BASTARD: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 1) Read online

  My dad and Cynthia exchange a glance.

  Cynthia says, “Just don’t let him influence you.” She touches my knee again. “Don’t worry dear, we’ll keep you safe.”

  “Now, how about Chinese?” Dad asks.

  My stomach rumbles. I was full. Cursing my baser desires, I put on a smile and say, “Sure Dad, sounds good.”

  He slaps the steering wheel. “Great. You two go on in. Put on a movie. I’ll pick it up.”

  “What about delivery?” I ask, not at all wanting to be alone with Cynthia, despite the mask of kindness she’s currently employing.

  “This will be quicker.” He tweaks my nose. Jesus, he hasn’t done that in… well, since Mom. My real mom. “Besides,” he says with a grin, “I heard that stomach growling.”

  Chapter 19

  “Set the table,” Cynthia tells me once we’re inside. “I need a bath.”

  Back to her old self. What a surprise.

  She glances over her shoulder at me. “What about you?”

  “What?” I look up.

  She’s looking over her shoulder at me, the strap of her shirt pulled down. “A bath wouldn’t hurt. I could smell you.”

  I glare at her.

  “Oh, you don’t smell bad, just sweaty.” She frowns. “And faintly like vinegar.”

  “I prefer showers.”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

  “Bitch,” I mutter under my breath when she’s gone upstairs. I realize I’m just standing in front of the drawer with the utensils. I open it, and grab them, and begin laying them out.

  When I get to the third setting, I want to slap myself.

  Chinese. Chopsticks.

  At most, we’ll need some plates.

  I gather up the silverware I just set, shaking my head.

  Walking back to the drawer, several pieces fall from my hands.

  “Fuck!” I curse.

  I bend down and pick them up, but my hands are shaking so badly that I just keep dropping them. “Fuck, fuck,” I repeat over and over. They just keep dropping from my grasp.

  And then I drop, clutching my knees to me, ignoring the fork that’s poking at my fat ass, put my head down, and let the tears pour out.

  Chapter 20

  Cynthia comes downstairs twenty minutes later—or maybe an hour, time stretches when you’re miserable—wearing a crop top and a short tennis skirt, showing off her flawless body.

  It’s not even fair, she’s almost forty, and she still looks like that. It was hell growing up and having boys—mainly Cade’s friends—be more interested in my stepmom than in me. And that was when I was skinny and cute.

  “This looks nice,” she says, tapping the table once as she passes, and continuing on to the den. “But your dad wants to watch a movie.” She stops in the entrance to the den, puts her hand against the wall, and looks back at me. “Set us up in there. We can sit together on the couch.” She smiles, and I think it’s a real one. “You know how much your dad likes his chair.” She turns and walks into the den.

  I glare at the spot where she was. As usual, she doesn’t wait for my response. Just knows I’ll do what she says.

  But why should I? I should make her do it.

  But that would be childish. I’m already here, sitting at the table. And it’s only three plates.

  I grab them, as well as some the roll of paper towels, and head into the den.

  She already has the TV on. The sounds coming from it are soft, but distinct. I feel viscerally the increase in blood pressure as my heart goes from normal to overdrive, pumping more and more blood in order to prepare me for fight or flight.

  But while my body may be prepared, my mind never can be.

  The woman on the screen opens her mouth, and something is pressed against it. The other woman—the older one—grabs the younger one’s head and pulls it into her harder.

  I freeze, and feel my legs begin to shake. My vision narrows and all I can see is the younger one’s mouth, the things it’s being forced to do.

  I close my eyes and breathe.

  “Sorry dear,” a voice says.

  I open my eyes.

  Cynthia is turned around on the couch, looking at me. “Your daddy must have been being naughty.” She tilts her head, and grins—this, too, is real. “Or maybe it was me.”

  Chapter 21

  Slowly, my life goes back to normal. Cade texts me all the time, and that doesn’t help things. He says he’s sorry, to answer his calls, that he needs to talk to me. I just delete each message. I tried not to read them, but that didn’t work.

  At least I didn’t lose my job for walking out like I did.

  The morning after the Chinese food I called work to see if I still had a job. Nina said not to worry, and kept asking about the sexy boy who chased me.

  At home, Cynthia goes back to her old self after… well, right away. Dad takes a little longer. He was nice enough, attentive enough while we ate Chinese and watched movies, and I briefly thought maybe things had changed.

  But by the next morning, he was his old, distant self, complying with Cynthia’s every whim.

  She didn’t torment me after that night. Much. No mentions of baths or porn. Or grounding.

  After walking in and seeing the porn, I thought for sure I was going to be grounded again, just like when I was sixteen. But she didn’t take anything from me.

  I still don’t know why. I think seeing Cade shook her up. Her son was a billionaire, after all, and here she was, living a lower-middle-class life. With occasional gifts.

  Like the new heels that came for her earlier today.

  When I looked at the invoice inside, it didn’t have a price. A gift invoice. I’ve long suspected she cheats on my father, but I’ve never been able to prove it, suspicious invoices aside.

  Now, I stand in the kitchen, still in sweatpants at almost eight PM, trying to decide what to eat. I hate being home all day, and normally never would be. But my car’s still stuck at work, and I haven’t been able to get a ride to pick it up. Dad can’t take me because he’s gone at work all day. And he won’t let me drive his Mustang since—he says—I’m not on the insurance. I think the real reason is because Cynthia likes it, and told him a teenager shouldn’t be driving something so dangerous.

  I want to say she’s just a bitch, that she said it to spite me, but when she was a teenager, she was in a car accident, accounting for the only flaw on her otherwise flawless face: a scar on her left temple where her head broke the glass as the car rolled.

  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that, how small little things in other people’s lives could make such a huge difference in mine. If she had been going just a little faster, had rolled off the embankment instead of coming to a stop, upside down, less than five feet before it. Or if she had never crashed in the first place. Would she have ever met my dad at all? Or maybe her brain was damaged, and that’s why she’s such a—

  My phone buzzes as I stand there staring into the fridge. I let the door shut and take the phone from my pocket. Cade.

  I begin to swipe to reject it, but then pause. Slowly, I move my finger the other direction.

  I stare at the screen.

  “Hello?” I hear.

  I put the phone to my ear. “What.”

  “Mags. God, it’s so good to hear your voice. Are you okay?”

  “What do you want, Cade?”

  “You!” he says emphatically, and I’m struck silent. “I need you. I know you don’t want to be there. I—”

  “How do you know where I am?”

  “Where else would you be? I saw you and your dad on TV.”

  “I was on TV?” I groan. Great, right after running around an airport and vomiting. That’s when I get on TV.

  Cade’s voice drops. “You looked sexy. All flushed, your hair a mess.”

  “Thanks for the sarcasm.”

  “It’s not sarcasm. When I saw you, Mags, I needed you. So bad.”

  I bite my lip. Did the room
just get warmer? “Really?”

  “Yes. I’m going to come pick you up.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because how can I know I won’t be stuck back here again? You won’t leave me again?”

  “I won’t.”

  “But you do. And you keep doing it. You left me there all alone today. To deal with everything. Just like when you turned eighteen.”

  “I didn’t leave you Maggie, that’s not what happened. I lo—”

  “Bullshit! You keep saying you didn’t leave me, and it’s so frustrating, because that’s exactly what you fucking did! Jesus Christ! You left! You were gone! What the fuck else would you call it!”

  “Calm down.”

  “Fuck you!” I scream. I stab at the end call button, and when that’s not enough, slam the phone down on the counter.

  Then I check to see if the screen broke. No. That’s good. That would have sucked.

  “Bastard!” I cry, and yank open the freezer.

  I stare into it, the cool air chilling my face, and feel a stab of guilt for hanging up on Cade. But also satisfaction. There’s a name for that, when you yell at someone, and think, What if that’s the last time I talk to them? And you feel bad, but at the same time, also kinda satisfied. It appeals to our darker nature, what lurks inside us all. It’s what makes us wonder, as we peer over a balcony deliriously high above the ground, what it would feel like to crash into the concrete below. Wonder what would go through our minds as we fell. Or when we hold a knife over someone, and imagine what it would feel like hitting bone.

  I spot a box of Lean Pockets, the Buffalo Chicken kind. God those are good.

  The phone buzzes on the counter.

  I pick it up.

  I’m leaving tonight. I have an extra ticket for you. It will be waiting at the desk for you. The plane leaves at 10:45.

  “Fuck you,” I say, grab the Lean Pockets, and slam the freezer shut.

  I turn the oven on, then see what time it is. I’ll be late for work if I wait for the oven to heat up. Damn, I hate microwaving them.

  I could use the toaster oven. Cynthia will probably bitch about it, complain about the filling dripping on the heating element.

  Before I can decide whether it’s worth it, I hear someone coming down the hall.

  “You’re going to be late for work,” Cynthia says, breezing into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. Her water. Dad and I aren’t allowed to drink it.

  Whatever, not like I care.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She looks at the oven dial with a tilted head, then reaches down and turns it off. She grabs the package of Lean Pockets from my hand, looks at it and shakes her head. “At least they’re lean, right?” Her words drip with sarcasm.

  She opens the freezer and puts the box back in. She stares inside briefly. Maybe she’s getting hot flashes. Good, early menopause. She shuts the door at looks at me. “You work at a restaurant.” She cracks open the water, takes a sip, then sets it on the counter. “Eat there.”

  “But my ride’s not even here.”

  “I’ll drop you. I’m going that way anyway.”

  “Mom,” I whine, trying to get her sympathy.

  It doesn’t work. “You can either come with me, or spend the rest of the night in your room.” She looks at me significantly. “With all your privileges revoked. But I don’t think your daddy would be very happy with that. You remember how awkward it made him feel last time.”

  My legs feel weak, and I can feel my hands shaking. “You can’t do that. I’m an adult.”

  She grabs me by the shirt, and yanks hard, ripping it.

  “Cyn—” I begin, but she grabs my bra, and rips it off.

  “Stop!” I cry.

  She doesn’t. She pushes me against the counter, grabs the waistband of my sweatpants, and pulls them down.

  I try to fight her off, but she slaps my face.

  I stand there as she pulls them down to my ankles, then grabs my panties, pulling them up into my crotch until they rip. She keeps pulling, and they come free.

  I stand there, arms over my breasts.

  She slaps me again. “Drop your arms!”

  I do.

  She grabs one of my nipples and twists hard.

  I cry out, and she grabs the other one. But she just holds it lightly between her fingers. She stares into my eyes. “You have two choices, Adult,” she says calmly, “get out of these rags and change into your uniform, and take my charity; or get out of these rags and go to your room.” She releases me, and opens the fridge. She comes out with a banana, with spots of black covering it. “Hurry up, I’m leaving soon.”

  I bend down to pull my sweatpants up.

  “Uh-uh,” she says.

  I blink to clear my vision, and step out of them. Using her free hand, she picks them up from the floor and sets them on the table.

  I strip out of my ripped bra and shirt.

  “Throw those in the trash.” She tosses my panties to me. “And these.”

  I nod, and walk, shivering, on legs that don’t seem like they’ll hold me, to the trash can. I dump my torn clothes in on top of used coffee grounds, and stare at them.

  “Chop chop,” Cynthia says, startling me. “Being big is no excuse for being slow.”

  I walk out of the kitchen, feeling like I might vomit.

  “Wait.”

  I stop, but don’t turn around.

  “Take off your socks.”

  I swallow. I can’t do it without bending over. I turn to face her, and bend down.

  “I didn’t say turn around.” She makes a spinning gesture with her finger, and I turn, then bend over, removing my socks. I go back to the trash can.

  “What are you doing?”

  I look at her, my eyes burning. “I…”

  “God.” She shakes her head. “Just go get dressed before someone sees you.”

  I look down at the socks in my hand.

  “Go on.”

  I walk naked down the hall toward my room, socks clenched in my fist, thankful my dad isn’t home.

  When I get there, I shut and lock the door, throw the socks against the wall, and collapse to my bed. She can’t do this to me.

  She can’t.

  I get up and search around for my phone. Cade was right. I’ll text him back. He’ll save me. Even if he does leave me again, at least I’ll be in another city, far away from her.

  My search becomes frantic as it seems more and more likely that it’s not in my room.

  I check under my bed, under the covers. Nothing.

  When did I use it last?

  Then I remember slamming it down on the kitchen counter.

  But no, I picked it up again when he texted me. I was staring into—

  Fuck, did I leave it in the freezer?

  Fuck, fuck! She can’t find it. She’ll see Cade’s been texting me. See I just talked to him.

  Why didn’t I enable the lock screen? Stupid idiot!

  She won’t find it, I tell myself. This is good. It’s okay. This way she won’t hear it if he texts me again.

  I quickly go to my closet, find my Hooters shirt and shorts, quickly pull them on, and run back to the kitchen.

  Cynthia is sitting on the couch, reading and eating her banana. “I’m not ready yet.”

  “Okay,” I call. I open the freezer. It’s not there. Fuck, where—

  Then I remember her putting the box of Lean Pockets back.

  I hear footsteps, and turn.

  “You left this in there,” she says, holding out my phone. “You need to be more careful. Your father can’t afford to buy you another one.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking it from her. “Sorry.” I don’t bother pointing out that she has one three generations newer than mine, or that it cost ten times as much.

  When I look up, I see she’s looking a
t my body.

  She raises an eyebrow, and for an instant I see Cade in her features. Maybe that’s why I can never hate her us much as I might. Maybe that’s why I could never bring the knife down.

  Or maybe I’m just not a killer.

  “New man?”

  “Manager?”

  She flicks my right boob.

  I look down, and see I’m not wearing a bra.

  I shake my head. “I forgot. I’ll be right back.”

  She grabs my arm as I’m taking off, yanking me to a halt. “You’re wasting enough of my time making me go out of my way to take you to work.”

  “But—”

  “Now come on, it’s not like anyone’s going to be paying attention anyway, not where you work. Not with all those bubbly bimbos and their perky melon-tits.

  At the door, Cynthia still holding my arm, I say, “Wait, my socks.”

  She looks down at my sneakers next to the door.

  “You should have kept them with you.”

  “But I’ll get in trouble! It’s part of the uniform.”

  “You’re an adult. You should be more responsible. Now put your shoes on and stop whining.”

  When I sit down in the passenger seat of Dad’s Mustang, my shorts ride up into my crotch, making me aware I forgot to put on underwear as well. It makes me feel dirty, exposed.

  And it hurts. I shift my thighs, and feel a sting of pain. I wonder if I’m bleeding from when she ripped my panties off, and hope if I am I don’t bleed through the fabric.

  I refuse to cry. Refuse to let her know she’s getting to me. I’ve gone commando before. I’ve even gone sockless. I can deal.

  I clench my jaw and look straight ahead as she starts the car.

  Cynthia turns the radio to some talk show and turns it up.

  Fine with me.

  We sit there for a minute.

  Finally I can’t bear it and turn to look at her. “Are we…”

  She shakes her head. “I forgot my banana.”

  “I can—” I begin, but then she shifts the car into gear and pulls out.

  I stare out the window as we drive, imagining what it would be like to fly alongside the cars instead of being trapped inside one. To be free like that.