I take my phone out of my beach bag and text Chase, asking him to meet me before dinner to talk.
He immediately agrees and I steel myself with the resolve that I won’t take no for an answer.
“So it’s Bryce, huh?”
Valeria’s voice snaps me out of my own thoughts and for a second I look at her slightly confused. “Come again?”
“The one you’re dating,” she offers. “I’ve been wondering if it was Bryce or Parker. They’re both really into you. You know that, right?”
I make a non-committal noise. I’m not ready to go all out with my relationship status, especially not here with my parents around.
6.
Happy Birthday
Kaya
I STEP INTO THE KITCHEN about one hour before we’re due for dinner in the dress Mom bought me for the occasion.
It’s a gorgeous dress, the soft, pale pink, silky material is covered in lace and it has a sweetheart neckline that accentuates my cleavage in a subtle and classy way before flowing in an A-line and stopping one inch above my knee.
I love it, it’s totally my style but I have to admit that when they talked about a ‘family weekend’, I imagined eating pizza and watching movies in our PJs.
Regardless, I’m waiting for Chase for our talk. I know for a fact that Mom and Dustin went up for a ‘nap’, so we should have some time.
I put a pot of water on the stove: both Chase and I love drinking peppermint tea and I think a cup could make our discussion a little easier.
“Oh no, Miss. We have a kettle in one of the cupboards, I can make you tea, if you’d like.”
I smile at the housekeeper and tell her not to worry about it, that to me the whole tea drinking experience is enhanced by making it. It calms me down. She leaves looking unsure and tells me that she’ll be in the conservatory, setting everything up for dinner if I need her.
I watch the pot, waiting for it to boil, so I don’t notice Chase until he’s right behind me.
“Hey, princess. You look beautiful. Happy birthday.”
There’s a softness in his dark blue eyes that I’ve noticed a few times since the night he and I were together. He tries to look distant when we’re in public but on the rare occasions when no one else is around, Chase looks at me as if he misses me as much as I do him.
“Chase, we need to talk,” I say squaring my shoulders and preparing to argue my case.
“No good conversation ever started with those words, Kaya. What’s wrong?”
His eyes reach deep down into my soul, I’ve always felt naked in front of Chase. He sees through me in a way no one else does, not even my own mother or Nic.
I sigh, and get ready for battle. “I need to tell Bryce and Parker. I love them and I owe them the truth. They need to know how I feel about you. It doesn’t matter if you and I can’t be together. Even if we could, I would still love them as much as I love you. Look, I know they’ll keep our secret because I know they care about me and they love you. But I can’t keep lying to them, it’s tearing me apart. It’s making me fearful to be intimate with either of them ever again. I can’t pretend that what happened between us didn’t happen, Chase. I can’t make one of them believe that he was my first. I’ve been staying away from them because of that—”
Chase interrupts me. “But you’re always with them.”
I shake my head. “I mean physically, Chase. I’ve avoided being alone with them.”
“But you want to,” he says taking a step closer to me. “You want to fuck Parker and Bryce.”
“Don’t be crass!” I say slapping my hand against his chest and trying to pull away when he grabs my hand and keeps it on his firm, ripped chest. “I want to be with them like I was with you. I love them, Chase.”
I feel his warmth through the shirt he’s wearing but I don’t want to let him distract me with his nearness, I need him to agree to let me talk to his best friends.
“Ok.” He concedes.
“What?” I ask, shocked by how easily he caved.
“But I want to be there too. I need to make sure that they understand how important it is that they never tell another soul. Dad hasn’t changed his mind since three years ago. If anything, he’d probably get even more pissed off if he knew. Henry made a joke earlier about how hard it must be to keep me and Reid away from you. He was trying to pay a compliment to your beauty but Dad’s tone was really harsh when he told him that we’ve only ever had a sibling relationship. The way he looked at me and Reid was ...”
His voice fades and I nod. I did notice the way Dustin has been looking at Chase every time he’s spoken to me since that night. I hope he didn’t notice the subtle changes in the way Chase has been treating me since we slept together. This is why I’ve agreed to keep the secret so far, but I know that Parker and Bryce would never betray me, even if they were mad.
“Thank you, Chase. It means a lot to me but you don’t need to be there if you don’t want to. I can talk to Parker and Bryce alone.”
His next words surprise me. “No, princess. I need to be there. I still love you more than anyone or anything in the world. Staying away has killed me inside, every single moment I live without you, is a moment wasted. It’s like existing, not living. I know that nothing has changed with Dad and I don’t have the right to ask you to risk your relationship with him for me but ... if Parker and Bryce were willing to help us—”
I can’t believe what he’s saying. “Chase, I love you but I’m not choosing. Unless Parker and Bryce decide that they can’t forgive me for what I did with you.”
He nods. “I know.”
“So what are you asking me, exactly? That night you said that you aren’t the sharing type ...”
“It’s true. But I’ve had time to think and after kissing you last night, I know that I can’t stay away from you, Kaya ... I’d rather share you than not be with you at all. And with Parker and Bryce it’s different. They’re more than friends. They’re even more than brothers. Like Reid, they’re a part of me. So if they could forgive us and they could tolerate me being in the picture ... but we’d have to be extremely careful. This is why I stepped down from frat president. To not to be so much the center of attention. I know I have no right to ask you to be a dirty secret but—”
I know what he means. For all intents and purposes, he’s asking me to have an affair with him, something illicit that would destroy our family if the secret ever came out.
But fuck if I could say no to being with him, if Parker and Bryce weren’t against it.
Chase’s hands are on my biceps and our eyes are locked together. Those eyes, dark blue, shimmering with a passion that he’s tried to contain for too long. I know what happened when he let the floodgates open, when he unleashed that passion on me and it swept the both of us away, leaving us no choice but to let that love become physical.
There’s no escape from those eyes, they see inside my soul and Chase knows that there’s no way that I could ever turn him down, as long as it doesn’t hurt Parker and Bryce.
“I love you, Kaya.”
His voice is barely louder than a whisper and when his eyes drop to my lips I know that he’s about to kiss me and I take a step back.
“Not here, babe. It’s too dangerous. And not until we’ve spoken to the others. Let’s have some peppermint tea. No one can have a problem with us drinking tea together, right?”
I quickly walk away from him, trying to calm down the wild rhythm of my heart as I go to the stove.
The pot of water I put on to boil earlier is now boiling over, so I reach to turn off the hob, still in a lust fueled daze. That’s when the boiling water splashes out of the pot and some hot drops land on my chest, on the tender flesh of my left breast.
I yelp in pain and jump backward, finding Chase’s solid chest right behind me.
“Shit! Come here, princess. We need to put some cold water on it.”
Chase swiftly turns off the hob and lifts me onto the counter next to the sink
. He finds a clean kitchen towel that he drenches in cold water at the sink before wringing out the excess water and coming close to place it just above my left breast, where a red, angry welt is starting to appear.
He’s standing between my legs, with one hand holding the wet towel to my skin and the other cupping my jaw as he whispers soothing words into my ear.
My body immediately reacts to his touch and I feel my need for Chase pulsating violently between my legs as I’m a captive of his dark blue gaze again.
“Is it any better?” His breath tickles the sensitive skin of my neck and I’m sure that Chase can feel my heart beating furiously against his hand, through the wet towel he’s still pressing on my skin.
“Yes, thank you. The cold towel feels good.”
He drags his lips over my temple in a kiss that could be brotherly if his lips didn’t linger on my skin.
The sound of steps approaching the kitchen makes Chase begin to move away but when Parker and Bryce enter the room, he’s still standing between my legs.
“Kaya, are you ok?”
We explain how I got burned and while Parker and Bryce don’t look angry, their eyes are fixed on Chase’s hand still on my breast and I don’t miss the look they exchange between them.
The air is thick with tension and I’m almost tempted to say something but the sound of new steps makes me instinctively scoot back on the counter, farther from my stepbrother, just before Mom and Dustin step into the kitchen.
Chase immediately steps away, going to the sink and busying himself by wetting the towel with more cold water.
I explain what happened as Dustin’s eyes keep darting between me and his son. “You must be careful, kiddo. And Chase, you should know better, if you guys wanted a cup of tea, ask the housekeeper. This is why we have house staff. Anyway Karen keeps some burn gel in the emergency kit, let’s put some on the birthday girl and then go to the conservatory. We have a little surprise for dinner.”
Kaya
THE SURPRISE IS ACTUALLY amazing: Dustin got a wood fired oven installed in the conservatory and there’s a guy in a white chef coat preparing the dough for several pizzas.
“We know how much Kaya loves proper Italian pizza, so I got a pizza oven installed here and one at the summer house in Star Cove. Massimiliano here has prepared bases for lots of pizzas and left us a recipe to make our own dough in the future. He’ll cook the pizza tonight but we thought it would be fun to top our own pizzas.”
I squeal in delight and hug Mom and Dustin and then proceed to bombard the chef with a ton of questions about dough hydration and fermentation. My dad was stationed in Sicily for a while and that was the best pizza I’ve ever had, hands down. So I’ve been researching the way to make the perfect dough for years.
The pizza is absolutely delicious and dinner as informal as one could hope with an English Lord at the table.
Mom is delighted that I was selected to pledge the Zetas and she starts reminiscing about her initiation into the sorority. The picture she and Rena paint about their antics when they were our age helps me understand why Mom was so eager for me to become a Zeta.
Especially when she bitterly remarks that her only regret is getting too serious too fast with my dad and not living her college experience to the fullest.
The look on my face must make her feel guilty because she immediately backtracks and apologizes. “Baby girl, don’t take this the wrong way, please. Yes, I regret getting married to your dad and doing it too young but I could never regret having you. Please understand that.”
And I do. Mom and I have had our differences, especially when it came to Marc last summer when Mom felt that I was leading him on but I’ve never questioned the fact that she loves me. She might not be perfect all the time, but who is? She’s always been a loving parent and she’s always been there for me, so I’ll always listen to what she has to say but I’ll make my own decisions. I love her but I’m no pushover and Mom knows that.
I look at Bryce and Parker and feel Chase’s gaze on me and my thoughts go to them and to the difficult conversation I need to have.
I can’t help but hope that I’ll be able to talk to them later and that my boys will forgive me and accept my feelings for Chase. The fact that our parents would never accept our love saddens me but I know that there’s no way to make them change their minds. I accept the fact that we’ll have to hide the true nature of our relationship. But I can no longer lie to Bryce and Parker, they don’t deserve it.
After dinner we watch a couple of movies and this time there are no arguments about the choice of what we’ll watch because I call birthday girl dibs. Even if my actual birthday is tomorrow and I’ll have to wait for my cake until then. Tonight we get ice cream and that’s the perfect complement to the chick flicks I chose.
I sit between Bryce and Parker feeling a little on edge about the idea of talking to them later and I wish that we had no guests and I didn’t have to wait until everyone has retired to their rooms for the night.
So when the two sets of parents and Reid announce that they’re just about done watching girly movies, I let out an over the top yawn and agree that it’s bedtime.
Mom throws an intense look at me and Bryce. Before college started, she asked me out right if Bryce and I were sleeping together and I told her the truth, that we hadn’t taken the final step yet. She wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being pressured and I reassured her that Bryce was a perfect gentleman. I obviously couldn’t open up about that night with Chase.
“Bloody hell mate, your twin is an old fart. I really want to make him my deputy but he needs to give me something to work with, or I’ll have to go with Hoyt.” Oliver says shaking his head. “What do you guys say, shall we go out somewhere? Find a club or somewhere to get the real party started?” He proposes.
“I’d be up for it.” Valeria nods giving Chase and Parker a lusty once over and I think ‘yeah you’d like that, bitch’. But I yawn again and say that I’m really tired and that I couldn’t possibly party again so soon after last night.
“Very well. Let’s be good then and go to bed, so we’ll have more energy for the actual birthday tomorrow. Good night, Kaya.” He walks up to me and drops his head, kissing my cheekbone and whispering in my ear. “Don’t think that I’ve forgotten about that birthday kiss, darling. I’ll be dreaming about you.”
7.
Can You Keep A Secret?
Kaya
“HEY K, ARE YOU COLD?”
Parker wraps a strong arm around my shoulders and his warmth immediately seeps from his body to mine.
I should’ve brought a jacket with me but when I texted Parker and Bryce asking them to meet me later on the beach, I didn’t think about the late summer breeze that feels a lot cooler than just a few weeks ago. Especially once the sun is gone.
I also texted Chase and he’ll join us for what I think might be the most difficult conversation I’ve ever had to have in my nineteen years.
So I’m sure that the chilly breeze isn’t the only reason why I’m shivering right now.
Parker looks at his watch and beams at me, his eyes sparkling silver under the eco-lights that illuminate the beach. “It’s midnight. Happy birthday.” He brushes my lips with his and our kiss soon becomes deeper and hotter than the initial, gentle peck we started with.
But I’m really on edge, worried about how the boys will take what I have to say and Parker knows me pretty well by now. He feels my agitation and he breaks the kiss.
Our noses are touching and his gaze is probing when he asks me what’s wrong.
I’d really prefer to wait for Bryce to begin this conversation, I know that it’s gonna be fucking hard to say what I have to say even just once but the worry in Parker’s eyes encourages me to take the plunge.
“Are you breaking up with me, K? With me and Bryce? Is this why you asked us here?”
“What? No! Not at all, Parker. I love you and I want to stop being friends with benefits. I want to put a fucking l
abel on our relationship because I’m in love with you. Both of you.”
His lips touch mine again but this time it’s fleeting, as if he couldn’t resist sealing what he has to say with a kiss. “I love you too, Kaya. It was fucking love at first sight, you know? I never believed in it until I saw you and I knew. So yes, of course I want to be your boyfriend. Bryce too. I know he’s as crazy about you as I am.”
All I would like right now is to kiss him and tell him that I feel exactly the same way but I can’t let myself enjoy this moment until I tell him my truth.
“Look Parker, I was gonna wait for Bryce to get here but there’s something I have to tell you. And I’ll understand if after you hear it, you’ll want to change your mind about our relationship. Just please know that I never meant to lie to you or to hurt you.”
And I tell him everything. How I’ve always been in love with both my stepbrothers, how our parents expect us to be just siblings and how that made Chase and Reid pull away from me three years ago.
I tell him about the agony of being ignored by them and of not knowing why, until that fateful night when Chase beat Marc for spreading false rumors about me.
I feel like a right coward but I can’t bear to look him in the eyes when I get to the part where I slept with Chase. My voice breaks when I explain why I didn’t say anything to them and how it’s been killing me to keep such a secret from them.
Parker doesn’t say anything for a few moments that feel like years, each of my heartbeats is pounding in my ears so loudly that I think they must be able to hear it in the house.
“Kaya, it wasn’t a secret. You and Chase, I mean.”
I dare to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t?”
“No, it wasn’t. At least not to me and Parker,” Bryce’s voice comes from behind me and I see him walking up to me, flanked by Chase. “I knew from the start that Chase was into you. He almost chewed my head off at the beginning of the summer, when I told him that I liked you.”
Illicit (Perfect for them Book 2) Page 6
