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"You want a drink?" I asked finally.
In spite of my lingering hangover, I desperately needed some alcohol. Kyle Richards, my ex-stepbrother from hell, was standing in my foyer.
"Hell yeah," Kyle said under his breath and followed me to the kitchen. "You know I never say no to a drink."
"That hasn't changed?" I asked, looking through my liquor cabinet. I bypassed the tequila, vowing to pour it down the drain later.
"That hasn't changed." Kyle sat on one of my barstools and looked around my orderly, thoroughly updated kitchen. "Looks like you've done well for yourself. Maybe having your nose stuck in a book for so many years was a good idea after all."
I sighed and leaned back against the counter. I was exhausted. First the video, then my mother, and now Kyle. I felt as if someone had let all the air out of my tires.
"Does this look like a happy ending to you?" I asked, motioning to him and me and the bottle of Belvedere between us. "It's four o'clock. We're drinking hard liquor. I have to go to a designer sneaker event in two hours because I puked on a police officer's shoes last night. And someone filmed it. And it went viral. And I have to fix it somehow."
I opened the bottle and made two very tall vodka and tonics. "And you're my escort. I hired you to help rehabilitate my downward-spiraling image. And you're my stepbrother." I cackled uncontrollably and took a big swig of my drink. "So I don't think I've actually done that well for myself."
"Well, when you put it that way…" Kyle watched me from across the marble island.
It was disconcerting to see him as a grown man. He'd always been tall, but the last time I'd seen him, which was almost eight years ago, he'd been much thinner. He used to eat all the time, but he never gained a pound. That was just one of the many things about him that had annoyed me.
"So then there's me," Kyle said.
I realized then he'd been watching my face while I checked him out from head to toe. I felt that hot, ugly blush creep up my neck again, but I ignored it, along with the cocky look on his face.
"Yes—you. How'd you end up in southern California, working as a male escort?" I grimaced. I didn't mean to be so blunt—it just slipped out.
When I was alone later, I would slap myself across the face. Hard.
"I moved down here last year. The surfing's better. And I ended up being an escort—a high-end escort, mind you," he said, "about two months ago. My father cut me off, and I couldn't pay my bills anymore."
I watched his face. "You couldn't do something else? Like wait tables? Or be an office assistant or something?"
"Unfortunately, I'm not in possession of that many transferable skills," Kyle said, the cocky look leaving his face. "I never went to college. I barely finished high school, if you remember. And as for work… it's not like I have an ex
tensive resume. And without my father's contacts, I only had a whole lot of nothing to fall back on."
The truth was, Kyle had probably never worked a day in his life before becoming an escort. From what I'd heard, he'd lived off of his father's vast fortune—the part remaining after his ugly divorce from my mother—until now. Kyle was always surfing and partying, living the good life in northern California. That was where we'd all lived as one big, unhappy family. His father, Pierce Richards, had a technology company that had been bought by Google. Then he'd started another company that was bought by Facebook.
My mother had really enjoyed spending Pierce Richards's money. Pierce Richards himself? She'd enjoyed him much, much less.
"So my only transferable skills really are this"—he motioned to his face—"and this." He motioned to the rest of his body. "I gave my boss's wife a surfing lesson, and she told me about AccommoDating. She said they wanted to recruit men for the business. I said I was interested, and Elena—she's the owner—came out to the beach that day and hired me on the spot. Apparently male escorts are a growing sector of the industry. I get paid pretty well." He shrugged.
"And all you have to do is have sex?" I asked.
He took a sip of his drink. "Sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes I go to dinner with my client, or we go hiking… sometimes they like to talk. Some of the women are just lonely. But yeah, once they see me, they usually want to have sex with me." He stared at me. "Okay, they always want to have sex with me."
And who could blame them? I wondered, looking at his bulging biceps and massive chest. The worst was his face. He was just so handsome, he looked as if he might almost be… nice. In any event, he was so handsome a person would definitely wish he was nice, so that he could be her real-life boyfriend. Forever.
I clenched my fists. I was really looking forward to that self-slap later. "And do you… like your job?"
Kyle shook his head. "Of course not. It's uncomfortable. But I'm hoping to make enough money off this assignment with you that I can quit. Then I can maybe go back to school."
I took another sip of my drink. "Kyle, this assignment's not gonna happen. You cannot be my pretend boyfriend. You're my stepbrother."
"I'm your ex-stepbrother. And besides, nobody but you and I know that."
"They'll find out. Your dad's a Silicon Valley executive. I'm a Hollywood actress. You're a bad-boy-surfer-playboy-trust-funder escort. They'll find out everything. This"—I pointed at him then back at me—"is a no-go."
My phone beeped. It was a text from Shirley: PR on its way.
