Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set

by Diamond Durango

“I want you. Fair warning, though, I don’t have the energy to go here, there, and yonder.”

  “I don’t either. Let’s plan our trip.”

  “Our trip?” Aviana asked.

  “To Europe next summer. One week with Hollis, going wherever you two want to go, one week with me in Italy, and one week with all three of us. I know there are places that he and I both want to see together.”

  That sounded wonderful. “What will you do in the week I’m with him?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it yet. Sit on a beach somewhere and read, and not have my phone ringing off the hook. I can visit my mother in New York for a few days, too.”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “I can tolerate about two days of her and Creepy Cabott, and then maybe I’ll go to Spain and watch the waves roll in. And as soon as I’m sick of that, it will be time for me to meet you in Italy.”

  “I can’t wait.” Shyly, she nuzzled him. “I won’t be able to afford much of this trip. I’ll be paying my college loans by then.”

  “No, you won’t be. I’ll cover those, and I’ll pay for this trip. Let me take care of you. Why is that so hard?”

  “Being dependent on someone is hard.”

  “You aren’t dependent on me. I’m not telling you to quit working. I’m the last person who would ever tell you to do that. You’re going to have your own money. Not enough for a big trip like this, but I have more than I can spend. Give me your loan information and let me get rid of those for you. I don’t want them hanging over your head for the next ten years.”

  He was offering to take a huge weight off her shoulders, the biggest one she had. “Thank you,” Aviana said. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Not if it’s about wanting to pay your loans yourself.”

  “It’s not. Why do you and Hollis call him Creepy Cabott?”

  Wyatt made a sound of disgust. “Hollis named him that. Mom’s outdone herself with this one. He doesn’t talk to your face, if you’re a woman, and if you’re a man, he doesn’t talk to your face because he’s scouting around for a woman to leer at. There’s nothing subtle about it. He’s ogling like he’s never seen a female before in his life. Hollis was at the beach with him once and said his eyes nearly popped out of his head. The last straw was when a pack of high school girls walked by and Cabott went over to pay for their ice cream at the stand and chat them up. Fourteen, fifteen-year-old girls, and Cabott is sixty.”

  “Oh, that’s gross,” Aviana said.

  “He doesn’t do anything except look, but still. He’s a dirty old man, hence his nickname.”

  “What does your mother like about him?”

  “I have no idea. I have no idea what she sees in any of the men she trots home. They’re rich; they’re not; they’re married; they’re five times divorced with kids; they have a multitude of professions or haven’t worked a day in their lives. One was almost seventy; another wasn’t even thirty. Most are just for flings that last a week or two; some like Cabott stick around for years. But they’re losers, one and all, although in different ways.” He had been stroking her upper arm as he spoke, and his hand stilled. “I didn’t mean to cast any aspersions on your father with that remark. Truth be told, Porter was one of her better guys.”

  “I’m not taking it the wrong way. And please don’t take it the wrong way that your mother was not one of his better women.”

  “It’s the drama,” Wyatt said after a moment to consider. “That’s what she craves from men. Cabott gives her endless drama with his wandering eye and petty tantrums; your father didn’t give her quite as much so she would pick fights when she got bored to create it. She even tries to create it with Hollis and me, but we don’t fall for those games anymore.”

  “Did you ever?”

  “In the beginning. You were too young to remember. She’d come to me when I was six and seven wanting to talk about what we should do about Hollis. Like I was another adult to discuss child-raising strategies with and it was the two of us against him. I stopped seeing Hollis for him, just as a problem the way our mother did. I won’t ever forgive her for that. On a visit with my grandparents, I tried to have the same conversation with Gramma about him. She shut me down fast. It was her job to discipline him when he acted up, not mine. He needed me to be his friend, not his father. And you know what? He didn’t act out much there. I loved those visits to their home by the river. We felt free. It was the one place in the world where I could just be a boy.”

  “I wish I could have spent more time with them. Your grandparents.” The few times she had been in their company, she’d basked in how they welcomed her in as their new granddaughter, not just a step relation.

  “They were wonderful people. And they were so frustrated with Mom. Our grandparents lived very quiet, unassuming lives. You’d never have known how rich they were from meeting them. They were humble. Drove nice but modest cars, volunteered, only shopped for clothes when they genuinely needed something. But of their four kids, only one turned out the same way. That’s Uncle Seth. You’ve never met him; he lives in Vancouver now. My aunts believe the money makes them special, and Mom is by far the worst. I could see how embarrassed Gramma and Grandpa were at restaurants when she was rude to the waiters. She thinks she’s too good to talk to the help, too good to ride coach, too good to wait in line like everyone else. As she gets older, it only intensifies. She was too good even for her own parents, and she’d shut them out of her life for long stretches of time.”

  “Not too good for men who don’t have a hundredth of the money she does.”

  “She didn’t have even half of that inheritance left by the time she married your father.”

  “How the hell do you blow through that much?”

  “It had gone to vacations and jewelry, clothes and gambling and plastic surgeries, and tons to bad investments and boyfriends who couldn’t be trusted. It also went up her nose until she discovered the joys of pharmaceutical drugs. But still, if there hadn’t been a pre-nup firmly in place, your father would have made bank on their divorces. I think she only married him in the first place to make another man jealous. It’s all games with her. She almost had a heart attack in my late teens when her parents died and the will revealed how much of their money they’d left to charities.”

  Aviana could picture that from Lynda all too well. “For fuck’s sake, she didn’t need it!”

  “And that made me embarrassed for her. She resented orphaned, starving children in third world countries getting food and medical care and schooling. She felt that she was the one being treated unfairly. Overlooked. But that’s who she is. She’s someone who has been given the world yet thinks she deserves even more. She now slips it into conversation that Hollis and I should be sharing our wealth with her as our poor old mother who lives in a shoe. There’s such greediness in her. And emptiness.”

  His hand slipped down her back. She squirmed when he patted her ass. “I’m going to feel that when I sit down,” Aviana said.

  “Good. Then next time you’ll look a little harder for somewhere else to have your snack.”

  She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t, and she hoped that leaving the cap open on the toothpaste still bothered him, too. He nestled his nose into her hair and breathed her in. “I talked to a retired police officer about Milan on Thursday.”

  She had a visceral reaction to Milan being brought into this safe, warm bed with them. Repulsed, she said, “Can we talk about it later?”

  “No. This can’t be ignored. You got unlucky with the police department before when you reported what he was doing. Other departments take stalking much more seriously. What you need to do is compile a chronological summary of events. Go all the way back to high school when it first started. No matter how small an incident was, write it down.”

  “They won’t believe me that we never dated.”

  “If the first officer doesn’t believe you, we’ll keep going until we find one that does. Write it down. What he said,
what he sent, what he did, and what you did in response. And you must have friends from high school and college that can verify all of his attention was unwelcome, don’t you?”

  “Everyone knew that.”

  “Put down their names and phone numbers, too. Have you saved anything he’s sent to you?”

  “No.” Her stomach roiled at the thought of keeping it. “I threw it out, all of it.”

  “Not all of it. I’ve got the latest card and rose.”

  “I don’t want to know where.”

  “That’s fine. But you give me everything from now on. Once you have the summary written down and put in order, we’re going to the police station. Someone is going to listen.” His tone of voice left no room to doubt.

  “You told me that restraining orders aren’t worth anything,” Aviana said.

  “A restraining order isn’t going to stop him. He’s too far gone in his mind. I talked about that with the cop. But if he violates it, he’s going to land himself in jail. I’ve put in paperwork to transfer.”

  “You did what?”

  He looked at her very calmly. “I did it Friday morning. It will take some time for the decision to be made, but they’ve got no reason to turn me down. They need someone like me in their new office in New York. It will be fully operative early next year, and I plan for all of us to be there.”

  “Including Hollis?”

  “He agrees with me, and he’s turned in his paperwork, too.”

  “I just started my job.”

  “You’re not going to have any job if you’re dead, and if the New York office can’t find a role for you in the mailroom or in any other department, you’ll get work somewhere else. I’ve alerted the front desk at Luxure that if anyone comes in asking for you, under no conditions is that person to be allowed into the building. The receptionists shouldn’t even confirm that you work there. A message will be sent up to me. By no means should you go to the front.”

  “I won’t.” She sighed, wanting to reassure herself that Milan had no idea where she worked. But he did. She knew it. “He’s such a will-o’-the-wisp. Even at his size, he fades into the background like a ghost. How many times in the last five years have I passed him in a costume and not seen him for who he was?”

  “All that is relevant here is that summary,” Wyatt said.

  “It’s going to take a long time to write it.”

  “Do it anyway, and have it done by Wednesday. You get off earlier on that day. I’ll clear my schedule and we’ll go to the police station together. And come January, we’ll be gone. Earlier than that if I can wrangle it. You can’t tell your father where you are, or any of your friends online where he could lurk and find out. Wednesday, all right?”

  “I’ll have it written by then. Now can we talk about something else?” Aviana begged.

  “Anything.”

  “Tell me everything you know about New York.”

  He did.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Avvie?” Hollis called.

  “In the laundry room!” Aviana said in a raised voice, stuffing her clothes into the washer and closing the lid.

  Hollis appeared in the doorway just as she was turning the knob. Water began to hiss. “Why are you all dressed up to do the laundry?” he asked. “Are you and Wyatt going somewhere?”

  “We just came back from dinner at Sallou’s. I meant to start this load before we left,” Aviana explained, adding a sock that had fallen on the floor to the machine. “Then we had plans for Wyatt to teach me how to play poker, but his deck of cards has mysteriously disappeared from his desk.”

  “How strange,” Hollis said with forced innocence. “I should put those back.”

  “You’re too late. He rolled out of the house on a wave of annoyance to buy a new deck. How was the bachelor party?”

  Striding into the room, he picked her up and sat her down on the machine. Then he lowered the straps of her dress and bra to place a kiss on each of her nipples. “There were tits everywhere, but none of them were yours.”

  She stroked his soft hair. “That’s so sweet, in a bizarre way.”

  He pulled away to look at her, cupping her breasts in his hands. “The strippers were adequate. The drinks were poor. Jason talked about nothing but his high school football days and how great life was back then. Zanie called obsessively with questions about the wedding arrangements, but really it was just to make sure that Jason wasn’t sexing it up. By the twentieth call, we were slyly taking bets on how long it’s going to be until they file for divorce.”

  “Hollis!”

  He grinned. “I’ve got one hundred bucks riding on eighteen months. We all got back to Jason’s place in the wee hours and she was there bright and early to hint that everyone needed to leave. We hung out most of the day and played videogames purely to annoy her, although I was wishing all along that I’d never gone. But you need time with Wyatt, too.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re kicked out of your own home. You should have just come back.”

  “How long until Wyatt gets back here?”

  “Any second. He was swinging by Argoux to pick up a pack of cards and something to drink.” The front door opened. “And there he is now. Better hide.”

  Hollis stayed where he was as footsteps came through the entryway. Her breath hitched in her throat when he lightly pinched her nipples, their eyes locked on one another as Wyatt opened the coat closet door and grunted as he kicked off his shoes.

  “Still want to play?” Wyatt shouted.

  “Yes!” Aviana said, finding it hard to keep her voice steady. Wyatt headed down the hallway in response to her voice, coming closer and closer to the laundry room. Hollis squeezed her nipples rhythmically, challenging her to be the one to break. There was a little of the alpha in him too.

  When the footsteps turned at the corner, she lost the challenge and jerked her clothing back up. Hollis backed away and opened the dryer like he was trying to help out. She slid off the machine a split second before Wyatt looked in. “Don’t take my shit or I’ll start locking my bedroom door,” he said in an irritated tone to Hollis.

  “Hi, Wyatt,” Hollis said. “That’s what younger brothers are for.”

  “You are all of ten seconds younger than me.”

  “Besides, didn’t you help yourself to my snowboard that one time? I distinctly remember coming home one day and-”

  “Oh, shut up and make the drinks.” Wyatt handed over a loaded paper bag. “If you want to stick around for poker night.”

  “I don’t want to be in the way,” Hollis said.

  Wyatt gave him a withering look. “If you were going to be in the way, then I wouldn’t have suggested you make the drinks.”

  “Were you going out again?” Aviana asked Hollis. “You just got here.”

  “Ron and Buster shot me a text that they’re meeting up at the bar for Trivia Night,” Hollis said.

  “It’s your choice. I’m going to set up the card table,” Wyatt said, turning to go as he slid a pack of cards out of his trouser pocket. A receipt was wrapped around it.

  Hollis looked uncertain as his brother walked away. Always ready to be kicked out of someone’s heart, and that made Aviana hurt for him. “I would love to have you stay,” she said, picking up the empty laundry basket and propping it on her hip. “Questions or no questions. I just want to see your face.”

  “You might not have noticed, but I have an identical twin,” Hollis said.

  “I did notice, actually, and it’s not the same.”

  “I thought after the weekend alone that you might be more into him.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, do you think after you and I spent tons of time together last week that he figured I was more into you?” Aviana exclaimed. “He knows what he means to me. I wish you did, too.”

  “Meaning I have half of your heart?”

  “No. You have all of it, both of you. Play cards with us, if you’d rather do that than go out with your friends. I want you here
and so does Wyatt. And let’s do something together tomorrow evening after work, just you and I. I hear we’re moving to New York.”

  “It’s safer for you.”

  There was a tapping at the window that made her jump, but it was only a branch moving in the breeze. Seeing her reaction, Hollis said, “That’s why we have to go. You shouldn’t have to jump at the most innocuous things. Avvie, why didn’t you tell me that you had a stalker when I was teaching you those self-defense moves?”

  Bluntly, she gave him the full truth. “I’ve gotten so used to handling things on my own that it didn’t even occur to me. It’s hard to ask for help. The bigger the problem, the harder it becomes. It was hard to call you that night Dad wanted me out, to let you see me being that vulnerable.”

  “I hate that I have more fun with you than anyone else, but you can also make me feel worse about myself than anybody ever has. And you’re not even meaning to do it. When shitty things happen to you, I’m not there. I’m just fucking around and not thinking about anyone but myself. You’ve got a trust in my brother that you don’t have in me. I haven’t earned it and I want to.”

  “You do have my trust,” Aviana insisted strongly. “When I let you know that I’d been kicked out, what did you do? You didn’t commiserate about how much it sucked and wish me good luck. You offered your place to stay. When I needed a job, you essentially got me one. When I called you in a panic from the mall, you came.”

  Distressed, he said, “I thought it was all in your head at first.”

  “Hollis, the whole thing must have sounded insane. But you came for me. Our problem isn’t trust. We’re just still learning how to open up to each other when all we know is how to close down.”

  “It’s messed up,” Hollis said quietly.

  “You aren’t as messed up as you think you are. This is just who you learned to be so you wouldn’t get hurt. And it’s who I learned to be as well. As to having more trust in Wyatt, that isn’t fair to any of us. I happened to have a terrible experience with him that I didn’t have with you. He’s seen me at my absolute worst, ready to sell my virginity for food and calling him a bastard for stopping me. I was horrible to him that day, more horrible than I’ve ever been to anyone. He could have shoved me away and he didn’t. But that has nothing to do with us. If you want me to be more open with you, then listen to me. I love you. I love being with you. Hang out with me tonight. I want to hear more about the party.”