Step Wilde: A Stepbrother Romance (24 page)

“About your ‘engagement’? About her flouncing off the set?”

Wilder laughed. “Hailey is barely human, Olivia. She doesn’t react like most people do to normal human shit. My calling her would end one way: her baiting me and then recording my reaction so she could put a beat over the top of it for her next single.”

I bit my lip. “It’s just weird. It’s like you’re not really broken up.”

“We weren’t even
together
, Liv. Seriously. Blackmail is not the foundation of a real relationship.”

I looked down at my fingers again, leaning against the doorframe. “Were you fucking while you were in Italy?”

Wilder exhaled. “Jesus, no. We weren’t even staying in the same room. I was sleeping on the sofa bed in my assistant’s tiny suite for a week until she left.”

I felt hope growing in my chest. “So you really wanted me, then?”

Wilder smiled and stood up, leaving the sheets behind to come hold me. He pulled me to his naked body and then lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around him. We were eye-level for once. “I really, really wanted you, Liv,” he whispered. Then he kissed me deeply and we fell back into bed together.

***

A few hours later it was dark. I rolled back out of bed and grabbed my hair brush. My hair was already tangled again. I started pulling at it impatiently, the brush making harsh ripping sounds as I pulled the bristles through thick knots.

Wilder sat up in bed and made a ‘come here’ gesture with his hand, holding his palm out flat. I looked at him, curious and confused.

“Give me the fucking brush, Liv.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

I moved onto the mattress and pushed my back up against his chest. He was so much taller than I was that sitting down he still had a head of height over me. I nestled myself between his legs and breathed a deep sigh of relaxation, his skin warm against my back.

He took his strong fingers and deftly moved the brush through my hair, starting gently at the bottom and working his way up the strands with a patience that I hadn’t thought possible from him.

"Back in college,” he said quietly. “Nobody had ever affected me that way before. Or since.”

I sighed. We were back to the topic that had been buried earlier. “And that’s why you reacted in a toxic, possessive bullshit way. Instead of talking to me, the woman you couldn’t have, about it – you decided to humiliate me.”

Wilder kept brushing. “I didn’t intend to humiliate you. The reaction I had scared me. And I lashed out.”

“Intentions don’t matter,” I said calmly.

“I know.”

“How you reacted was hurtful. It was toxic," I said, feeling tears stinging my eyes. I wasn't sure if it was from the gentle care he was showing me right now or from the memory of humiliation. "You're not the first guy to pull that with me and you weren't the last either."

"I'm sorry, Liv. I really, really am. If I could take it back, I would," he said.

"I don't need bullshit masculinity in my life, okay? I had enough of that growing up with my dad. For the brief amount of time he bothered to be around, anyway." I pushed back my tears.

"You and me both," Wilder muttered, running the brush closer to my scalp and pulling down slowly.

He had finally worked his way up to my scalp, moving the brush in tiny circles that gave me goosebumps.

We sat in silence for a while, the only light from the moon, a light, soft breeze blowing the curtains in the air. It seemed like the bubble of unreality that we'd cocooned ourselves in for a blissful thirty-six hours had popped with the sharp prick of days gone by.

When Wilder finished brushing my hair, he pulled his strong fingers through the strands and then started massaging my shoulders.

I sighed and relaxed into him. Then he wrapped his strong arms around me, resting his mouth onto the top of my head. We stayed like that until we both fell asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

OLIVIA

"You fell off the grid for a while," Lydia said pointedly, sipping her white wine.

We were sitting in the hotel restaurant patio overlooking the vineyards. This part of Tuscany was even more beautiful than where I’d been with Wilder. There were paparazzi swarming the town, but thankfully the hotel was keeping them far away.

That meant that we were trapped here for the rest of the shoot.

I looked around, thinking that everything was going on the studio's tab while I ate five-star food in absolute paradise. I needed to be grateful for this surreal experience. Still, a part of me was itching to get away already. Preferably in a place where Wilder and I could be together in public.

At this point, it seemed like even Antarctica wasn’t even safe.

"Yeah, I went off for a quick little side trip." I stuffed my mouth with ciabatta, hoping that the chewing would hide my guilt.

It was harder to turn on the acting for my friends and people who knew me well. It felt creepy at best. I hated lying.

"Mm. Interesting. You weren't the only one who went on a side trip then," she muttered.

"Yeah, I heard Aldo took the train down to Venice. He was telling me all about it at lunch," I said, cutting across her.

She raised her eyebrows. "Aldo isn't eye-fucking you right now from across the restaurant, so pardon me if I'm not too interested in the prop guy's weekend narrative,” she retorted. “But Wilde definitely is."

My instinct was to whip around to see if Wilder was, in fact, staring at me from somewhere I couldn't see. I compromised by flinching and shaking my head. "Whatever, Lydia."

"AHA!" she exclaimed. "I
knew
it
.
I knew it when Harrison called to ask your dress size. Why didn't you call me?" She leaned in, whispering. "Where'd you go? Did you fuck him?"

I looked around at the tables around us. They were filled with old, rich people tourists eating their meals silently and a few of the extra cast members. One of the key grips was looking over, interested in our conversation.

"Not here," I replied.

Lydia groaned. "God, I can't wait to hear more. I could have written an entire romance novel off of your first night together back in college."

I tried to hold back my gleeful smile but I failed miserably. Lydia reached out and patted my hand. "Oh, honey, you are so far gone."

***

I was showered and ready for bed by eight o'clock that night, exhausted to my bones from my nearly sleepless weekend with Wilder.

I checked my phone and saw that I had three missed messages from my mother. "On the plane in NYC. See you soon!" then "Landed in Berlin. Spending the night here and taking off in the morning for Italy! See you tomorrow!" and then another that said "Love you!"

My stomach dropped.

In all of the excitement, I had completely forgotten that my mother was on her way to see me. I dashed off a quick "Be safe." I was pretty sure I'd said those two words more than "Love you" to my mother. S

he was always dashing off to the next adventure with the next guy my entire childhood. I'd usually tucked myself into bed at night with a cassette tape of famous people reading stories to me. My favorite was John Lithgow reading "Jack and the Beanstalk." That story had taken on a different context in my adulthood when he played the creepiest serial killer in television history on
Dexter
.

I turned my phone off and pulled back the freshly cleaned and ironed duvet. I was going to miss someone else doing laundry and tidying up rooms when I got back to Los Angeles, that was for sure. I tried not to think about the fantasy of the last few weeks ending. I couldn’t bear it. Things had hit a groove on set and I was actually enjoying myself in front of the camera.

I was about to collapse into the eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets when a knock sounded at my door. It was so quiet I paused, listening to see if it had just been the breeze hitting the tree outside. A few seconds later the knock came again.

I shuffled over and looked through the peep hole.

It was Wilder.

I felt a frisson of excitement despite the fact that exhaustion was seeping from every pore. I pulled the door open as quickly and quietly as I could. Wilder slipped in and I ducked my head out to see if anyone was in the hallway.

"What are you doing?" I hissed. "Fox is in the room next door."

Wilder grinned and held out his hands, wrapping my waist with his arms. "I like to live dangerously," he whispered, pulling me up to his mouth and kissing me like we'd been apart for a decade and not a few hours. "I missed you."

A smile erupted across my face. The joy that I felt at being wanted, needed, craved was unexpected and slightly terrifying. But I pushed it out of my mind as Wilder pushed me up against the wall. I groaned.

He held up his finger to my lips, shushing me. "You already told me we can't get in trouble. Dead giveaway if Fox hears you enjoying yourself."

He found his way down to the area in between my legs and I struggled to keep my mouth shut as he undid my bathrobe. I let it fall open as he knelt down and lifted each one of my legs over his shoulder, running his tongue all over the familiar places.

I had to put my own hand over my mouth to keep myself from making noise. I squeezed his head between my thighs, groaning and moaning into my own skin.

When I came, I nearly put the back of my head through the wall. Wilder lowered me down to the floor with a grin. "I missed you. Did I say that yet?"

I ran my fingers through his hair and led him to bed.

It looked like it was going to be another night of very little sleep.

CHAPTER FORTY

WILDER

The next morning’s alarm came courtesy of a heavy knock at the door.

I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

"It's only seven! I'm not due on set until noon today,” Olivia groaned, rolling over.

"I'll get it," I said, peeling myself out from in between the sheets and standing up to stretch.

When my feet hit the carpet I suddenly realized I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d meant to sneak back to my room before the sun came up. I glanced at the curtains and saw a pencil-thin sliver of harsh sunlight slipping between a part in the fabric. I turned around and saw that Olivia was having the same thoughts that I just had.

“You’re not supposed to be here! What if it's Fox? Or someone we know?" she hissed, panicking. “You can’t answer the door! This isn’t your room!”

I felt the opportunity to dish back some of the ribbing that Olivia had been giving me since we’d come back together. I looked around, faking panic.

“Fuck, this
isn’t
my room! How did I get here? Did you drug me?”

Olivia’s face dissolved into laughter. “Fuck off, Wilder,” she retorted. “But seriously, you are naked. You can’t answer the door.”

"I'm going to look first. Lay back down. It's fine," I replied, walking over to the door. "Besides,
all
this
is nothing the world hasn't seen before, right?"

She buried her face in her hands and laughed. "You are absolutely off the wall, Wilder."

The knocking at the door grew louder and more insistent.

"Fucking hold on!" I yelled, turning to the door and peering through the peep hole. I instantly wished that I hadn't. My father was standing there.

My father was standing there.

I blinked several times and before I knew what I was doing, my hand was on the door handle and I was opening it just far enough to hide Olivia from his sight.

He wasn’t alone. He was standing there with a blonde woman. My dad looked at me sardonically, seeing that I was naked.

"Well, Nicholas. Always good to be seeing more of you."

Olivia shrieked from behind me and I pulled the door closer to a shut position, my body blocking the open gap. I heard the rustle of sheets as she dove to cover herself up and made a break for the bathroom.

I knew that my dad and his companion couldn’t see her; my body was blocking their view entirely. But my brain was creaking along, slowly trying to understand and collate the information that was in front of me.

My father was standing, in a button-down shirt and khakis, in front of me. My father, he who lived in grease-covered, tattered jeans and black t-shirts that showed off his own array of tattoos, was wearing a shirt with
buttons.

And he was standing with a woman I'd never seen before outside of a hotel room that was not mine, in a country that was not the United States.

"Holy fuck," was the stunning conclusion I drew from piecing together that information. That was all I had.

"The front desk must have given us the wrong room number," said the woman, smiling. "Well, this is a nice surprise anyway!"

My dad nodded behind me toward the direction of the bathroom door that Olivia had just banged shut. "Another woman I won't be seeing at Thanksgiving; I guess?"

I suddenly remembered I was naked and moved the lower half of my body aside, tucking it behind the door jamb.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to need for you to back up slightly. What are you doing here?"

"We came to see you, actually. Well, we came to see Penelope’s daughter. But like I said, the front desk must have given us the wrong room number."

I looked back at the blonde woman. Underneath the wrinkles, deep tan, and what looked like the skin of a lifelong smoker, I realized who she looked like.

"Holy fuck," I said again.

"Do you happen to know where Olivia Martin is?" the woman asked.

"Uh, I. No, I'm not sure which room number is hers, actually. We...don't see much of each other outside of being at work together. You know how it is." I felt the gears slowly gliding into place. "Sorry, did you come here together?"

Olivia's mom nodded. “Of course we did!”

My mind still wasn’t processing this information. “You…met in the lobby here?”

My dad shifted uncomfortably. He was standing with the uncomfortable grimace he’d worn in every social situation I’d ever seen him in, the look on his face screaming that he’d rather be anywhere but here right now.