Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set

by Diamond Durango

  I’m in huge trouble.

  Is this a joke?

  No.

  Almost instantly, her phone rang. She answered it and Hollis said, “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a guy. I never told you. A guy from our high school. He stalked me on and off through college and he’s . . .” She swallowed hard. “He’s found me, Hollis. I’m at the mall, hiding in the arcade. He’s dressed up as a woman and everywhere I go, he’s following along behind me.”

  “Are you sure that it’s him?”

  “Yes! He took off after me when I ran away and shouted my name. It’s him. Please, if you won’t believe me, then can you find Wyatt? He should be at Luxure today and he hasn’t answered my call.”

  “No, no, Avvie, I believe you. Okay. Would you start over again?”

  “His name is Milan. He’s not right in the head. He thinks we’re in a relationship when we never have been. And . . .” She gasped as Milan entered the arcade. “He’s coming in.”

  “I’m heading over there. Hold on. Wyatt? Hey, Wyatt!”

  The gray wig rode above the machines as he peered down every aisle. She sank into a ball and hid the phone’s light against her shirt. The bags rustled and she froze.

  He went back out and walked away. Aviana put the phone to her ear. “He’s gone.”

  Wyatt now had Hollis’ cell. “Is it that guy named Milan Dumello? The one from your government class in senior year?”

  She had made an offhand comment or two about him to Wyatt long ago. Trust Wyatt of all people to remember. “Yes.”

  “We’re almost to my car and we’ll be there in ten minutes. Are you safe where you are?”

  Milan was taking the escalator. She saw him for a second before the incline whisked him out of sight. “He’s going up to the second floor. I’m in the arcade on the first, hidden in the back.”

  “Stay there and stay quiet. Look for the employee door.” Car doors slammed.

  She looked around in the dark space for one. It was behind the cashier’s counter near the front of the store. “I found it. But it will take me within view of the entryway. He shouldn’t see me if I go for it while he’s searching the stores above-”

  “Don’t. He could be standing at the railing to flush you out.”

  A couple of kids wandered down the aisle. “I can’t talk anymore or people will see me back here.”

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  There was no way that she could stay in the corner with the kids coming closer. Getting up, she relocated to a game called Star Blast. The seat had a high back. The kids stared at her curiously as they selected games. She looked too old to be in here when everyone else but the employee was twelve or thirteen. And the employee barely looked eighteen himself.

  She set down the bags at her feet, took out a quarter, and pushed it into the slot. Thunderous music blared from the game as she lifted the gun. The kids lost interest in her and gathered at a two-player game nearby. Quarter after quarter she pumped into the machine as she shot enemy space ships and cast frequent looks over her shoulder.

  That was where Hollis and Wyatt found her. She scooted out of the seat and snatched up her things. “Let’s go,” Wyatt barked. “Give Hollis your keys.”

  She gave them to him. The twins stood on either side of her and they walked through the arcade. Tensing as they approached the entryway, she whispered, “That’s his.” The grimy stroller was still sitting there with the mutilated baby doll in the seat. Had Milan become so unhinged that he believed that baby doll was their child? Or was it just part of the costume to make her overlook him?

  When she stepped out, she looked up in agitation to the second floor. Wyatt took her hand and said, “Look like anyone else.”

  Looking up was only going to call attention to herself. She trained her gaze ahead as they rounded the escalators. The mall was a madhouse of people, and progress was slow to the avenue. “I parked down that way.”

  “Do you see him?” Wyatt asked.

  “No.”

  They passed the carousels to the line of double doors. Once outside, she gestured to the aisle where she had parked. Hollis went that way and Wyatt escorted her to where he had double-parked in another aisle. They got in and she pushed her bags into the back seat.

  As crazy as it was in the mall, it was peaceful out here. The rows of cars were silent in the late afternoon sun. Wyatt started the engine and pulled away. Once they were on the road, he said tightly, “You didn’t tell me that Milan was still after you.”

  “I barely remember telling you anything about him.”

  “You said that he was in that one class with you during your last semester of high school, and after a group project together, he started to follow you around campus. Your friends thought it was funny and called him your shadow.”

  It hadn’t seemed threatening back then, just weird and sad how this socially incompetent guy couldn’t come up and say hello like a normal person. She had had no idea how twisted he truly was. “All he did was trail after me between classes, and from a distance.”

  “Did he bother you in class?”

  “No. I just caught him looking at me a lot. I’d say hi; he’d say hi; that was it. Our government teacher didn’t like him because he wouldn’t participate. Ask him a question and he’d mumble in reply. It usually wasn’t the right answer and Mr. Quiser would ask him sarcastically if he wanted to stick around for a fifth year of high school. He can’t have gotten a good grade. I don’t remember him handing in the homework very often. Then we graduated. In the high school paper graduate edition, his name was there with the kids headed for the JC. I went off to college and figured it was over. I wasn’t that far away from our hometown, but still. I never even thought about him in my first year. Then he reappeared in my second.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Followed, like before. That was when it got weird. If he saw me with a guy, he exploded. He thought that he and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, and that I was cheating on him or else that the guy I was with had plans to attack me. Milan thought it was his job to protect me and our relationship even as he was calling me a whore for stepping out on him. It was deranged.”

  “What did those guys do when Milan confronted you?”

  “It freaked them out. The cowardly ones fell over themselves in getting away. The braver ones stepped between us and yelled at Milan to get the fuck out of there or he’d get his ass kicked. Milan backed off after that, calling me names as he stomped away and shouting that he hoped I’d be happy without him. He would disappear for weeks each time. And then he would be there again, watching me from a distance. I didn’t know what to do. It was so insane. When he got physical in the dining hall, I called the police. One officer flat-out didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth. How do YOU think he got the idea that you wanted to be Mrs. Milan Dumello? That was what he said to me. All his sympathy was for Milan, the poor dope I was leading on. I was just being a cock-tease. After that, he got arrested for something else and went to prison. He didn’t return until I was a senior-”

  Wyatt’s phone rang. He tapped a control on his steering wheel and Hollis’ voice came through the speakers. “I’ve got the car. There’s no she-man waiting around here. I’m going to take the long way home in case he’s following.” Aviana turned to look at the cars behind them. None of the people driving or riding in the other seats was Milan.

  Settling back, she said, “He tricked my father into giving out my phone number. I started getting hang-up calls a few days ago from an unknown person, so I blocked it.”

  “How did he know to find you at the mall?” Wyatt asked.

  “Dad . . . Dad must have told him that I was staying with Hollis. I bet Milan finagled your last name out of him. All he had to do was search you online to find out where you live.” Horror filled her at how she had led Milan right to the twins. “He must have hung out somewhere along the curb on your road or at the corner, far enough away from your driveway where I
wouldn’t notice. He drove after me to the mall.”

  He had been following her for hours with Aviana utterly unaware. Feeling violated, she said, “Wyatt, I’ll go. Let me pack up my things and I will be out of your house in an hour.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll be safe,” she argued. “I won’t tell my father where I am.”

  “That might not keep you safe. For all you know, Milan has slipped a tracking device on your car. Those are small and easy to overlook.”

  “Wyatt-”

  “No! What are you going to do? I’m not going to let him chase you around. We’ll find a way to take care of this. You aren’t leaving!”

  Antagonized, she said, “What are you going to do to stop me? Hide my keys and lock me up in your spare bedroom? Isn’t that exactly what Milan would like to do? How are you any better?”

  She wished that she could have sucked those words back in. Wyatt’s look was scathing. He didn’t say a word to her for the rest of the drive, nor did she speak to him. When they arrived at home, he dropped her off at the front door. She took her bags inside, ashamed, and dropped everything off upstairs.

  He didn’t come in for so long that she went looking for him. In the garage, he was crouched over his car. The hood was propped up and he had a flashlight in his fist. Tracking device. That was what he was looking for. Everything within her railed against this level of paranoia, but Milan would have no qualms about using one of those. It would have been simple to slip up the driveway while they were sleeping to tamper with their cars. But Wyatt preferred to park in the garage, so Milan wouldn’t have been able to get in and do his dirty work with the Libation.

  Yet an online search would have supplied not only Wyatt’s home address but also the company where he worked, and Milan could have done it there. Keeping her silence, she turned a chair around and sat upon it backwards to lean on the back. Wyatt searched methodically both outside and within the car. Aware of her presence, he did not acknowledge her. But he didn’t tell her to leave either.

  Hollis drove her car up the driveway. Clicking off the flashlight, Wyatt went out to wave him in. The two of them went over the Pioneer together and found nothing. After that, Hollis arranged a ride from Fast As A Bullet to pick him up and take him back to Luxure where he could retrieve his own car. “Five minutes. I’ll wait down on the road.” Noticing a smudge on the back of his hand, he wiped it off with a rag and said to Aviana, “Are you doing okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Aviana replied.

  “I’ll go back to the mall and drive around once I have my car. I want to see this weirdo. What kind of name is Milan anyway?”

  She smiled weakly. He tweaked her nose and walked down the driveway. Pulling down the garage door, Wyatt skirted the cars and came her way. He opened the door to go inside and stood aside for her to go first.

  She went in. It was still a little early to make dinner, but she needed something to do. Too late she remembered Wyatt’s promise to take her out to eat. The kitchen counter was already covered in a halfway prepared meal of turkey sandwiches and a salad, and she was sure that he didn’t want to take her anywhere now. He was on the phone, his tone calm though firm.

  When everything was done, she peeked into the living room with the sandwiches. Wyatt was in the armchair, sliding his laptop onto the coffee table and sinking back into the cushions. He chucked his phone onto the sofa and looked at her.

  Not angrily. She went into the room and put the plates on the table. Then she knelt down by his chair to rest her head on his leg. A hand touched her crown. Neither said anything for many long seconds until she whispered, “He scares me. His craziness. I shouldn’t have turned that on you.”

  “I’m going to put a gate at the bottom of the driveway,” Wyatt said. “It won’t stop a person from getting in entirely, but it’ll slow him up. I’ll have a security system installed, too. If you want a dog or a gun, even a bodyguard, I’ll get those things. You should think about getting a restraining order, but from what I know of stalkers, they aren’t worth toilet paper in stopping them. And I want to know exactly who this guy is, every single rotten thing about him.”

  “I don’t know much,” Aviana said, handing him the plate when he gestured for it. She took her own and had a bite of her sandwich, bludgeoning her mind for what slim facts she’d collected about Milan. “He transferred to our high school around junior year. I’ve got no memory of seeing him around before that.”

  “It was a big school.”

  “That’s true, but still, you recognized faces in the hallways even if you didn’t know the names. And he definitely wasn’t at the junior high. It was small enough that I knew everyone. Until we had that government class together, I hadn’t ever spoken to him. He was just the guy on the fringes.”

  “Did he have any friends?”

  “I never saw him with anyone. He was always by himself. He never came to dances or sports events. I don’t think he was in any clubs either. Girls noticed him because he was cute, but he was always so quiet. He never asked anyone out, as far as I know.”

  “Who is his family?”

  She shook her head. “A friend of mine said that he was the youngest of five. Shoshanna lived near him. None of the others were at our school; they had to be too old by then. He didn’t have a car. I’d pass him walking along on the sidewalk as I drove by. But the Dumello family wasn’t poor. Shoshanna lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, almost as nice as ours.”

  “There wasn’t anyone with the last name Dumello when Hollis and I went there,” Wyatt said. “I’m going to make some calls tomorrow morning. If you really want to leave, Aviana, then don’t just drive out into the night. Let me ensconce you in an apartment building somewhere with a doorman. Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t want him to bother you.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I want to stay here. But you shouldn’t have to deal with him.”

  “That’s my choice, and I can handle myself.” He had already polished off half of his sandwich. “You forgot about our dinner date.”

  “Do you still want to go out with me?”

  “Nothing has changed. Why don’t we reschedule for tomorrow night?”

  Relief flooded her. “I would like that.”

  “And what do you want for tonight? I’ve turned off my phone. If Luxure can’t exist without me for twelve hours, then I’m afraid they aren’t a company with long-term prospects.”

  She looked up to him. His casual strength, his confidence that this was just another problem to be eradicated, all of it made her want to crawl into his lap. If Milan was so stupid as to challenge Wyatt, he was going to get crushed.

  “Tell me,” Wyatt said. “We’ll do anything you like. I want to get rid of that haunted look on your face.”

  Haunted. Hunted. They were one and the same. “Could we go back to bed and start this day over again?”

  “I can think of a much better way to start it.” He put aside his plate and held out his hand. She took it and they went upstairs.

  Chapter Ten

  “Up here are the head honchos,” Jesse said with a gesture to the bank of mailboxes. It was Aviana’s second day at work. “When we’re out doing deliveries, they get theirs first. Their offices are all on the top floors, so it’s easy. Sometimes other people will do everything they can to convince you that it’s super important to have theirs by sunrise, but ignore them. The vice-president of marketing shouldn’t be waiting for his mail because Dottie in janitorial services wants her magazines. There is an order. Don’t change the order.”

  “I won’t,” Aviana said.

  “If one of the people up here,” he said, tapping the top boxes, “asks you to make a doughnut run for a meeting or something like that, don’t just fly out of the building and vanish. Always alert the mailroom where you’re going and why, or Ivy will assign someone else to the errand so that you can continue with your deliveries. Ninety-nine point nin
e percent of the time, none of this will happen. I’ve been here five years and only been asked twice to do something extra. They have assistants to do things like that. You drop off the mail and move on. Come along with me for the morning round and then I’m going to have you restock the supplies closet. Someone raided it.”

  “Does this happen often?” Aviana asked in amusement as they loaded the cart with mail from the boxes. She liked Jesse, who was a chubby guy in his forties with a friendly smile and a large gold band engraved with what looked like runes around his fourth finger. From the background on his cell phone, which showed him hugging another chubby guy with an identical band, she gathered that he was gay.

  Cheerfully, Jesse said, “We all have our pet theories about who’s responsible, and Ivy’s going to request a lock be put on the door.” He dropped in more mail. “Also, when you’re doing the rounds, don’t stop and talk to everybody along the way. If they say hi, of course you return it. Always be polite. But we had a woman a while back who took three times longer than it should take to deliver the mail, because she treated it like social time. Especially in advertising since she was gunning for a job in there. She got warned repeatedly but didn’t stop, and all it got her in the end was a one-way ticket out the door.”

  “She lost her job?”

  “She lost her job. All because she couldn’t shut up. And speaking of shutting up, when you’re weaving around the cubicle ocean on the second floor, don’t compliment Mitchell on any of his cat pictures. He has hundreds of them posted all around his cubicle and he’ll keep you for fifteen minutes while he talks about each and every one of his cats. He can’t tell that you’re bored, or he just doesn’t care. And then whenever you bring the mail after that, he’ll have to show you the latest pictures on his phone. I speak from personal experience.”

  The elevator ferried them to the top floor, where everything was quiet. Secretaries answered calls in muted voices and executives spoke behind closed doors. Jesse and Aviana delivered the mail to each office, the secretaries accepting the letters with a nod or ignoring their presence altogether. Riding down one floor, they went through the procedure again. At the far end was Wyatt’s office. He didn’t have a secretary, and was sitting at a large desk simultaneously speaking on the phone and rattling the keyboard of his laptop. With a little smile to Aviana, he kept talking as she slipped two pieces of mail into his box.