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No, that was something better not discussed, not thought about. Forgetting was easier said than done though. My nightmares were still full of blood and masks.
"I have to go into town anyway." Mannix shrugged. There was that look again, like somehow he thought I was making him drive.
"I don't want to be a hassle—" I started.
Mannix put his coffee cup down on the bench hard enough to make me jump. He smirked. Apparently making me startle was hilarious and intentional.
Asshole.
"Like I said, I'm going anyway. If you want a ride, you have five minutes." He scooped up his cup and put it in the dishwasher.
"Five minutes sounds accurate," I told him as I put my bowl and mug in the dishwasher beside his cup. I gave him a sweet smile when he scowled at me.
"It would still be the best five minutes of your life." He gave me a dark look and strode away toward the garage.
"Dream on," I said under my breath. He might be hot, and sexy, and the thought of him touching me set my blood on fire, but he was still a jerk and my stepbrother-to-be.
I hurried off to change into leggings and a loose T-shirt. I shoved my feet into running shoes and trotted down the stairs as Mannix backed the SUV out of the garage. I thought he might drive off without me, but he stopped long enough for me to slip into the passenger seat. I barely got the door closed before he gunned the engine and flew down the gravel driveway. I managed to drag my seatbelt over me and click it into place before he braked heavily and waited for the gate to open.
"Thanks for offering to drive me." Maybe if I was nice to him, he'd be less of a dick back to me.
A girl could hope, right?
"If I hadn't, Dad would have spent my inheritance buying you a car," he said.
"I never would have expected him to do that."
"He'd still do it, whether you expect it or not." He accelerated hard and the SUV jumped past the gate and onto the road.
I sighed because he was probably right, but I couldn't help that.
"I don't want his money or yours," I said firmly. "I can make my own money. I don't need to live off a parent or stepparent." Wasn't he doing exactly that? Daddy gave him a job. Leo probably brought him this SUV. He got to live in a mansion and be a jerk all day with his asshole friends.
Mannix snorted with disbelief. "So if we get home and one of those cute little bright pink cars with a pretty little pink ribbon around it was there, you're gonna say no to it?"
Pink wasn't my favourite colour, but it would be difficult to refuse a gift like that. "I don't—"
"Of course you're not going to fucking say no," he snarled. "Girls like you don't get anywhere if they say no."
I glared over at him. "What's that supposed to mean? If you're trying to suggest I haven't worked hard at university, or at—"
He cut off a white van and flipped the driver off out the window. "Learn to drive, dickhead."
He glanced over at me. "I'm saying girls like you want to say yes. You get off on making people happy. Don't tell me I'm wrong, because we both know I'm not."
He wasn't wrong. But was it bad to be a people pleaser?
"What does that make you?" I asked. "The kind of guy who gets off on telling people no for no reason? Who won't give an inch, even if it's in your best interest to do it?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. It's better than being a pushover."
"Is it?" I challenged him. "Seems like being a nice person makes life easier for everyone, especially myself."
"An easy life is an illusion. The world is a shit hole. No amount of nice is going to change that, it just gets you screwed over." He seemed to be speaking from experience.
"Who hurt you?" I asked. "Aren't you a bit young to be that cynical?"
He stopped the SUV at a traffic light and cut me a look and a bitter smile. "I'm not cynical, I'm a realist. The universe isn't sitting there waiting to give you what you want. The only way to really get what you want and what you need is to fucking take it. That's why if Dad gives you a car, you'll accept. Even if the car comes with a blowjob."
