THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (22 page)

Stacy

I wasn’t really spying on him. I just happened to glance out the window just in time to see Sara climb into the back of a taxi.

“You slept with her.”

He glanced up from the coffee pot. “Good morning to you, too.”

“I saw her leave your building. You slept with my boss.”

He shrugged. “You told me to get a life.”

“I hope you were good, at least,” I said, snatching the milk a little rougher than I’d intended out of the fridge. It sloshed inside its plastic container, creating bubbles along the top. “If you were bad and she makes me pay—”

“Don’t worry. She was plenty satisfied.”

The image that planted itself in my head was even more unpleasant than the idea of them being together in the first place. I’d felt uneasy ever since I watched her tuck her blouse into her skirt just before she climbed into the taxi, glancing over her shoulder at his windows. That glance had a possessiveness about it that I didn’t like. I wanted to…I don’t know what I wanted to do, but I didn’t like this tightness in my chest each time I thought about it.

“Are you going to see her again?”

“Maybe.”

Pain, like a knife slicing through my belly, burst through me. He turned, holding out a cup of coffee to me, but I suddenly didn’t want it. Who needs caffeine when you have an overbearing boss to contend with? And now that she’d slept with my brother…would she be more demanding or less? Which would I prefer?

“Does it bother you?”

I glanced at him, at the unreadable mask that was his face. Damn, why did he have to be so handsome? His hair was a little damp, curling right where it touched his collar. And his eyes were like little jewels, sparkling from his face like the kind of emeralds old, rich women wore in the movies Mom used to love. Those muscles, bulging from his t-shirt…I could almost imagine Sara’s long fingernails scraping over his skin, making those muscles twitch with excitement.

It did bother me, more than I wanted to admit.

“Should it?”

“If she makes things difficult at work, let me know. I’ll talk to her.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Everyone needs a little help once in a while.”

“Not me.”

I walked off, snatching my satchel off the couch as I burst through the front door. He followed, closer behind me than I liked. Just like every day before, he walked me to work, stopping just outside the building. He’d be there still when I came out after work. It was insane that the one person I hated the most in the world was the one person I could count on the most.

“Morning, Stacy,” Sara said with a soft smile as I approached my desk. “I’ve decided to put you on the cereal campaign.”

My eyebrows rose. The cereal campaign was for the company’s biggest client, Bronson Incorporated. Everyone wanted to work on the campaign.

“You’ll be working with Philip’s team, coming up with ideas on how to approach the campaign, on the types of commercials and print ads we’ll want to do. Meet us in the conference room in fifteen.”

She walked away, a new sway to her hips.

Killian must have been really good with her last night.

I should have been excited. Only three days on the job and I was working on one of the most coveted campaigns. Yet, I found myself getting distracted during the meetings. Sara had to kick my shin more than once to get me to pay attention. I kept staring at her, trying to imagine Killian with her. I just couldn’t do it. She wasn’t the one who should be with him.

“Is there a problem?” Sara asked late in the evening, pulling me aside as the last meeting broke up.

“No.”

“Is this about your brother?”

I shrugged, but then I found myself focusing on her more intently than I’d been able to focus on anything all day.

“Are you going to see him again?”

She bit her bottom lip, looking way for a second. When she focused on me again, there was almost a sadness in her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “He’s in love with someone else.”

I shook my head. “He hasn’t been seeing anyone.”

Sara’s eyebrows rose. “You’re more naive than I ever would have guessed. Can’t you tell when a man is crazy about you?”

She walked away before I could ask what the hell she meant. Did she really think Killian was in love with me? That was ridiculous. He was my brother.

Well, not by blood. Not even legally since Abigail and Brian never really adopted me. I took their name, but there was nothing official on the books. I was just a foster kid.

But still…Killian was not in love with me.

Was he?

I found myself staring at him on the subway ride home. He was standing on the other side of the train car again, flirting with a little girl who couldn’t have been more than four or five, the girl’s mother beaming up at him as if he was some sort of god. It was sweet of him, this big, gorgeous man taking the time to flirt with a child. You wouldn’t believe him capable of being so gentle if you saw him just walking down the street. But he was. He was full of a lot of surprises.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Sara had said. If Killian was in love with me…could I go through with my plan? Could I seduce him, get him to commit, and then ruin everything the way he’d done to me? Could I get my revenge on him that way?

It would be more reliable. I wouldn’t fall in love with him the way someone else might. I wouldn’t have to worry about an accomplice backing out at the last minute.

But there was also the whole family connection. Would he allow himself to admit to his feelings for me? Killian had always had this strong sense of family, always coming to Sean and Ian’s defense in school. He held everyone together in the hours and days after Mom’s death, organizing the funeral and forcing us to move through our days, to eat and to sleep and to do all the things that grief made nearly impossible. If not for Killian, some of us might still be hiding under our covers, pretending that the world ended the day Mom died.

Could a man with such a devotion to family commit what essentially was incest?

Was it incest?

I was so confused. I didn’t know how I felt about this. But when I looked at him and I imagined myself touching him, kissing him, it wasn’t as unpleasant a thought as it should have been. We wouldn’t have to do more than kissing, right? Just enough to convince him I was the one he should commit his life to. I just wanted him to ask me to marry him, then I could dish out my revenge and make him pay for what he did to me.

I watched him, watched the way he bent gently to that child, the way he smiled when he talked to her. My eyes moved slowly over the length of him, his broad shoulders and narrow hips, his heavy thighs and his lovely, rounded ass. I couldn’t stop looking at him even as we walked from the station to my apartment. I almost asked him up, but decided I wasn’t quite ready for one-on-one just yet. I avoided him the next morning by refusing to come out of my bedroom until it was time to run for the subway. I did that all the rest of the week, refusing to say more than a few words to him as all these thoughts rushed through my mind.

I didn’t even see him Saturday, but by Sunday I knew what I had to do.

If I was the only one who could draw him into a relationship, who could get him to commit to something more than a one-night stand, then it had to be me. I would get him to trust me, make him think I loved him, then I’d use it against him. I’d hurt him worse than he’d hurt me.

I walked across the street with a cup of coffee and a strawberry-cheese Danish that I knew was one of his favorites. The door was open before I even reached his floor. I stepped inside, pausing just over the threshold.

“Finally got curious?” he asked, as he tossed a handful of dirty clothes into the basket next to the bathroom door.

I looked around the room. It was bigger than I’d expected, about the size of Mom and Brian’s master bedroom back in Boston. There was a couch facing a flat screen on the wall, a small alcove that held a mini fridge and small range. The bed took up most of the space at the back of the room, a king size that wasn’t made, its brown sheets looking warm and inviting. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it, as I imagined him lying there with Sara, the twisted expression of pleasure on her face as he—

“Did you bring that for me?”

I cleared my throat of the frog that wanted to live there. “Yeah. I thought you might appreciate it.”

“I do, actually. I haven’t had a chance to go to the store in a few days.”

I took it to the low table near the kitchen alcove and set it down, glancing at the lone chair that sat in front of the windows. I walked over and found myself looking directly into the living room of my own apartment.

“Remind me to close my curtains when I get home.”

“I’d rather not.”

He sat at the table and cut a generous portion of the Danish, swallowing a huge bite in one, quick movement. I grabbed the chair and dragged it over, trying not to look at the bed again. But, somehow, my eyes were drawn to it just the same.

“Yes, that’s where we did it, but we started over by the door.”

“TMI, big brother.”

“You seem interested.”

“Not really.”

“You ignore me for days, and then you suddenly decide to be nice and bring me breakfast? I can’t believe that’s a coincidence.”

“So you think I just had to see where you bagged my boss?”

“Didn’t you?” He cut another piece of the Danish and offered it to me, but I waved it away. I wasn’t very hungry. “Has it caused you trouble at work?”

“No. She put me on a big project, one that people who’ve been there longer probably deserved more than I did.”

“Glad I could be of service.”

“Don’t pat yourself on the back so hard.”

He shrugged, taking another large bite of the pastry. I watched him chew, the muscles in his jaw working. Then my eyes wandered back to that bed, that image that bothered me so much running through my mind. Did it bother me? Yes, of course it did. He was my brother. I had some sort of possession over him, didn’t I?

“Why did you stop coming home?”

I felt his surprise more than saw it. He sort of jerked, pushing against the table just enough to make the coffee cup rattle.

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I used to think it was my fault. You came home every summer during college, every holiday, but then you started graduate school and you stopped visiting. Not until Mom was dying did you come back.”

“Why would that be your fault?”

I shrugged. “Do you remember the summer after your college graduation? I had that fight with Mom, and I got into bed with you. I thought it was okay, but you acted weird after that. And then you were gone, disappeared for two years.”

“I was at graduate school. It was a lot of work I had to keep up with, and I had internships during the summer.”

“But you could have come home for Christmas, but you didn’t even do that.”

He stood up, suddenly no longer interested in the pastry. I watched him, curious about the tension in his shoulders.

“You wouldn’t come home when Mom and I called, but the moment Brian needed you—”

“You used to call him Pops, too.”

“That was when I still considered him my father.”

“He is your father as much as he is mine.”

“No. He’s just the man married to the woman who wanted to adopt me but never could.”

Killian looked at me sharply. “What do you mean, never could?”

“I was never formally adopted. There was some problem with the paperwork. Mom said it didn’t matter, that I was a part of the family anyway, but it was never made official.”

“You use our last name.”

“Mom insisted on it. Said it would keep me from feeling like an outsider.”

He shook his head. “I thought…”

“Lots of people labor under misconceptions and misunderstandings.”

“None of that really matters, does it? He’s still the one who raised you from the time you were ten. He’s your dad.”

“She raised me. And she’s gone, just like my biological parents, just like Davis. Just like everyone I’ve ever cared about.” I glanced at that bed again, my heart sinking as I did. “Everyone.”

“Not everyone. Ian’s still around. And Kyle and Kevin. And Sean. I know you adore Ian and Sean.”

“Maybe it’d be better for them if I didn’t.”

“Boy, we’re feeling really sorry for ourselves today.”

I stood and headed for the door. “I should go. I knew coming over here was a mistake.”

He grabbed my arm as I tried to pass him, pulling me around so that I was facing him.

“Why did you come?”

“I thought for once we could talk to each other like we were normal human beings. But I guess I was wrong.”

“You’re not wrong.”

I tried to pull away, but he held me tight, tight enough that it almost hurt where his fingers bit into my flesh. He studied my face from his point of view more than half a foot above me.