Whatever Will Be: Brother's Best Friend Romance Read online

  As if summoned by my thoughts, a slice of light appears as the carriage house door opens. Trent Cassini is silhouetted for a handful of seconds and he says something I cannot hear from all the way across the yard. The door shuts and his footsteps crunch in the direction of the back gate. If I say nothing, he may not even notice I’m here.

  “Are you going home?” I blurt out.

  He freezes. “What the hell are you doing out here in the cold?”

  “I asked you a question first.”

  “Yeah, I’m going home. Now answer mine.”

  I hold up the bottle. “Making time for my date.”

  He snorts and gets close enough for me to inhale a blend of sandalwood and musk. His cologne, or maybe his shower gel.

  He gestures to the bottle. “If that’s from Cassini Brewery I’m going to spontaneously puke.”

  “It’s not. No one in this house ever drank Cassini Beer.” The moon has temporarily escaped the clouds and I can see him more clearly now. His shirt is rolled to his elbows and he’s not wearing a jacket. “It can’t be more than thirty degrees out here.”

  “More like twenty.”

  “You must be cold.”

  “Is that an offer to keep me warm, Gretch?”

  I can’t stop from hissing out a disgusted noise. “Don’t do that.”

  He leans on the wall right beside me. “What?”

  “Flirt.”

  “I don’t flirt.”

  “Are you drunk, Trent?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Is Danny?”

  “Just about.”

  The beer bottle is making my cold hands even colder. I forgot to open it before coming out here. “How is he?”

  “He’s your brother. Ask him.”

  “Tomorrow.” I try to pry the bottle cap off and give up quickly. “I hear we’re neighbors again.”

  He’s quiet for a minute. He plucks the bottle from my hands and screws off the cap with an easy flick of his wrist. He takes a long sip before handing it back. “You heard right.”

  I tip the bottle to my lips and try not to dwell on the fact that Trent’s lips were just in the same place. The taste of the beer is bitter enough to choke on.

  “This is terrible,” I sputter and set the bottle on the ground.

  “It’s shit,” he agrees.

  “Everything is shit right now.” I rub my eyes. “Do you want to talk about why you’ve moved back to Lake Stuart?”

  “No.”

  “Still rude,” I mutter but discovering this is somehow a relief. “Some things don’t change.”

  “Eh, and some things do.” He looks me up and down and laughs to himself.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you’ve changed.”

  I’m not sure what he’s getting at but I’m becoming grumpy. “And you know this thanks to all of our complex adult interactions.”

  “I know it because you’re hot as fuck now and you didn’t used to be.”

  If I was still holding the beer bottle I would have dropped it. I have no witty response ready to fire back. I’m startled and dazed.

  And flattered.

  Yes, I am definitely flattered. I’m a girl who was never called pretty as a child and now feels smug over being called pretty all the time.

  Or hot as fuck.

  Same thing.

  Almost.

  But he picked a strange moment to deliver vulgar flattery.

  “Trent, I don’t know why you would say something like that at a time like this.”

  He mulls that over. “It’s been a terrible day. Jules was one of the better people in this crappy world. Believe me, I’m damn sorry for you and for Danny and especially for those two little girls. But you’re still hot as fuck, Gretchen. I’m not taking that back.”

  If Trent is on a mission to fluster me, he has succeeded.

  “Does this act of yours charm the girls in Miami?” I sniff.

  “Sometimes.”

  “I’m sure you keep a small army of the most eager ones at your disposal.”

  “You’re confusing me with your brother.”

  “Oh, please,” I scoff. “Back in high school there was nothing unusual about walking into the girls’ bathroom and finding some heartbroken cheerleader wailing by the sink and cursing your name.”

  “High school ended a while back.”

  The hard clip in his voice is noticeable. It’s possible I’ve insulted him but I’m too tired to play this back and forth game anymore.

  I wrap my arms around myself. “It’s so horrible being in the house without her. I can’t imagine how the girls feel.”

  He breathes deeply and lowers his head. “They’re confused. They’re heartbroken.”

  “They told you that?”

  He pauses and I get the impression he’s wondering if he should share this next part. “Caitlin asked if I might be their father. I could tell she was hoping I’d say yes.”

  That’s difficult to hear.

  Hot needles prick my throat. I hold my breath for five seconds and try to will the tears away.

  I can’t.

  Trent sighs, a lonely sound that reminds me he knows a thing or two about grief. I have clear memories of his mother. She had waist length black hair, an unmistakable New York accent and a contagious laugh. She adored her only child. Trent ran from the cemetery on the day of her funeral. He climbed to the top of the town hall tower and refused to move even when snow began to fall. Danny was allowed to climb up there after him. Danny persuaded him to come down when no one else could.

  Trent has suffered loss. Trent has suffered a lot of things.

  We were never friends before. However, we do have a long connection and in the midst of all this pain that counts for something.

  I don’t intentionally reach for him.

  Yet I find myself doing exactly that.

  My cheek rests against his heart and I don’t mind when his arms swiftly trap me. I also don’t mind when he rubs my back and then gathers a fistful of my long hair. Trent is all hard muscle and strength.

  And sex.

  He’s definitely that too.

  I can’t stop the sudden ache, low in my belly, and I won’t think about the fact that this is TRENT CASSINI, a boy I used to know and didn’t have much reason to like. He’s been a friend on this terrible day and right now he’s holding me in a moment when I desperately want to be held.

  His heartbeat is an inch away and it speeds up when I shift my body. He exhales in a thick hiss and I like this power so I take more of it. I hook my arms around his shoulders and press close.

  Extremely close.

  Close enough so he can feel my breasts and realize that I’m no longer timid little Gretchen. I’m all grown up and I like sex.

  I like sex a lot.

  But I should have known Trent wouldn’t tolerate being teased.

  What’s more, Trent has never hesitated to do what he wants.

  He shoves my dress up to my hips, flattens me against the wall and lifts my legs around his waist an instant before he demands my mouth. Trent is not a gentle kisser and there’s no reluctance, no apology, in the claim his tongue makes on mine.

  He’s not exactly acting alone. I’m kissing him back just as hungrily. I’m glad to feel something other than loss and desolation. Our only witness is the moon. This will make it easier to do whatever we didn’t plan on doing but are going to do anyway.

  The wall is cold at my back but his hands are hot on my skin and they explore at will. They are on my back and then inside my bra. They are between my thighs and threatening to erase my panties. Trent’s hands are everywhere.

  And then, suddenly, they aren’t.

  He breaks the kiss with the suddenness of a gunshot. He unwraps my legs from his waist. He holds me by the shoulders before taking a step back.

  “Good night,” he says with no hint of passion in his voice while I’m practically panting.

  “Wait,” I
manage to gasp but he’s already leaving.

  He takes long strides across the yard and doesn’t look back.

  What the fuck just happened?

  I kissed Trent Cassini.

  I moaned into his mouth, opened my legs and urged him to rip off my underwear.

  That’s what happened.

  The gate hinges creak as they open and close. Quickly, I look to the carriage house but nothing seems amiss and even if Danny had decided to step outside he wouldn’t have been able to see much all the way over here with the patio lights off.

  My dress is still bunched up and I hastily shove it down where it belongs. I tie my sweater belt in a double knot, swipe the cold beer off the ground and drink the entire thing in twenty seconds even if it is shit like Trent said. The alcohol breeds rapid warmth in my chest although I’m shivering once more.

  Trent isn’t coming back and even if he did I absolutely wouldn’t be kissing him again. In fact, I feel like a complete jackass.

  But I’m also exhausted. I think I might be able to sleep now without stress and sorrow generating bad dreams.

  After enduring the icy outside air, the house feels far warmer and more pleasant. I toss the empty bottle, take note of the fact that there is much cleaning up to be done after so many people traipsed through here today, and decide to leave it all for tomorrow.

  Upstairs, the girls are still sleeping soundly. My brain has already begun a mental checklist with all the things I’ll need to do when the sun comes up.

  I need to call the family lawyer. I need to check in with the girls’ preschool. I need to get the house utilities transferred to my name. I need to sit my brother down and figure out where his head is at. I need to consider what the hell I’m going to do for a job.

  I rub my eyes and force the list to quit growing.

  Jules’s bedroom door is closed because I couldn’t stand the thought of being in there or having anyone else in there.

  That door can’t stay closed forever. I might as well open it now.

  Stepping inside is like being rewarded with a glimpse into my sister’s head. The primary colors are yellow and blue and there are pictures of the girls everywhere. And pictures of us. Me and her at my high school graduation. Me and her and Danny as children. Danny holding the girls when they were infants. Me and the girls at Christmas.

  This room is all love and family and devotion. It’s all Jules.

  The surfaces of the dresser and small desk are cluttered with small objects, mostly arts and crafts projects that were clearly made by tiny hands, like collages of glued macaroni and paper butterflies. Beneath a bumblebee popsicle sculpture I spot the CD of Abigail Fisher’s Greatest Hits. I think it must be the same one we listened to on the way to Ithaca so long ago. I left it behind when I went to college.

  The bed is impeccably made, covered with a quilt, pale yellow and bordered with bluebirds, a gift from me for her birthday a couple of years ago. I lie down right on top of it, breathing in lavender-scented laundry detergent and a vague hint of Jules’s floral perfume as my cheek finds her soft pillow.

  “Put your seatbelt on, Gretch.”

  “Gretchen, you’re going to be an aunt!”

  “I love you, little sister.”

  I can only whisper back at the memories.

  “I love you too, Jules.”

  Then I turn my face toward the pillow to prevent the sound of my sobs from carrying down the hall.

  4

  Trent

  Covering up the scars with tattoos would probably stop the questions that inevitably come whenever I take my shirt off.

  But I haven’t done that yet and I don’t plan to.

  About two years ago I was briefly involved with a med school student who aspired to be a plastic surgeon. She was especially fascinated by the web of cuts on my back and the healed burns on my chest, all faded but still noticeable. She would flick her tongue over them and sadly mutter about what a shame it was to blur such a perfect body. She wanted to fix me, or at least fix my scars. Every time she started talking like that, I would roll her over and fuck the thought right out of her silly head.

  Because I’m no one’s fucking project.

  And although I’m unwilling to curl up in a woman’s arms and sob over my past trauma, I don’t want to erase it either. I’m not going to forget.

  I’m not going to forget that I was taken from my home and from my father on the basis of a heinous lie. I don’t want to forget that there’s a piece of hell in the northwestern corner of Colorado that used to be called The Tavington School.

  This is where I learned at the age of sixteen that survival isn’t inevitable and there’s really no such thing as friendship. Loyalty kind of falls by the wayside when the choice is between getting the shit kicked out of you or kicking the shit out of someone else. Fifty miles from any hint of civilization, Tavington wasn’t cheap and it was designed to break the spirits of delinquents who were in the habit of causing embarrassment for their wealthy families.

  I would have been better off in prison. At least in prison there is some oversight.

  No electronics were allowed, and no contact with the outside world. Visits were infrequent and closely monitored, not that it mattered. I had no visitors. The only one who might have tried to visit was Danny but he was just a kid himself so it’s not like he could hop on a plane to Colorado and demand to be let in. There was no way out and trying to escape only made things worse.

  I should know. I literally have the scars to prove that.

  My father had been in the ground for six months by the time I was told of his death. I was never given a chance to say goodbye. There was no opportunity to attend the funeral. Liam managed to get the will changed, leaving me out entirely.

  My father bore no responsibility for any of this. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s shortly before my dumpster fire of an older brother saw his golden chance to swoop in and seize control of the family business.

  Liam, fifteen years older and always a major asshole, was someone I hardly ever saw while growing up. He hated my mother, hated me more, and would only remind us he existed when the time came to beg for money.

  My dad was hurt by this but would make excuses, saying Liam was just messed up because his mother had always been a spiteful bitch. He blamed his ex-wife for twisting his firstborn son’s mind against him. He gave Liam too much credit.

  When my dad’s mental state really started to go downhill, he was thrilled when Liam wanted to move in and manage the brewery.

  I was less thrilled but figured as long as Liam kept his nose out of my ass then we’d learn to tolerate each other. We’d have to. Because the plan had always been that someday we’d be running Cassini Brewery together.

  That, however, was not Liam’s plan.

  Liam had already decided he didn’t want to share the crown with the snotty teenage half brother he didn’t care to acknowledge. And if he could add to my suffering along the way, then so much the better.

  I should be grateful that I’m still breathing. If I’d been a casualty of Tavington, no one would have done much about it. I’d already been thrown away, a supposedly violent kid with no redeeming qualities.

  Not a day passes that I don’t wonder about my father’s final months. I wonder if he really did die in his sleep. I wonder if there were moments when he remembered me after I was hauled away in handcuffs.

  Liam’s not about to answer those questions so I’m not here to ask them.

  I’m here to take the only fucking thing he actually cares about.

  Maybe reclaiming my birthright and handing out a dose of revenge is the key to cracking the iron shell I’ve become. The years keep passing with no color, no flavor, and something has got to change.

  I make money, lots of money, and I’m good at it.

  Sometimes I fuck around. Not extensively, but enough. No one keeps my interest for long.

  I have no family.

  I love no one and no one loves me.

>   Now and then the uncomfortable thought creeps in that these facts should feel disturbing. The thought is especially strong when I remember my mother. She had the gentlest heart of anyone on earth. If I don’t shift gears somehow then I’ll be alone and detached until I die.

  Whatever you call the ability to form meaningful personal connections with people is a quality I don’t have. Or a quality I lost when I was exiled to Tavington. That’s one more reason to hate Liam. And I do fucking hate him. The name of the company I started is Payback Properties.

  The sound of my phone vibrating on the bathroom sink ends this spell of brooding in front of the mirror. I cover my chest and my scars with a black hoodie and press a button to answer the call on speaker.

  “Heads up,” says Darren Graves. “He called this morning. You’ve been spotted in town.”

  Darren was once my dad’s attorney and now he’s Liam’s. I’m sure he’s breaking a ton of ethical rules by playing double agent but he gets paid handsomely for his risk. I’m also aware that Darren thinks Liam is one fucked up set of baggage and won’t mind seeing him fall. Darren’s given me a lot of ammunition to help make that happen.

  “What story did you give him?” I ask.

  “The one we discussed. I said you called recently for a friendly chat and mentioned being homesick for Lake Stuart. He knows you’ve made a killing in southern real estate and his books are in such sorry shape that he’s desperate enough to try to get a piece of that. I expect he’ll be paying you a visit real soon.”

  I’d rather not see that bastard knocking on the door to my house. My mother’s house. I’m more apt to lose my temper if he catches me off guard.

  “I’ll get to him first,” I tell Darren. “Keep me updated.”

  “You know I will.”

  I end the call without saying goodbye, knowing Darren won’t be bothered.

  Then I check the time and consider my options. This is midmorning on a Wednesday. I’ve been informed that Liam still likes to make a show out of occupying our dad’s old office during the week under the pretense that he’s doing something useful. Since I’ve landed back in Lake Stuart I’ve diligently avoided that eastern corner of town at the base of Rosebriar Hill. Today I’ll stop avoiding it. Today I’m going to walk into Cassini Brewery for the first time in eight years.