Her Wicked Stepbrother: A Nolan Bastards Novella Read online

  Her pulse skittering, she scurried downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She darted by Aiden and Rory, who were ensnared by a video game, and leapt past Cian as he backed toward the door, his attention gripped by the combat playing out on the large television screen.

  Breathing hard, Brynn yanked open the front door.

  Kyle flashed his easy smile and stepped inside the house.

  “Hey,” he said. “Wow. You look great.”

  Pleasure warmed her cheeks. No one had ever complimented her looks before. “Thanks.”

  A blaring noise from the TV marked the video game’s sudden end.

  “Ha,” Rory erupted. “Take dat, ye bastard.”

  Aiden ignored his brother’s taunts. His spine rigid, he affixed his menacing scowl on Kyle Pierson, resembling a missile locked on its target.

  Kyle leaned close. “You, uh, ready to go?”

  Dragging her eyes away from Aiden, Brynn smiled up at Kyle. “Give me one sec. I’ll grab my coat.”

  She dashed up the stairs, and in her bedroom, underwent a brief but frantic search for her wool jacket. Snatching it from underneath the pile of her discarded clothing, she rushed toward the door.

  But as she passed by the mirror, she noticed that her fine hair had already started to fall flat, so she squirted hairspray onto the loosely coiled locks. Then she swiped another layer of lip gloss across her mouth before she hurried back downstairs, her jacket in hand.

  But when she stepped into the living room, a heavy silence charged the air. As though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

  Dread lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “Where’s Kyle?”

  No one answered her.

  She looked to each of her stepbrothers, then zeroed in on Cian, who couldn’t quite stifle his shit-eating grin.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  Cian’s laughter broke loose, prompting a soft snicker from Rory.

  Trepidation spiraling through her, Brynn shifted her gaze to Aiden.

  No traces of humor were evident on his face. Not a hint of emotion could be found in his dark expression. Instead, he regarded her with a stoic, almost blank, stare.

  Her throat squeezed. “What did you do?” she whispered.

  Chapter 5

  Aiden shrugged. “Kyle had to go,” he said, appearing bored with the conversation.

  “He left?” She hated the hitch in her voice. “Why?”

  “Because you are not going out with Kyle Pierson.” The gold flame in his eyes matched the lick of fire in his tone.

  “What? Why not?”

  A muscle ticked along his jawline.

  “If you can’t give me a reason—”

  “Because I forbid it.”

  She sputtered her outrage. “That is not your decision to make.”

  “Too late. He’s gone.” He dropped into an armchair and propped his feet on the coffee table. “And he’s not coming back.”

  The blood in her veins went cold. “What did you say to him?”

  He avoided her gaze.

  She twisted toward Rory. “What did he say? Tell me. Please.”

  Guilt riddled Rory’s expression. “He told Kyle you weren’t feeling well enough to go out tonight.” His gaze darted to Aiden, then away. “That you were… in the bathroom.”

  She frowned at Aiden. “You told him I was sick?”

  All three boys took a sudden interest in the floorboards.

  “But he just saw me. He knows I’m not throwing up.”

  Cian’s soft snicker rankled. “No one said you were puking.”

  “Then what…?”

  Cian lost the battle with his stupid grin. “The other end.”

  Brynn recoiled. “What?” She whirled on Aiden. “Why did you do that?”

  His upper lip curled. “You don’t even like him.”

  “Yes, I do. He’s—he’s—he’s nice to me.”

  “He’s a gobshite.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.” Heat scalded her face. “How dare you. You had no right.”

  In a flurry of motion, Aiden gained his feet and stalked toward her. “I had no right?”

  “None.” She refused to yield ground to him.

  “I am your goddamn family.” He pushed into her space.

  “So what?”

  Their bodies nearly touching, he put his face close to hers. “So, Kyle Pierson is a fecking tool with too high an opinion of himself.”

  Aiden’s incredible scent overwhelmed her senses, and a scream of frustration piled in her throat. “You don’t even know him.”

  “I know enough.” His lashes swept down, and his gaze latched onto her mouth.

  Her heart seized.

  Warmth from his soft breaths danced across her sensitive skin. “Does he turn you on?”

  Her chest rose and fell with her fury. She floundered for words.

  His smile turned smug. “I didn’t think so.”

  He eased his big body away and turned his back on her.

  The breath she’d been holding flooded her lungs. “So you get to sleep with every girl in school, but I can’t even go to a football game with a friend? Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Screw you.”

  He tossed a look at her over his shoulder. “All right, but I’ll ruin you for every limp-dick preppy you try to take to your bed.”

  Her vision blurred with her brimming tears. “You are such a jerk.”

  Dark eyes bored into her. Through her. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  The peal of the doorbell rang out, and she started.

  With a sharp tug, Aiden yanked open the front door, and Alyssa Jensen materialized on a cloud of cloying perfume.

  She offered Cian and Rory an overly bright smile. “Hi, guys.” Her smile dimmed seductively when she turned it on Aiden. “Hi, you.”

  Aiden dipped his head close. “Can you give me a minute?” His gentle, reassuring tone gutted Brynn. “I’ll be right out.”

  “Sure.” Her smile stiff, Alyssa gave Brynn a cool once-over. “Meet you outside.”

  The moment the door closed, Brynn snapped. “Let me guess. Is she The One?”

  A shadow chased across Aiden’s face. He retrieved his jacket where he’d slung it over the back of an armchair.

  Bitter laughter tasted sour on Brynn’s tongue. “If all you’re going do is fuck her, what does it matter?”

  He pulled up. “It matters.”

  Months of hurt and anger, and maddening confusion, welled up. She wanted to scream and cry and kick something really hard. She wanted to lash out, to hurt him the same way he’d hurt her. At her sides, she balled her hands into tight fists and tried to hold the agony inside her.

  She failed. “You’re pathetic.”

  He ignored her and pushed his arms through the sleeves of his coat.

  “You’re never going to find her. This perfect girl you’ve created in your mind. She doesn’t exist.” Brynn couldn’t stop the flow of stupid words pouring out of her mouth. Out of her heart. “None of these girls are ever going to love you.”

  Not the way I could.

  The words were meant to wound him, but they boomeranged and pierced her heart instead. What if she was the one nobody would ever love? What if Kyle had been her one and only shot at happiness?

  She gulped for air, struggling to catch her breath against the rush of terror-pain.

  She wasn’t completely naïve. She knew Kyle Pierson didn’t love her. Not now. But he was the only boy who had ever shown any interest in her. What if he was the only boy who might have grown to love her one day?

  And Aiden had ruined her chances with him.

  Ruined her chances of ever finding love.

  She would forever be Brynn Hathaway.

  Unwanted.

  Unloved.

  Unlovable.

  “You bastard.” Pain roughened her voice. “No woman could ever love someone like you.”

  Her words h
urt him. The pain she’d caused was visible on his face, in the way he held his head and the slight pinch at the corner of his mouth.

  In his dark, turbulent eyes.

  “You may be right about that,” he said.

  Unable to bear the moment any longer, Brynn ran from the room. She slammed her bedroom door and flung her body across the bed. Her face buried in a pillow, she let loose a primal scream.

  She hated him. She hated what he’d done, and she hated that watching him leave with Alyssa wounded her far more deeply than missing out on a date with Kyle Pierson.

  Voices outside drifted through her bedroom windows. Two car doors banged shut, then a car engine fired.

  That night, Aiden would be with Alyssa, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  There was nothing she could do to make herself stop caring who he spent his nights with.

  No matter that he was her brother now.

  No matter that he cared so little about her that he’d ruined her chance with Kyle only to be cruel.

  For the second time that night, her own words came back to injure her—she was the pathetic one, obsessing over a boy who thought so little of her.

  Not just any boy, but her stupid, heartless, evil stepbrother.

  Into her pillow, she emptied her tears.

  * * *

  The threat of fourth period loomed over Brynn as she trudged through the front entrance of their high school on Monday morning. At her locker, she dumped her backpack on the bottom shelf and rifled around for her chemistry textbook.

  What would she say to Kyle when she saw him? What would he say to her?

  Her stomach heaved. The whole thing made her sick. Actually physically ill.

  That, too, was Aiden’s fault. He’d planted gross thoughts in her head and now—

  She slammed shut her locker and gasped. “Kyle, uh, hi.”

  “Hi.” A bemused smile played on his handsome face. “So what happened to you Friday?”

  “Nothing!” The word burst from her at an almost-shout. “Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”

  One of his light eyebrows inched upward.

  “It was—my stepbrothers, they….” She cringed. “They think they’re funny.”

  His smooth laughter calmed her churning stomach. “I figured it was something like that.”

  “I’m so sorry. I—”

  “It’s okay.”

  She hugged the textbook to her chest. “Are you sure?”

  “I have two older brothers. They can be real jerks.”

  “Boy, can they.”

  “See you in class,” he said, backing away.

  “See you.” She chewed her bottom lip a moment. “I really am sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He flicked his wrist and a silver flash flew through the air.

  She bobbled the foil-wrapped stick of gum before reeling it in.

  In fourth period, she angled her body in her seat, preferring Kyle’s bright good looks to Aiden’s brooding darkness.

  She no longer cared who Aiden flirted with, or what he thought of her. Or Kyle. Or her and Kyle together.

  She didn’t understand why Aiden hated her so much, or why he’d lied and said he didn’t when clearly, he did, but she refused to care any longer.

  Doing so hurt too much.

  After school, she holed up in her bedroom and attacked the stack of college applications the school counselor had given her. That was how desperately she wished to avoid Aiden.

  When the house had fallen quiet, hunger lured her from her hideout. Her stomach grumbling, she crept downstairs, but drew up to find Rory at the dining room table, hunched over a bowl of cereal.

  She retrieved a bowl from the kitchen cupboard and filched a spoon from the drawer before she settled in a chair across from him at the table.

  Tipping the box of cereal, she filled her bowl high with fruit-flavored puffballs. “Everyone asleep?”

  His slow smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. “Cian will be up for a bit yet. He tinks he can beat me high score.”

  Soft laughter bubbled up as she loosened the cap on the milk jug. Had she gotten used to their accents, or had their melodic inflections eased since they’d moved to Chicago?

  “And Aiden?” She poured milk into her bowl. “Is he still up?”

  Rory chewed, then swallowed thickly. “He’s out.”

  The stab of jealousy was agonizing, even if completely predictable. “Of course he is,” she muttered.

  Warm brown eyes that reminded her of Aiden’s flickered over her.

  “He must really hate being here.” With her spoon, she speared her cereal, drowning brightly-colored puff balls in milk. “I mean, he’s never home. Like, ever.”

  Rory crunched in silence.

  “It’s like he can’t stand to be anywhere near us.” She halted her assault on the cereal. “I mean, what is up with that?”

  Unease played over his face. “Um…?”

  She gazed into warm brown eyes untainted by disdain.

  “Why doesn’t he like me?” she asked, her throat tight.

  Panic flooded Rory’s expression.

  Her cheeks on fire, she rushed to add, “I mean, not, like, like me, like me. But, like, why does he hate me so much?”

  He frowned. “Did he say that?”

  “No. But it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Is this about the ting with Kyle?”

  She stabbed an orange ball. “And other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Well.” She shifted in her chair. “He’s always frowning at me.”

  “He frowns at everyone.” Rory shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Dat’s just the way he looks.”

  “And the thing with Kyle.”

  “Dat had more to do with Kyle than you.”

  “He doesn’t like Kyle?” Her jaw slackened. “Why not?”

  Rory’s shoulders moved. “Kyle’s a gobshite.”

  “Okay, what does that mean?”

  “You know, a geebag. A bollix.”

  She shrugged.

  “Never mind.” He pushed to his feet.

  “No, I want to know.” She twisted in the chair, following him as he carried his bowl to the kitchen sink. “Maybe he isn’t as cool as you guys are, but—”

  He shook his head. “Dat’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Then what?”

  She waited while he finished rinsing the bowl. Deep lines bracketed his eyes and mouth, making him appear even more like his oldest brother, as he loaded the bowl in the dishwasher and used the heel of his foot to kick the door shut.

  He careened toward the stairs.

  “Rory?”

  One foot on the bottom step, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Ye have to ask Aiden.”

  Chapter 6

  After two weeks of self-imposed exile, Brynn was restless.

  And hungry.

  She wanted something more substantial than a bowl of cereal or one of the granola bars she’d stashed in her dresser drawer. She wanted to escape her bedroom. Escape the house.

  Escape her life.

  Early one Saturday afternoon, she called Molly and invited her friend to the movies, but Molly already had plans with some girls from her school.

  For approximately one-half of a second, Brynn considered going to the movies alone. But what if she ran into kids from school? If they saw her there alone, would they think she had no friends? That she was too big of a loser to find even one person who would want to go to the movies with her? Which was actually kind of the truth.

  If the other kids knew the truth about her, what would they do? Would they laugh at her? Look down on her? Despise her?

  The way Aiden did.

  She rejected the idea and plucked a book off her shelves instead.

  Curling up on the bed, she cracked open the spine. Since she’d first read it a couple of years ago, the book had been one of her favorites, and she quickly became l
ost in the pages of the sweeping romance.

  She was so absorbed in the story, she almost didn’t hear the car back down the driveway and pull away from the house when Aiden left.

  Brynn bounded off the bed. She shot from her bedroom like a felon freed from her prison cell. Under her arm, she tucked her mom’s old cookbook and made a mad dash for the kitchen, anxious to try her hand at the chicken casserole.

  During her self-imposed isolation, Brynn had discovered the cookbook on her shelves and spent several days flipping through its worn pages, remembering what she still recalled of the mom that didn’t want her. It struck Brynn to realize that her happiest memories of her mom, a woman prone to episodes of anger and melancholy, had taken place in the kitchen, where her mom often let Brynn help her cook.

  Smells began to fill the house, and soon after, bodies began to appear. Rory snagged a hunk of cheese off the cutting board and disappeared upstairs. When Cian materialized at her shoulder, she slid a saucer piled with cheese wedges and chunks of cooked chicken across the island. He settled on a barstool and dragged the plate over.

  The arrival of fall brought crisp temperatures and shortened days, and by the time the entire family minus Aiden filled in around the dining table, darkness blanketed the sky.

  In the soft light from the chandelier overhead, Siobhan’s black hair shimmered. “Any offers on the Mitchell house?”

  With a heavy sigh, Brynn’s dad shook his head. “Not one.”

  “I thought you said it’s in one of the most popular neighborhoods in Chicago.”

  “The house needs a lot of work,” her dad said, more worried than she recalled him sounding in years. “The owners don’t want to drop the price, and most buyers aren’t interested in a fixer-upper.”

  “Who’d want to buy a crappy house?” Rory snagged a roll from the breadbasket.

  “Not many people, actually.” A faint smile briefly chased away the frown lines on her dad’s face. “I’ve tried to convince them to do some renovations, but they don’t have the means.”

  “How much would it cost?” Brynn asked.

  “It wouldn’t be cheap, that’s for sure, but they’d earn their money back on the resale two, maybe three times over.”

  Siobhan’s dark eyes went wide. “Is that right?”