the one man that I never wanted to see again.

  Now that man was living in my childhood home, and soon, I would be living here again as well. Mom didn’t even know about that part yet.

  “Thank you, dear. I don’t know what happened between you and Jonathan, but I’m sure it’s nothing that you can’t work out by talking through it.”

  I just barely managed to hold back my snort.

  If only they knew...

  “I just had a wonderful idea!” my mom cried, dropping the rolling pin back to the counter as she shouted, “Jonathan!”

  He returned to the room a moment later, his eyes immediately seeking me out for a brief second before letting them lock on my mom.

  “Yeah?”

  She pointed between the two of us, a sly smile appearing on her lips that made dread rise in my stomach.

  “I think you two need a chance to bond again. A friendship like yours is something to be treasured, not thrown away over a silly argument.”

  Really? With everything that was going on, she was worried about Jonathan and me being friends again?

  The thought was another reminder that I really needed to share my own news with her. Soon.

  But first things first. I frowned and opened my mouth to point out that she had no idea why we were fighting in the first place, but Jonathan’s soft voice cut me off.

  “I completely agree, Leslie.”

  They’re on a first name basis now? Also—What?

  My mom grinned triumphantly. “I’m glad you agree. Because I think you two should go spend the weekend at the cabin for the weekend and re-bond.”

  The words that should have come out of my mouth were, ‘What about what I think?’ But it was already too late. Jonathan had agreed so easily that I would look like a total bitch if I started a war over this.

  God, Mom was practically beaming at me.

  Mr. Parker chimed in with his agreement. “That sounds like a great idea.”

  I finally turned to glare at Jonathan, who was steadfastly refusing to look at me. When he wouldn’t meet my gaze, I turned incredulous eyes to my mom.

  I shook my head, thinking no, I just couldn’t do this. I was kidding myself. I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. The last thing I wanted to do was go have a bonding session with him.

  “Um, excuse me? I don’t need to bond. I’m perfectly fine without any bonding.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because we’re about to be a family and you’re looking at Jonathan like he’s a leper, or whatever you kids say. Fiona, please. Do this for me.”

  The woman definitely used every weapon in her arsenal—this time it was the wide, sad eyes and a pout that I’d inherited and used more often than I wanted to admit. I tried to think of a way out of it—the reminder that I still needed to admit to dropping out of college lingering around in the back of my head.

  Maybe I could tell her right now and hope that she’ll be so angry at me that she’ll retract the offer for us to stay in the cabin. Or I could just pretend to cave in and then call Brenda to pick me up the moment we get there.

  I was going to be in the doghouse soon. If I didn’t agree, I would probably be homeless. Well, not quite, but living here might not be an option. God, I was so damn confused—the only thing I could do was comply.

  “Fine. Whatever,” I said with a resigned sigh. “When are we going?”

  “You can leave Friday and spend the weekend up there reconnecting. We’ll drive you there and pick you up first thing Monday morning. I’m sure that after you two catch up, you’ll forget all about whatever tiff you had.”

  I wasn’t as sure about that as she seemed to be, but I kept that thought to myself. That gave me today and tomorrow to decide whether or not I should break the news and run, even though my instincts told me that it’d go over like a lead balloon.

  I’d be better off going to the cabin with Jonathan, calling Brenda to come get me and ditching him there. At least then I’d actually be able to enjoy a few days of my first week out of school and I could also use the time to tell her that I was moving back.

  Hell, maybe I’d even have her drive me around to pick up some job applications.

  Regardless of what we did, one thing was for sure.

  There was no way in hell I was staying at that damn cabin.

  Chapter Three

  Jonathan

  There’s no way in hell she’s staying at that cabin.

  She might have been able to fool her mom, but she couldn’t fool me. Fiona seemed to have forgotten that I knew her better then she knew herself. I damn well knew that she had no intention of spending an entire weekend with me.

  Whether she realized I had caught on to her lie or whether she just didn’t care was another matter entirely.

  After she agreed to the ‘bonding’ trip, I made a quiet exit from the kitchen and went to my bedroom. I locked the door behind me, then sat on the edge of my bed and started mentally going through my options.

  I had the sneaking suspicion that her plan was to call one of her friends, most likely Brenda. They had a pact to pick each other up whenever one of them got in trouble. Fiona frequently borrowed Leslie’s car to retrieve Brenda from her bad dates, and Brenda used to pick Fiona up whenever she ended up somewhere she didn’t want to be.

  It didn’t take a genius to know that being stuck in a cabin with me fell into that category.

  But our parents were right. We did need to talk.

  Among other things.

  The question now was—how could I possibly keep her from leaving? If she called a friend and arranged a ride beforehand, I’d be totally screwed. The only chance I had was if she waited until we were at the cabin before she made the call. If she spoke to Brenda early and pre-arranged the ride, anything I did to make her stay wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

  But knowing her, I had a feeling she wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t just going to pass up an opportunity to privately ream me for what happened at prom before she waltzed out of my life just as fast as she did the first time.

  Even if I did something to her phone to keep her from making the call after we got there, she would probably just start walking. It was only an hour ride out to the cabin—a distance that would take a few hours to walk, but she was stubborn enough to do it.

  And she was certainly pretty enough to hitch a ride even without raising her thumb. There were a number of men who would slam on brakes just for the chance to possibly get her into their car.

  The thought made my stomach twist.

  As I glanced around my bedroom, the small red toolbox in the corner caught my eye and an idea popped into my mind like a lightbulb turning on.

  I hopped off the bed and rushed into the hallway, making sure the others were still in the kitchen before I snuck into the garage to open my full-sized toolbox. I pulled open the bottom drawer—hoping like hell that I still had what I was looking for.

  Inside the drawer, I spotted the shiny metal item and grinned. I eased the chain out of the box and placed it in the backseat of my dad’s car, tossing my jacket over the pile to hide it from view.

  When I went back inside, I put a mask of indifference back on my face as I stepped into the kitchen and interrupted their conversation. To my great annoyance, Fiona didn’t even glance in my direction. She stared straight ahead at her mother like I never even stepped into the room.

  But that would change soon enough. All I needed was to get everything ready.

  “Dad, can I borrow the car for a few hours? Jimmy needs an extra set of hands in the shop. I guess everyone’s rushing in to get their tires changed before we close up for the holiday.”

  “Of course,” he agreed readily, reaching into his pocket to pull out the keys before handing
them over to me. “Would you mind filling up the tank on your way home? I want to make sure we’ll have enough gas to get you two out to the cabin and back.”

  “Will do,” I agreed, shoving the keys in my pocket and swiftly taking my leave.

  Once I was alone in my room again, I quickly changed into a set of my typical work clothes to avoid raising suspicion and stopped trying to fight the smile off my face.

  This certainly was going to be a bonding weekend.

  Chapter Four

  Fiona

  “This is bullshit,” I mumbled to myself as I dug through my luggage to pull out a few sets of clothes for the weekend.

  I ignored pretty much everything that would be suitable for a typical cabin trip and instead grabbed my sexiest clothes, knowing damn well that Brenda would drag me out to the club to go dancing every chance she could. Not that I really minded. Since starting college, I had grown to love men’s attention.

  Which was something that in high school, I’d only wanted from one guy. One guy who wouldn’t give me the time of day—at least not in the way I wanted it.

  But that was all in the past now. I rolled my head around on my shoulders and willed myself to relax, sighing with relief when I felt some of the tension draining from my muscles. I reminded myself that I wasn’t going to have to spend more than an hour with him before Brenda picked me up.

  I was definitely going to take advantage of that short time to lay into Jonathan with the myriad of reasons why we would never be friends—let alone family—ever again.

  As long as I could keep my emotions in check long enough to do so.

  Even thinking of how he’d looked yesterday when he walked into the kitchen was enough to cause my body to react in a way I wished I could stop. Jonathan had been affecting me like this since I’d turned sixteen and realized that he meant a lot more to me than just a friend.

  Too bad that by the time I had the nerve to admit it, I was forced to face the reality that my attraction was one-sided in the most horrible way imaginable. While I often wished that I never worked up the courage to tell him how I felt so I wouldn’t have ended up so heartbroken, I really wished that I had never developed feelings for him in the first place.

  I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, roughly scrubbing away my tears as I relived prom night for the thousandth time. God, why was I still hung up on that night? On him? It’s not like I hadn’t already had seven months to process it and move on. Or so I’d thought.

  I supposed the biggest problem was that I’d never expected to see him again. Just having him standing in front of me was enough to totally throw me off my game. At least while I was away at college, I was too busy obsessing about trying to be a good student to think about him as much.

  Now though? Now I was stuck with having to confront both my feelings and Jonathan himself.

  Maybe I wouldn’t even bother to ream him about the past. Doing so would likely end up with me being an emotional wreck as he harshly told me to get over it.

  Would if I could.

  I scowled down at my suitcase and dug out the remainder of the clothes I wanted to bring, shoving them into the small bag Mom was loaning me so I didn’t have to cart my entire suitcase to the cabin. I pushed away the thoughts of Jonathan and focused on my guilt over the fact that I still hadn’t told my mom that I’d dropped out of college.

  I dug into the bottom of the bag and searched for the letter, scanning it with my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time. I had been carrying it around with me for the past two weeks. The more I looked at the letter confirming that I was no longer a student, the more the reality of the situation sunk in. Eventually, accepting responsibility for the choice I made would give me the courage I needed to tell her the truth.

  Well, that’s what I told myself anyways.

  It was easy enough to rationalize my guilt away with the fact that it would be awful to tell her and just run off—even though this stupid trip had been her idea in the first place. No, I’d tell her first thing Monday morning.

  Of course, that’d be right around the time that she and Gerald would be driving out to pick us up at the cabin and would arrive to find out that I wasn’t there.

  Well… shit.

  This double dose of disappointment had the potential to ruin Christmas.

  But what other choice did I have?

  After letting out a harsh stream of breath, I shoved the letter back into my bag and buried it beneath all the sweaters and jeans that I wasn’t taking with me to the cabin. Once it was securely tucked away, I zipped the suitcase back up and glanced back at my bedroom door in a moment of paranoia.

  I felt like the letter would be safer here than at the cabin. Even though I had no intention of staying, I didn’t want to risk Jonathan getting his hands on it and letting the cat out of the bag before I found a diplomatic way to raise the issue myself.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Chapter Five

  Jonathan

  After I put my bag in the trunk, I went back into the house to wait for Fiona to finish getting ready.

  I knew coming home was hard for her for more reasons than just this stupid cabin trip. But she didn’t seem to realize that she wasn’t the only one who was having a hard time with this entire situation.

  For as long as I could remember, it had just been me and my dad. My mom died shortly after giving birth to me and there had never been any other women in Dad’s life. At least not ones I ever met. So while I was happy for him, moving in with a woman was a hell of an adjustment for us both. The only experience I had that came close to living with a woman was how much of my childhood had been spent with Fiona and Leslie, but look how well that ended up.

  Fiona was the only one who knew how I felt about not having a mom. I wasn’t constantly crying over the loss considering I obviously didn’t remember her, but every now and then my Grandma would say something like, “Your mother used to do that when she was your age.” and it would remind me that I would never get a chance to know her.

  And that reminder stung like a bitch every single time.

  Fiona understood how deeply those comments affected me. She had lost a parent as well, so she could relate a lot more easily than some of the other friends I’d had over the years who were, at worst, dealing with their parents getting divorced. It just wasn’t the same.

  I wasn’t entirely sure how or why, but having Fiona around helped. Hearing her memories of her father didn’t make me feel worse that I’d never get to create any memories with my mom. If anything, sometimes it made me feel better, like I was grateful that I didn’t have the chance to get to know her before I lost her.

  Not that I ever admitted that to anyone. Especially not to Fiona. Fuck, I didn’t even like admitting it to myself.

  “Sometimes, I used to wish my Dad wasn’t around. He was always the stern one—it was never mom. But now he’s not and… and I would do anything to take those wishes back.” Fiona had confessed to me when we were fifteen, years after she lost her father. “What if I did it, Jonathan? What if it was my wishes that killed him?”

  I remember looking into her eyes and seeing how vulnerable she was in that moment. I had been desperate to fix it, but I had no idea how.

  The only thing that stopped me from kissing her right then was the fact that she was my best friend and she trusted me. She was the only girl that I could lie in the same bed with and know that she wasn’t nervously waiting for me to make a move. She was the only girl I could be an asshole towards and not worry about hurting her feelings because she would know that I was only joking.

  She was also the only person who had ever made me feel like I—the real me, exactly as I am—was a person worth knowing. I could just be myself around her, knowing that she accepted and liked me for who I was, not for who I pretended to be around other people.

  No one else had ever made me feel so at ease. So comfortable in my own skin.

  I wanted that feeling back.

  Ba
ck then, I had convinced myself that if we ever crossed the line between friends and lovers, I would ultimately lose her. The night of prom, I should have talked to her. Not just allowed myself the panicked, knee-jerk reaction that I had actually done.

  The realization that I had the same feelings for her as she did for me only occurred after the damage had been done. She never wanted to see me again. The idea that I would never be able to pick up the phone and hear her voice again had really sealed my fate.

  It was unacceptable.

  I wanted her back. As a friend, as a lover—as anything she would give me, even though I did have a clear preference.

  Soon, I planned to tell her that. Tell her she was right all along—we did belong together—and that I was sorry. So fucking sorry.

  After steeling myself for the inevitable fight that I knew would come my way before we could actually move forward and hopefully become at least friends again, I made my way down the hall to her bedroom.

  “You almost ready?”

  Fiona turned to face me as I casually leaned against the frame of her bedroom door, her eyebrows furrowing together with confusion and making her look absolutely adorable.

  “Where’s my mom?” she asked, avoiding looking at me.

  Her refusal to make eye contact and the quiver in her voice were all I needed to know that she still loved me. Which was a good thing, but convincing her that I actually deserved her forgiveness was going to be the hard part.

  “Waiting in the living room. Let’s go.”

  She stood and grabbed the small bag that she borrowed from her mom and hoisted it onto her shoulder. I was almost certain she was just going to breeze right past me without a word, but she surprised me by marching right up to me and shoving her pointed finger against my chest.