Protection: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (13 page)

T
hree hours later
, I’ve been proven perfectly right. This day just keeps getting worse and worse and all I fucking want is to go upstairs and be alone.

When I get back downstairs, fifty or sixty people have shown up for the rehearsal dinner, and we have the hotel restaurant to ourselves. Everyone is seated at big group tables, but it seems loosely organized, so people are mingling and introducing themselves.

I look for the two women sure to make me miserable for the whole weekend; both of them are doing exactly what I expected of them.
Lucky me
.

Rose is already fucking drunk and making kind of a scene about a waiter bringing her the wrong drink.

“I said gin and tonic. This is a vodka tonic. Are you some kind of idiot?” she asks the red-faced man as she shoves it toward him. “Get me. Another. Drink.”

Elly, true to form, has found some blond guy to flirt with. She’s wearing this short, sparkly dress and keeps crossing and uncrossing her long bare legs, drawing looks from every single male in the room.

I can’t blame them.

There is a reason Elly was a starlet; her charisma is off the fucking charts. Plus, she’s hot enough to drive all the fucking rational thought right from your head.

I would fucking know.

If the guy notices that she keeps sending me heated, contemptuous looks, he doesn’t seem a bit upset about it. My fists clench, and I have a very satisfying fantasy about punching him in his stupid clean-cut fucking prep-school looking face.

Before I can get drawn into that bullshit, though, my dad pulls me aside to talk to me. He’s had a few drinks. He smells like Scotch, and his suit jacket is long gone, sleeves rolled up. We’ve only just made it through the buffet-style dinner, so he might want to ease off, but it’s not my place to say so.

“Can you try to contain your sister?” he asks. Blunt, as always.

“No.” I cross my arms. “We’ve talked about this. You want to enable her, fine. But I am not her damn babysitter.”

My dad presses two fingertips to his temple, giving me an aggravated look.

“You could at least pretend you care.”

“I do care. I’m the one trying to—” I stop, raising a hand. “I don’t want to fight tonight. But no, I’m not going near her if I have the choice.”

And god help her if she lays into Elly…

“I trust you’ll do what needs doing if things go south.”

I glance at Rose, who is now standing at the bar, belittling the bartender. I make a noncommittal sound, which is more than I should do.

“About the wedding,” my dad’s saying. “Taylor was supposed to be my best man, but he’s been sidetracked by a family emergency. I need you to stand in for him.”

“Um… what does that entail?” I ask, shifting uncomfortably.

“You hold the ring, you stand up there with us—”

“Is Elly in the wedding?” I ask.

My dad gives me a
duh
look.

“Of course she is.”

“Yeah, we can’t be photographed together in the wedding.”

“What?” My dad looks startled.

“I told you, part of my contract working for her stipulates that we act as a couple. If the press finds out that you and Elly’s mom are getting married, there will be hell to pay. You can see how that would look.”

My dad pauses, frowning.

“I hadn’t considered that.”

“The wedding’s early afternoon, right?” I ask, and he nods. “I can probably keep Rose sober enough long enough to stand up there with you.”

My dad heaves a sigh. Even he knows that this isn’t a good idea.

“Up to you,” I say with a shrug.

Across the room, Rose’s voice rises to overtake the room’s attention. She’s standing between the pissed-off looking bartender and what I assume is a manager, both of whom seem to be trying to herd her away from the bar.

“My mother
died
,” she howls. “My husband
died
. Who the hell are you to tell me I can’t have a fucking
drink
if I want one?”

“God damn it,” my dad and I say in unison.

“This is why she needs to be in rehab,” I growl as we both walk toward Rose.

“She did Betty Ford twice,” my dad hisses.

“She needs to go to that six month place in Mexico.”

“And who’s going to make her go?”

I glare at him, but there’s no time to get into it.

“Don’t call me
ma’am
!” Rose shrieks, flailing as the two men try to corral her. “You don’t fucking know me! Take your hands off me—”

“Rose, calm down,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her, holding her arms down so she doesn’t slap anyone. “You are making a scene.”

“Oh, it’s
you
,” Rose shouts. Her voice is getting hysterical. “Don’t touch me, Connor. I don’t
need
you. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a great job,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Please stop embarrassing me.”

“What, your new girlfriend can’t handle it? Huh? Where is she? Where is she, Connor? Pretty pop star girlfriend, means you can just abandon your own sister…”

“Okay,” I say, picking her up like a sack of potatoes. “You’re getting locked in your hotel room. I assume you’ve already cleaned out your own minibar.”

“Fuck you!” Rose screams. “Fuck you, Connor Gray! You’re a fucking bastard!”

She kicks and hits me as hard as she can, fighting like a wet cat and wailing like a banshee.

“I need her keycard,” I tell my dad. He grabs it from where she left it on the table, and I take it wordlessly. This isn’t our first time going through one of Rose’s tantrums. Far, far from it.

Ignoring the crowd, all of whom are now watching my every move, I carry Rose straight out and take her upstairs. By the time we’re in the elevator, she’s stopped hitting me. Once I’m on her hall, she’s dissolved into angry tears.

“I’m sorry. Connor, I’m sorry!” she tries as I use the keycard to open her door.

“Too late,” I say, walking in and depositing her on the bed. “You’re in lockdown now. You know the drill.”

I stop and check her mini-fridge.
Yep, empty.

“Connor, wait—”

“Go to sleep, Rose. I’ll be outside.”

When I step out into the hall, my dad is waiting with two metal folding chairs.

“Thanks,” I grunt. I unfold them both and jam one under the doorknob of Rose’s door. No chance of escape for her, not tonight. I wave off my dad’s concern. “Go ahead, I got this.”

He pauses, looking conflicted.

“It’s your wedding weekend,” I point out. “Go be with Lacy.”

After another moment, he nods.

“You’re a good son,” he says. “And a good brother.”

I shrug and sit down in the second folding chair. As if on cue, the second my dad walks away Rose begins to rattle the door knob, trying to get out.

“Go to sleep, Rose!” I holler through the door.

“Bastard!” she wails, slurring. “You can’t keep me here! I have to
go
!”

I know the feeling, sis. I wish I was anywhere but here.

I close my eyes and lean back, ignoring her. The chair gets uncomfortable quick, so I sit on the floor with my back up against the wall. I rub my temples and neck, trying to relieve the furious tension headache that’s brewing in my muscles and brain.

Eventually Rose goes quiet. Passed out, hopefully. Hard to tell, though. She’s crazy fucking tricky. I can’t leave her here with the chair under her door, in case there’s a fire or something. But I’d rather sit here and be miserable than face the prospect of chasing Rose down again an hour from now.

And let’s be honest, I don’t really want to face those people downstairs either. All those pitying faces, giving me sympathetic looks. If they knew that my mom was exactly the same, that I grew up with this same shit and I’m just used to it…

Yeah, that’s the only way that this could be worse.

My head starts to pound and my mouth goes dry.

I genuinely don’t want to answer their questions or make small talk. Not anymore, not tonight. When the elevator doors open a while later, I hold my breath, hoping it’s not some long lost cousin or something who will want to stop and chat.

To my complete surprise, it’s fucking Elly. Followed by some way-too-young guy in a suit. Has she seriously come up here to flaunt her shitty hookup? I can’t fucking believe her right now.

I don’t need this shit.

I squeeze my eyes shut and rub my face.

I don’t think I can do this right now.

“Connor?” Elly says.

I glance up and she’s standing over me, looking worried.

“Yeah,” is all I can come up with. I glance at her date. Damn, he’s young. What the hell is Elly doing?

“Con,” she says, kneeling next to me. “You don’t look good. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing at my neck. “I just have a headache.”

Every muscle is tense and knotted, and I’m starting to really hurt here. Still, I don’t want Elly’s fucking help right now.

I want her out of my fucking face.

“Con, this is my little cousin Grant,” Elly says. She takes my hand, surprising me with the gentleness of her voice and touch. “Your dad said that you can’t leave Rose alone. So I asked Grant if I could pay him to sit here outside her door?”

I have no response to that, she’s shocked me so thoroughly. Elly bites her lip, giving me an anxious look.

“He can’t control Rose,” I say after a minute.

“No, but he can call us if she gets up.” Elly glances at Rose’s door. “Honey, she’s not going anywhere. Come on, let’s get you to bed, okay?”

I give a grunt of laughter when little five-foot-nothing Elly tries to help me to my feet. I make it up okay, wincing when I feel a wave of nausea.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I ask. “I feel… sick.”

“I think you might be having a migraine,” Elly says, guiding me to the elevator. “My mom gets them sometimes, this seems pretty similar.”

I just nod, closing my eyes while we go up the elevator. Elly takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and leads me down to my room.

“I don’t have my key,” I mumble.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, unlocking her room and taking me inside.

The first thing she does is turn off the lights, which is an immediate relief.

“Let’s get you undressed, okay?” she says.

I’m too tweaked out on my own pain to do much but nod. She strips me down with the lightest touch and then presses me down onto the bed, pulling the comforter up over me. She closes the curtains.

“I’ll be right back,” she says.

A second or an hour or ten years later, Elly gives me a gentle pat on the arm.

“Con,” she whispers. “I need you to take this pill, okay? It’s going to make your migraine go away and help you sleep.”

I sit up and dutifully take the pill she gives me, swallowing some water from a glass she holds. I lie back down, miserable. Elly moves around for a minute, then it’s quiet. I am pretty sure she’s sitting in a chair across from the bed, watching me.

“El?” I ask.

“Yeah? You need something?”

“Nah. Will you lay with me?”

She’s quiet, but soon I feel her lie down next to me. I’m on my side and she curls up around me, making herself the big spoon. It’s comforting beyond rational thought.

She strokes my shoulders, rubs my neck in soft circles, runs the tips of her nails over my back in lazy figure eights. It relaxes me, makes me happy.

I’m never fucking
happy
.

The way she’s touching me, the way I feel right now…

I feel…

I force myself to go to sleep before I can finish the thought.

“
S
mile
!”

I feel like my face is going to break just from doing two hours’ worth of posed and candid wedding photos. It’s been an elaborate runaround for Elly and me, because we have to avoid being caught in an intimate photo together — anything that could hint our two very different
relationships
.

So we’ve gone through the whole wedding ceremony and the better part of the reception without really talking. Truth be told, I had my hands full babysitting Rose. Elly seemed busy attending to her mother, playing the doting Maid of Honor. That was the difference between Elly and me; I helped Rose out of guilt, where Elly helped her mother because it made her mother happy.

What is it like to care for someone like that, even after they’ve done you wrong again and again?
My gaze slides over to Rose and I frown.

Earlier in the day, I watched as Elly greased the photog’s palm with a few hundred dollar bills before the wedding even started, but something about the cameraman rubbed me the wrong way. I usually trust my gut in matters like this.

This guy was definitely not to be fucking trusted, not for a second.

Thus began several hours of ducking the camera and giving Elly weird hand signals to keep her out of trouble in the form of photos. It really was too bad, because Elly looked absolutely stunning in a floor-length velvet gown just the color of fresh green buds on a vine. Her hair was styled in an elaborate braided updo, her lips painted a shade of red that made my lust stir again and again.

I couldn’t help but wish I could get a single private photo of us — Elly in her dress and her heels, me in the tux she’d picked out. My hand on her waist, Elly leaning into me. Just like we were a normal couple—

Stop
, a warning bell thunders in my head.
That’s never going to happen. Don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment
.

Still, when I saw his chance to get close to her later in the evening, I couldn’t resist.

I sidled up behind Elly during the reception to whisper in her ear. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” she asked, jumping and giving a startled laugh.

“All this posed smiling is killing my soul.”

“Ah. It takes some getting used to,” Elly said, sipping her champagne.

I shrug and sip my bourbon. “For people who want to get used to that life.”

Her lips pull down for a second, but she doesn’t argue.

“Rose is being really well behaved,” she says instead.

“Yep. It’s got me fantasizing about the way she might be after she gets out of rehab,” I say with a nod.

Elly’s brows arch. “Yeah? No offense, but that sounds like kind of a tough sell.”

I smirk.

“I found a place that will take people against their will, let you institutionalize them.”

Elly’s mouth opens, but she’s too surprised to answer right away.

“Where?” she asks after a second.

“Mexico. You get them on the plane, you call ahead, the place shows up and picks them up from the airport in a van. It’s not pretty, but…”

“Oh, Connor. I don’t know. That sounds… I don’t even know.”

I swirl the ice in my glass.

“My mom died in a drunk driving accident,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry.” The way she frowns, I can tell that she doesn’t know the whole story.

“She was a crazy alcoholic, just like Rose. She was in and out of rehab my whole childhood, wild and unreliable. Mean, a lot of the time. My dad caught her hitting me one day, told her to pack a suitcase, she was going to stay with her parents until she straightened herself out.”

I pause, blowing out a breath. “She snuck out and took the car, drove to the nearest bar, and drank herself almost into a coma. Then she drove out toward the ocean on the Pacific Coast Highway. That’s where they found her, what was left of her.”

Elly bites her lip and glances around. I can see the tears glinting in her eyes as she flings her arms around me, giving me a hug intended to comfort. But there’s no healing some wounds, not even with Elly’s unique brand of affection.

They just have to heal on their own, with time… if only I would let them.

“Thanks,” I say when she presses a kiss to my lips and then steps back.

Just as she’s stepping away, the camera flashes. I turn on the photog in a heartbeat, grabbing him by the lapel of his cheap suit.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I snarl.

“I know a juicy story when I see one,” he says with a shrug. “And I also recognize a pop star and her boyfriend.”

“That’s it, you’re out of here.”

I turn him and frog-march him outside the hotel, making sure to take his fancy digital camera and delete the couple of photos he got of me and Elly. They’re not even vaguely incriminating, but I’m nothing if not thorough.

I also toss his pockets, hoping to get Elly’s cash back, but no luck.

“If I see your face again, I’m gonna rearrange it with my fists,” I tell the guy. “Get to moving.”

I toss his camera back to him and point toward the parking lot. He shrugs and turns to leave. I watch him get in his car, then turn to the hotel’s valet.

“I want to know if that guy comes back,” I say, pulling out my wallet and handing him some cash and my business card with my cell number on it. “He’s not welcome back to the party. Call me if you see him, first thing.”

“Sure, sure,” the guy says eagerly.

I head back inside and find Elly waiting for me in the lobby, hands on her hips.

“It’s not a good idea to aggravate people with cameras,” she chides me.

“It’s not a good idea for him to hassle me,” I tell her mildly. “Let’s go back in and get another drink, huh?”

She takes my elbow, linking her arm with mine, and we saunter to the bar. Rose has vanished entirely, and I can’t bring myself to worry about her. Dad and Lacy are slow dancing together at one end of the dance floor, though the band has packed up and now it’s just pop music coming out of the hotel’s sound system.

The whole wedding party has thinned out, so now it’s mostly drunk younger guests flirting and sipping the last of the champagne. Elly and I head to the bar and get a final drink, tipping the worn out-looking bartender handsomely. We lean our backs against the bar as he cleans up the bar, watching the party’s final moments.

“I wish we could dance together, just one dance,” Elly says wistfully.

I knock back my whiskey and look around.

“Here,” I say. “Come with me.”

I lead her across the restaurant, to the back hallway where the coat check and restrooms are. Elly giggles as I lead her into the coat check room, basically a walk-in closet with one of those swinging half-doors that’s open on the top, letting the music in.

“Don’t say I never take you anywhere special,” I tease her. She rolls her eyes but takes my hand when I offer it and sweep her into my arms, pulling her close and leading her in a slow dance.

It’s sweet at first, but of course it’s me and Elly, so it turns heated after a couple of minutes. Pretty soon her lips are pressed against mine and she’s in my arms, I’m pulling her dress up to her hips and pushing her up against the wall, my fingers teasing her clit through her panties as I think about taking her right here amongst the coats.

Just as I’ve got her right on the edge, as I’m trying to decide between unzipping right here and now or somehow getting Elly upstairs to her hotel room, that’s when the camera flashes.

The fucking photog came back. I look right at him, deer in the headlights, and he sneers. Elly and I both freeze, caught red-handed. I’m ashamed to say that it takes me a few seconds to tear myself away from Elly and chase after the bastard. The valet runs up to me outside the hotel, winded.

He’s saying something about trying to call me, but I’m watching the cameraman pull away in his cheap beater Honda, tires screeching.

“God fucking damn it!” I say.

The valet puts a hand on me and I turn this murderous look on him. He raises his hands and backs off, the only smart move.

When I walk back inside, my dad and Lacy have gone up to their room. I grab Elly by the hand and hustle her upstairs, but the damage is already done.

I fucked this up, big time
, I think with a sinking heart.