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Great. So not only was my new stepfather going to hold this secret over my head for the rest of my life, but as punishment, I’d end up destitute again. My head was reeling and I fumbled for the control on the side of my seat, leaning it all the way back as I tried my hardest not to faint.
“Fuck,” I muttered, closing my eyes as everything began to spin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”
The car stopped. Preston reached over. He took my hands.
“Maddy, look at me.”
I gave the slightest shake of my head. I needed a moment to breathe. I could feel my chest tightening, and there was a steadily growing ache in my jaw. I realized I was grinding my teeth.
“Maddy,” he said again. This time, his voice was far more commanding. “Look at me.”
Trembling, I did as I was told. All the tension in my body faded away as I stared into my stepbrother’s glittering blue eyes.
“I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you,” he whispered, stroking my knuckles with his thumb. “I made a choice tonight. I never realized how worthless my father’s approval was until I had it, or what it meant until tonight. The man has no soul, Maddy. He ruins the lives of everyone he surrounds himself with. I thought being like him would make me untouchable, but all it’s done is make me just as empty and miserable as he is.”
I remained silent, staring up at him as he grasped my hands tighter. His palms were so warm. I could feel his pulse radiating through them as he said, “I never would have realized any of that without you. The idea of losing you terrifies me. For the first time in my life, I’m… feeling something, not just playing a part. Whatever we have between us, however wrong it is—it’s real.”
He lifted one of his hands from mine and brought it to my face, lightly sweeping his fingers against my cheek. I leaned into his touch, savoring the comfort it brought. How had I gone from despising my soon-to-be stepbrother to feeling safe with him in just a few short weeks? How had I opened my heart to him despite knowing that it could never, ever work?
“Come upstairs with me,” he said gently. “Stay at my place tonight. I don’t want to be alone.”
I blinked up at him slowly. “But I thought you didn’t trust being in your office anymore?”
“I don’t,” Preston answered. He reached over and fiddled with my seat controls, adjusting them until I was sitting up. “I want you to stay with me in my home.”
I looked up past the gate at the villa beyond. It was absolutely breathtaking. More than that, it looked like a fortress—someplace we could both rest and hide away from the rest of the world until we were ready to face it again.
“Yes,” I told him, unable to tear my eyes away from his beautiful home. “I’ll stay.”
“Good,” he said, finally pulling up to the wrought iron gate. As it opened, he added, “We have a lot to figure out.”
Preston’s housekeeper had retired to her one-bedroom suite on the grounds for the evening, so it was just the two of us in his grand estate. Though he had done his best to calm me in the car, my knees were still shaking and I could feel panic squeezing my chest. He suggested I use his master bathroom to relax, and I couldn’t say no to that.
I leaned back in his whirlpool tub, sighing softly as I piled my hair on the side. The water was nearly scalding hot, perfect for releasing all the aches and pains that had built in my strained muscles. I could feel myself slipping away already, the frustration and confusion receding as I lay my head on the built-in neck support, letting myself float weightless in the bath. A moment later I heard Preston enter and I opened my eyes to see him extending a glass of champagne.
“Here,” he said. “You look like you need it.”
I nodded and sighed as I took it from him, bringing it to my lips. This was the good stuff, not the fifteen-dollar bottles I’d picked up from the grocery store once or twice back when I’d been in charge of ExecuSpace’s company parties. Those days seemed so far away now. I’d been shrouded in opulence for so long that I could barely remember what it was like to struggle. Had I become my mother?
I didn’t realize I’d said that last part out loud.
Preston’s eyes darkened as he looked down at me. “No, Maddy,” he said, sitting on the edge of the tub. “You’re nothing like Vivian. Don’t you ever think that. Okay?”
I smiled at him thinly and took another sip of my champagne. I wasn’t in the mood to argue. “What do we do now?”
He rolled up his sleeves and sighed, kicking his shoes across the bathroom floor. Then he reached into the water and pulled my wet feet into his lap, soaking his slacks as he massaged along my arches with exquisite care. I moaned and sank into the water, purring like a kitten as my Preston worked my soles.
“I’m not giving into my father’s demands,” he said, gently stretching and rubbing each of my toes. I nearly swooned. “We’ll find a way out of this. It may have to be extreme, but if you’re willing to go for it, then so am I.”
I opened my eyes. “What exactly are you proposing?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure yet. But it may involve withdrawing everything from my account and starting all over someplace new. Would you be willing to do that with me, if it came down to it?”
I sat up a little, studying his face. “Are things that serious between us?”
Preston shrugged. “They could be. I don’t know. But that’s a last resort. In the meantime, I can simply say I’m not interested in being a larger part of Harvey Enterprises until his plans for the future include you, too. Maybe there’s still time for me to change things from the inside—hold his feet to the fire over this. I am his only heir, and the only one who knows enough about the family business to take it over once he’s out of the picture. Without me, the board would cut this company to shreds and dine on its carcass.”
“Do you think that’s enough leverage?” I asked him. “And what about my mom?”
“That’s up to you,” he told me, gliding his fingers up my ankles and calves. “What do you want to do about that?”
I pursed my lips in thought. On one hand, Preston’s father manipulating my mother for his own gains didn’t sit well with me. She was a terrible person, sure enough, but did she deserve to be used and lied to like that?
On the other hand, didn’t she sort of have this coming? I couldn’t say that out loud, of course, but my mother had been more awful than ever since she and Mr. Harvey had hooked up. It might serve as some kind of sick vindication to tell her the truth: that she was no more special to him than any other woman who would silently put up with his shit.
“I’m not sure,” I said at last. “If it were me, I know I’d want to know. But my mother isn’t me. In fact, she isn’t most people. I’m not sure she’s even human.” I sucked in a sharp breath as Preston fondled the very sensitive backs of my knees. “I can’t say with any certainty that she wouldn’t blame me for this, somehow, or that she might turn a blind eye and accuse me of lying to ruin her happily ever after. She might just write me off as jealous and tell your father to make your life hell until you got rid of me, or something.”
Preston smiled. “That’s not going to happen,” he told
me as he slowly crawled into the tub.
“Preston!” I shrieked, watching his clothes stick to his body. His white button-down clung to his hard, muscular chest, revealing the tone of his skin beneath, and I laughed as he prowled toward me. “You’re getting soaked!”
“So are you,” he breathed against one of my nipples cresting the surface of the water. Then he bent his head down and took it between his teeth, gently laving it with his tongue as he nibbled and sucked and made me sigh.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered. “We’re getting ourselves into so much trouble…”
Preston didn’t seem to care about that. He only grasped my opposite breast with his hand, crushing it between his fingers as he drew his body up against mine and parted my legs with his hips.
“It’s worth it,” he assured me, inspiring chills up and down my spine. I slipped my arms around him, running my dripping fingers through his hair as he pressed his growing erection against my slit under the water. “Bend over the side, Maddy, while I turn on these jets.”
I blushed but did as I was told. After the day we’d had, I needed Preston inside of me. With just a gentle touch, he’d brought me to this place again, a place where no one and nothing mattered more than the man of my dreams claiming me. It didn’t matter that some silly piece of paper might complicate our lives. Stepbrother or not, I was going to do this.
He helped me up onto my knees and turned me around, my back against his chest as I gripped the high edge of the tub. I pressed my stomach against it, my heaving breasts hanging over the side as Preston spread me with his knee, my pussy positioned right against the place the jet would bubble up from.
I stuck out my ass and rubbed it against his swelling crotch, moaning as he continued to tantalize my nipples with his fingertips. Then he drew one hand away, reached over, and turned on the control for the jets, and I threw my head back in utter bliss as the one I was straddling pounded perfectly against my clit.
