Score - A Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

“
I
’m getting married
.”

My mother’s voice was soft as she made the confession, and both Lily and I stared at her in shock. Had she really just said that? I hadn’t even known she was dating anyone, let alone serious enough with a man to be engaged.

“Are you for real?” we asked in unison, our jaws hanging open as we stared at her. Mom rubbed her eyes with a sigh, and even though I was upset with her, I could see how hard it was for her to tell us about this.

“Yes, the man I’ve been seeing proposed two nights ago,” she said in a small voice. “I know I should’ve told you that I met someone sooner. I just wasn’t sure how, and I didn’t think it would progress this fast.”

“Can I be the flower girl?” Lily asked excitedly.

I shot her an annoyed look. We were supposed to be in this together, and she was already betraying me. Maybe she’d forgotten about Dad, because she’d only been a toddler when he died, but I most certainly hadn’t.

“It’s only been three years,” I whispered as my eyes connected with Mom’s. As soon as I saw her worried gaze, I realized how hard this was on her. She was worried, scared of hurting us. I knew she deserved to be happy, but we definitely didn’t deserve to be kept in the dark. She should’ve told us she was seeing someone sooner.

“I wish you’d told us you were with someone,” I said, my voice sad and broken as I remembered my Dad.

Dad had been a cancer survivor, and three and a half years ago, we’d all thought it was over. Nightmares don’t happen twice in a row, right?

Wrong.

Only months after beating skin cancer, he’d been hit with a relapse. It had all happened so fast, when Lily was only two…and then before I knew it, he was gone, and I was placing a white carnation on his casket. The memory was still fresh and raw in my mind, even though it had been three years.

My mother’s eyes spoke volumes as she stared back at me, and I chewed on my lower lip as I considered her news. Maybe it had been long enough—three years was a long time. Maybe she’d found someone really amazing.

I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Lily was already chattering about dresses and wedding cakes, her five year old mind too innocent to understand the betrayal this meant for my Dad. My Mom’s eyes were still focused on me, though, worried about my reaction.

I forced a small smile onto my lips, and she beamed. Instantly, I felt guilty about making this hard for her. It was supposed to be a happy occasion, and she didn’t deserve to be guilt-tripped. After all, she deserved happiness after everything she’d been through. I was being selfish.

All of a sudden, I was hit by a different wave of guilt. While my Mom had been getting proposed to two nights ago, I’d been in a darkened hotel room, ready to have sex with a total stranger. I cringed at the thought, hoping no one ever found out.

“When do we get to meet him?” I asked, still trying to get used to the idea of my Mom being with someone else.

“Them,” she said softly. “He has a son, too.”

“Eww, a boy!” Lily protested, and I found myself grinning. “Boys have cooties!”

Hmm. My little sister might have been against the idea, but I actually kinda liked the idea of a little boy joining our family.

Lily was a shy girl, and it was hard for her to make friends. The thought of her having a brother cheered me up, and I figured she might like the company of another kid to wreak havoc with.

Mom and I laughed at her cooties comment, and I hugged her tightly to my chest. She was still so young, so innocent…unlike her older sister.

Again, I remembered what I’d been doing the other night, getting naked in a dark hotel room with a total stranger. I didn’t even know his real name…and the worst thing was that it upset me, because I knew that it meant I’d probably never see him again.

My lips formed a thin line as the memories poured back in. It had all been so perfectly forbidden until my freak-out, which I still didn’t understand. I’d felt flushed, embarrassed and truly scared as I’d left his hotel room…and I had no idea why.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Thank God for Landon, who’d picked me up with no questions asked. He was a good friend, and I was lucky to have him. He’d taken me out for late night burgers and dropped me off at home in the middle of the night, not once asking about what went wrong.

“Anyway,” Mom’s voice cut into my reverie. “You’re going to meet them both soon. We’re having dinner tonight at L’Atelier.”

My eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “L’Atelier? Isn’t that crazy expensive? Maybe we shouldn’t be spending so much money on food, Mom. You know, we still have all those bills to pay from last month.”

I felt like such an adult already. A big, responsible grown-up, all at the tender age of eighteen. Lily glared at me, but of course she didn’t understand. How could she? She didn’t know that after our father’s death, Mom had been left to pay all the bills herself; the mortgage, the food, our education fees. It was a heavy burden to bear, but I’d tried to help as best as I could.

I wasn’t going to college like I’d always dreamed of; instead, I’d gotten a job as a waitress to help out now that high school was done. While my ex-classmates would be starting college classes in a couple of weeks, I was going to be wiping down tables and making expensive coffees with foam art for people who had more money than me.

It stung…it stung really freaking bad. I’d been a good student in school, and I’d always wanted to get a degree, but we just didn’t have the money.

“Don’t worry about that,” Mom said with a mysterious smile, making me even more worried in turn. “His name is Peter, by the way, and his son is called Chase.”

Chase? What kind of preppy, pretentious name was that? I’d only heard it in unrealistic TV shows about rich teenagers, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and only nod in response. In my mind, I was picturing a little blond boy with a cashmere cardigan wrapped around his shoulders, his hair in a perfect part.

Great. Another boy who would likely end up mocking Lily about her wild curly hair and the color of her skin. Just freaking perfect.

“Can’t wait to meet them,” I said through gritted teeth.

L
’Atelier was even fancier
than I had originally thought. I held Lily’s shaky little hand as we walked in, and even I felt my legs trembling in the heels I wasn’t used to wearing.

My mother had insisted we dress our very best, and I was stuck in a hand-me-down dress of hers which was too tight for my liking. She’d always had a petite, lithe figure, but my curves had really filled out over the past few years, and the dress was accentuating them way too much for my liking.

“We have a reservation for Stryker,” Mom said to the hostess as I glanced around the place, feeling more nervous than ever. I felt like we didn’t belong at all, and I was just waiting for the moment when one of the swanky guests would point at us and demand we be escorted outside.

“Come with me, please. I’ll show you to your table.”

The hostess was perfectly polite as she led us into the restaurant, but still, my hands shook as we were shown to a table. It was smack dab in the center of the room, too; the best table in the house.

Must’ve been expensive…whoever this guy was, he obviously wanted to make an impression on us.

And there he was—tall and broad-shouldered with a winning smile. A smile that screamed ‘trust me, I know what I’m doing.’ A smile I knew from every billboard in the freaking city.

It was Peter Stryker. Of course…I should’ve known when Mom told the hostess the reservation name.

Peter was a high flyer in the current race for the gubernatorial seat, and I looked around, feeling more confused than ever. Surely we were at the wrong table?

But then he sprang up, kissing my mother on the cheek; the perfect gentleman. I was pretty sure my jaw was hanging on its hinges as I stared at them.

“So good to see you, darling,” he said in a deep booming voice. He leaned down to my sister, whose hand was still in mine. “And this must be Lily.”

“I am she,” my sister replied in such a grown-up voice that it would’ve made me laugh, if it weren’t for this whole strange situation. “Nice to meet you, mister.”

“You can call me Peter,” he said with a winning smile. “I have something for you. Want to see?”

Lily nodded eagerly, and he presented her with a gift, complete with a huge pink bow. Her hand left mine and I felt cold air hitting my palm only a second later. It felt strangely empty, and not just because she’d let go of me.

“And you’re Lina,” Peter said to me, his smile genuinely warm. I didn’t like it, though; didn’t like his too-strong handshake and the way he covered my hand with his meaty palm.

He seemed like a nice guy, sure, but I wasn’t the dullest crayon in the box, and I knew he’d just won the votes of several key minorities in the upcoming election by proposing to my Mom—a Latina single mother from the working class. Let’s just say the timing of this proposal seemed mighty suspicious…

My mouth was set in a line as I politely greeted him, and Lily shrieked with glee as she unwrapped her present.

“Oh my gosh, it’s a Polly the Physician!” Her voice was ecstatic as she presented me with a doll—a Barbie doll that was currently all the rage at her school, and one which she begged for every day. Mom couldn’t afford anything other than a cheap knockoff version, and now here was this guy, giving her the real thing on a silver platter just to win her affection.

What a jackass.

Lily was already hugging him, so happy with her gift that her little hands shook. My Mom was red as a beet when I looked at her, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Fine then, be that way
. With a sour expression, I sat down at the table, and everyone else soon joined me, chattering about the doll Lily had been so thrilled to receive.

“And where is Chase?” Mom finally asked when Lily stopped talking. “I’m so looking forward to meeting him, I’ve told the girls about him, too.”

Peter looked around, and his eyes focused on something on the other end of the room, a strange smile appearing on his lips. “He just went to the washroom.”

Freaking washroom. How pretentious.

“There he is now. Chase, over here!”

We all turned in our chairs, me with a glass of cold water in my hands. My eyes searched for a little boy in perfect cashmere clothes, but all I could see was a huge figure blocking the way.

He was ripped, tall and devilishly handsome, with dark hair and stormy grey-blue eyes.

He waved at us, heading in our direction, and I realized that he was Chase Stryker, the aforementioned son.

He was also Score, the guy I’d almost had sex with in a darkened hotel room.

Oh, no…

I dropped my drink out of pure shock, and the sound of shattering glass made the whole room go silent. Water sloshed all over the floor, and I stared at Chase with horror in my eyes. He met my gaze with a smirk, as if he’d somehow planned this entire thing.

“Lina! Could you be more careful?” my mother hissed at me. Before I had time to react, a waiter appeared, murmuring apologies and cleaning up the mess I’d made like it was somehow his fault.

“No worries,” Peter said with that winning smile that graced every poster in the city. “Just add it to my bill,” he said discreetly to the waiter.

“Ah yes, that’s Daddy dearest,” Chase said with a variation of that Stryker smile I’d been hating only a moment earlier. “Just put everything on his bill.”

Peter’s expression changed from proud to dark as he glared at his son, and Chase strode over to the table and sat right next to me. I was practically hyperventilating, my heart racing as everything sank in.

Score, the underground fighting champion…he was going to be my new stepbrother.

Holy shit, I’m doomed.

He looked right at me again, and now I could almost tell for sure that he’d known about me before coming to the restaurant. There was no surprise in his eyes, only amusement. He looked like he was having the time of his life, and I hated him for it. Had he also known who I was when he’d ordered me to go with him to that hotel room? Probably…

Asshole.

My hands formed fists in my lap, and my heart pounded as everyone started chatting. To the other patrons of the restaurant, we must’ve looked like a regular happy family. Thank God they didn’t know what I’d done with Chase…

No one could ever know.

Another thought occurred to me as I sipped on my replacement glass of water a moment later, my hands shaking. Could there be a small chance Chase actually didn’t remember me? The room had been dark, and I’d left before anything really happened between us. Maybe he’d forgotten what I looked like and didn’t know I was the girl he’d taken back two nights ago, and maybe I was simply reading too much into his charismatic smirks.

I hoped so.

I stared at him as he laughed, so different than the guy I’d seen in the abandoned warehouse that night. Sure, he was still cocky and confident as hell, but he was also the picture-perfect politician’s son, apart from the odd snarky comment here and there.

“So, Lina.” Peter addressed me, and my head turned with a snap. “I hear you’ve taken a part-time job? That’s admirable.”

“Oh, it’s not a part-time job,” I said. “It’s actually full-time. I’m waiting tables at the Rocky Diner.”

As I spoke, I raised my head proudly. I wasn’t going to feel embarrassed because some rich guy had shown up in our lives out of nowhere. I’d promised to help my Mom, and I’d sacrifice anything and everything to make sure she and my sister were well taken care of. There was no shame in working a minimum-wage job in the service industry. Just ask my Mom…she’d been doing it for years.

My defiant gaze met his bright blue eyes. He looked like he had another ace up his sleeve.

“Well, you’ll be able to drop that soon,” he said. “You’ll be attending college in the fall.”

“Actually…no.” My tone was a mix of regret and bitterness. “I didn’t apply for college. I’m just going to work instead and help out Mom.”