Stoned: A Billionaire Stepbrother With Benefits Romance (My Brother's Keeper Book 1)

by Cynthia Sharon

  “Dad? Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, honey,” he said. “I just was having such a good time here.”

  Another squeal in the background.

  “Oh I bet you are,” she chirped, rolling her eyes. “Serious, Daddy, is something wrong? I mean, it doesn’t sound like it, but nothing’s on fire is it?”

  “No, but I knew I hadn’t checked in since I landed and that you might be worrying.”

  She chuckled. Now she’d be traumatized for life, but at least she knew her dad had made it to Europe okay. It figured. He’d never been cool about social cues either. “I’m good. Thank you for, uh, letting me know, but you sound busy so I’m just going to say good night or, um, morning.”

  “Sure, night sweetie, but are you sure you’re okay? You sound down?”

  “No, it’s nothing that won’t be better in the morning.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Damn it!” Oliver Jenkins cursed as the shot sailed true and hit the bull’s eye. “I was going to win this round.”

  Robert Stone laughed and set his longbow down at his feet. “We’ve done this for over a decade.”

  “Only because you talked me into taking up archery to begin with,” his friend said, scowling. “I’m beginning to believe you did it just so you’d have someone to beat.”

  “I have plenty of people I can beat, but it’s somehow sweeter when it’s a friend.”

  “Great, glad I can be your punching bag,” Oliver drawled even as he walked over to the target and collected his arrows. “Nothing says friendship like making the other guy feel inferior.”

  Robert smirked. It wasn’t his fault that he made others feel inferior. He’d had one of his mentors at his former firm (the one he’d bought out) tell him once that “people often have inferiority complexes because they are.” Overall, his best friend and former frat brother was a great ally, but he couldn’t shoot for shit. Even if he hadn’t earned the nickname “Arrow” for his incredible aim and talent, he’d have been able to cream Oliver on the archery field.

  Hell, he’d have been able to do it blindfolded.

  “You’re here, then we’ll go back to my penthouse, get some Dom, and enjoy the flight out to Vegas. You know you love the lovely ladies of the Hard Rock as much as I do.”

  “No one enjoys them as much as you do,” his friend replied, laughing.

  “True, but somehow even Vegas isn’t thrilling me as much as it should be. I feel just incredibly bored.”

  Oliver laughed. “I don’t know how someone as busy as you could ever get bored. If you’re not working, you can go anywhere you want. Hell, even DiCaprio is jealous of the life you lead.”

  “Yes,” Robert said, lining up his shot and feeling the bow string pull taught in his grasp.

  He’d always adored archery. It wasn’t just the thrill of victory or even the practice it took to hone his skills to match his bow’s own actions and reactions. No, it was all about control, about the ability to calm his breathing, steady his hand, and wait for just the right moment. After all, control was something he prized above all things.

  “How is Irina working out?” Oliver asked, offering a wry smirk.

  The bastard knew a comment about his previous submissive would distract him. Things with Irina had not ended well. She’d frankly come to bore him. It wasn’t that she wasn’t willing, wasn’t that she didn’t have a set of collected talents. No. It was more that Irina was just like every other submissive he’d had, so ready to bow down to him, but also clearly hoping she could satiate him long enough to be more than his weekend entertainment. He wasn’t looking for a wedding ceremony or for the gold digger that she’d always been.

  He needed a real challenge with a woman as well as a potential sub, who wouldn’t be so obnoxiously greedy.

  Robert cursed as his shot went wide, hitting the far left side of the target. It had been a miracle with Oliver’s well-timed question that he hadn’t shot completely through a window and out into the air over Manhattan. “Fucking perfect!”

  “Oh I know, and so it is going that well, huh?”

  Robert rubbed a hand over his chin and the slight dimple there. It was a nervous habit he’d cultivated while he still had a goatee in college, and he’d never outgrown such a tell. “She turned out to be only interest in my bank account.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, ‘Arrow,’” his friend said, referring to his nickname. “The women from the lifestyle are into you for a bit of fun and maybe a parting gift from Tiffany’s, and then there’s no commitment on the other end. It really is a beautiful system, man.”

  Robert considered that as he retrieved his arrows and put them back in his quiver, his passion for the usual long contest between him and Oliver extinguished. “Maybe, but do you ever think there might be something more to it? Irina turned out to be so frustrating underneath.”

  “And who cares about underneath as long as up top is curvy in all the right ways?”

  Robert gave his friend a tight smile, as he continued past him and toward the bar he’d had built at the side of his private range. Staring down eighty-eight stories at the people scurrying like ants, he began to wonder what happened. Maybe he was changing too; maybe there was something about the usual conquests and pleasures that after over a decade had become too commonplace. He just wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

  “Come on,” Oliver said as he joined him at the giant bay window overlooking the greatest skyline in the world. “You can’t give me all the silent treatment now, that’s not how this works. I mean, after all man, I couldn’t possibly have offended you. It’s not like you have delicate sensibilities to offend.”

  “It’s not that,” Robert said, even as he set down his quiver and bow as he started to fish into his locker. “Maybe it’s that ennui that comes from so much success. I don’t even know. All I do know is that I have the empire I want, even if I’m currently musing over new acquisitions. I have a good family and friends, but I might need something of more substance for fun.”

  “Well, shit, we’ll hit up a club after Vegas, some place where we can find you a girl worth your time.”

  “Maybe I need someone different from the usual club obsessives, from women who have been subs for years. I feel like it’s all the same from month to month. Like this year will be just like last year and next year will be more of the same.”

  “It’s unlikely you’ll find someone vanilla and just break her in,” he replied, grabbing his own wallet and towel from the small blue wooden box. “Get real, you just need to have a good time in Vegas, find an Irina chaser, and get back on with everything else.”

  “So find a new horse, if you were,” Robert asked, gathering up his keys. When his friend’s back was turned as Oliver finished gathering his belongings, Robert just rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wasn’t sure Oliver even understood sarcasm. Or propriety. Once upon a time, that had been fun, but now it was just so passé.

  “If you want, that’s your kink, man.”

  He snorted and slapped his friend on the back of the head. “Maybe yours, some Hee-Haw thing.”

  “Ouch, see and he comes out swinging.”

  “No, not really. There just has to be something coming over the horizon. I only have to find it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  His penthouse was lovely.

  That was too small a word. From where he sat in his armchair, looking out of the massive wall of windows, Robert could look out and spy his city spiraling out before him. While sometimes, he spent his nights gazing at the lights of Manhattan; tonight he preferred to look down at Central Park. Lord knows he’d paid enough for the view.

  It was only dusk and the sun was setting, casting glows of ochre, gold, and rose across the clouds. He saw one couple jogging together, and he had to snicker at the matching headbands and fit bits---bright neon yellow, really---that they wore.

  There was a second, older couple, slightly hunched with age. The thin, frail old man was supported by
his wife as they toddled slowly through the park. At that rate, it might take them all evening, but they seemed so happy to be in each other’s company. For all Robert knew, this was one night like any other over forty years and, yet, there she was supporting him and helping him along with infinite patience.

  There was something to be said for those connections.

  It was nothing he’d ever tried before. In college, he’d been too busy working his ass off; desperate to get the internship that eventually set him on the path to his current success. He’d had little time to sleep, let alone date. There were a few one-night stands at the Deke House on campus because he was a fraternity brother and not a monk, but he’d never made time for a girlfriend. Then, after graduation, as a Young Turk on out the city, Oliver had brought him into the lifestyle, showing him the most raucous underground clubs in the city.

  He’d relished the life of a dominant, the power he wielded over the women who fell at his feet.

  But he’d never truly had that experience of love that could last forever, or so the songs and all the sappy movies his younger sister loved always said. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he believed it even existed, and he wasn’t even ready quite yet to try and hunt for it.

  And yet, some of them looked happy, didn’t they?

  Sighing to himself, Robert stood and poured himself a tumbler of Scotch and took a long draught. The amber liquid burned its way down his throat, and he was glad for at least a bit of sensation boiling through him. It was then that a shrill ring caught his attention. Pulling his cellphone from his pocket, he smiled when he saw the caller I.D.

  “Hey, Mom, so tell me how your vacation is going?”

  His mom giggled on the other end and he blinked down at the cell. He must have misheard. His mother wasn’t a giggly type. Hell, she’d always been too serious, the complete embodiment of the workhorse on an animal farm.

  After his father had left her high and dry to move with his secretary to California, his mom had worked two maid jobs at the Plaza and at the Waldorf-Astoria to support him and his sister, Kara.

  He’d always found her so serious, and one of the reasons he paid for her summers abroad was to get her to relax, to enjoy herself. Last year had been a cruise and excursion in Alaska. This year, he’d sent her to France and the Mediterranean.

  Still, no matter how luxurious the accommodations he gave her, no matter how kind and effusive she was about it, his mom never seemed to relax. She’d make an excuse to come back earlier to see him or Kara. Or she’d switch rooms from the presidential suite to the regular, run-of-the-mill room.

  Mary Stone was a dedicated worker through and through, and she always seemed to feel self-conscious with luxury thrust upon her. Hell, he’d had some of the concierge staff report back to him that they’d found her remaking the beds or taking her own trash down the front desk in order to find the dumpster herself.

  Vacation had never been in her damn vocabulary.

  Or at least it hadn’t been since he was fifteen.

  So to hear her so carefree heartened him. Maybe she’d finally learned to let go and enjoy the largesse. After all, he’d be nothing without her.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s going wonderfully! I’ve met the most debonair man.”

  Robert smirked to himself. Leave it to his mother to liken a man she’d just met to James Bond or Fred Astaire or someone else as legendarily suave. “That’s wonderful.” He blanched as he considered what he’d just said. “Wait, when did you meet him? Where?”

  “Down at the casino. He asked me to blow on his dice, hit a lucky streak, and now he’s taking me out to dinner. He’s the most amusing fellow.”

  “That’s great, Mom.”

  “And handsome. You get lean pickings when the men hit sixty, but he’s very handsome. Far better looking that your father on his best day.”

  Robert shook his head. Okay, maybe he and his mother and sister were a bit too close, but years of hardship and living cheek by jowl would do that to anyone. “I don’t know about that, Mom. I manage to drive all the girls wild.”

  “That’s because you take after me, dear. Admit it, your father as quite the hooked nose.”

  “Maybe, I’m just surprised. It’s not like you.”

  “To have a nice drink with a sweet man?”

  “Well I guess at least we know he can afford his own stay at the Luxor and that he’s not bad at gambling to boot.”

  “You should have seen the roll I ended up on. I made twice what he did.”

  “Then I stand corrected, and you should help me plot out my next acquisition if you’re on such a hot streak.”

  “Definitely, anyway, I have to hurry to make to back to the hotel lobby and meet him. I just wanted to say hi. You’ll be coming upstate next month for Kara’s shower, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Mom, I wouldn’t forget.”

  “Perfect, now, oh he’s knocking! I guess I shouldn’t have kept him waiting. Bye baby, love you!”

  “Bye, Mom, and---”

  He didn’t even get to tell her to be careful. The Luxor was a great hotel but he had no way of knowing if the man she’d met was above board or a con artist preying on older women or…maybe next time he should send a bodyguard with her, just in case.

  Who knew what trouble she was bound to get into?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Allison cursed as she raced through the lobby of the hotel. Her whole day had been a fucking mess. She’d been so stressed over the future of her firm and her demotion, that she’d missed her morning alarm ringing in her ear.

  If Tom hadn’t come back out of the shower and realized she was still asleep in bed and physically shaken her awake, she would have missed her flight completely. As it was, she barely made it through security in time to get on the plane.

  Even getting into Nevada had been a nightmare. Southwest lost her luggage, and she’d given up waiting for it when she realized she was about to miss the start of the keynote.

  Throwing herself into cab and hoping against hope she’d catch the right lights, Allison had clenched the armrest and stared hard at the time ticking down on the clock.

  So now she was here, racing on her high heels, and pulling out her paperwork for the people gathered at the door. “I need a badge and stuff but I’m here from Vision Marketing, Inc.”

  An officious little man with beady eyes and thick, Coke-bottle glasses just glared at her. “Ms. Sheeperd.”

  “It’s Shepard,” she corrected, holding her driver’s license closer so he could see it. “I’ve got to get into the keynote.”

  “It’s already started.”

  She glared back at him. Maybe it was wrong to be so aggressive, but this guy was one of the few out there actually shorter than she was so at least she had an advantage there. Besides, she was to report everything in exacting detail back to McDonough, and she couldn’t let him know she’d let her own anxiety and airline fuckery throw her off her game.

  “No, that’s not good enough. I just flew almost two thousand miles from New York, and I am not letting some twerp like you ruin my day.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “No, don’t ‘ma’am’ me. It’s only been five minutes since it started.”

  “I had express orders.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, pulling out her cell.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Pulling up Yelp. I am about to give your conference center and you, Franklin, a one star review.”

  He started adjusting his glasses on his nose. “Fine, I don’t make enough an hour for this,” he said, stalking over to the double doors. “But I never did this.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Never even heard of you,” Allison whispered over her shoulder as she rushed through the doors.

  She instantly regretted that decision. Allison was hurrying too fast and ran directly into the refreshment table. The collision sent mugs and glasses falling everywhere, even a few crashed to the ground and shattered on impact. She froze the
n and turned to see the eyes of everyone in the room on her, but the person whose gaze was most concentrated on her was Robert “Arrow” Stone, and the fucking bastard was the keynote speaker.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “So,” he said, coughing a bit and sipping water at the podium. “They told me I had a full hour to speak, and I promised them only to run over by twenty minutes,” Robert said even as the crowd offered a polite chuckle.

  He was no stranger to public speaking. He’d been asked often over the last seven years as his company grew and became a dominant force in marketing to speak at a myriad of dinners and fundraisers. Robert dug that. There was nothing more intoxicating than commanding the attention of the room, than knowing everyone there was here to listen to him. It was electrifying.

  Robert continued into his address. “I’m really touched to be able to speak to a gathering of my peers. I’ve spoken for Red Cross benefits and at political galas, but this is what I love, talking about what we do. People dismiss Madison Avenue as being shallow and promoting images that people can’t afford. I say that’s just bitterness. We promote a dream, let people see how it could be, and that there’s a better way.”

  Another applause and he couldn’t help but grin, feeling everything roar through him as he gathered on point.

  “The thing is that the market changes. We have social media now and people who love their phones more than their televisions. Newspapers and magazines were once upon a time the cornerstone of the industry. Now we have to be better, faster…”

  There was a loud noise and every head, including his own, swiveled to spy the short blonde crashing into the refreshment table. Crullers, bagels and glasses rained everywhere. She stopped, still as a rabbit in car headlights, before she looked up directly at the podium. At least she had the decency to go pale when she saw him.