Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

“
WHAT
did you just say?” His voice is edged, like he’s really about to yell at me. I
know
from the little smirk in his eyes that he can’t quite hide, that he’s trying to get under my skin here. He’s trying to get me to cow to him and “obey his authority” or whatever ridiculousness.

And I’m not going to give him that. I think of his crude little pantomime of the girls he brings home, the ones saying “yes, chef” to him. Well, this is one girl that cocky, arrogant prick is
not
going to have wrapped around his little finger. Under no circumstances am I going to be “yes, chef”-ing him.

“I said I made a mistake,
Oliver
,” I say his name loudly, pointedly
not
referring to him as chef.

He crosses his arms over his chest, the ink of his forearm tattoos rippling across his muscles as he flexes, “You made
a mistake?
”

“Yes, Jesus.” This is freaking ridiculous. I am not going to play into his stupid little power play. I mean I share a wall and a bathroom with this man at home, I’m just not saying it.

“Yes?” He arches an eyebrow, and I know exactly what he wants, but I’m not saying it. Not this time.

“Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes. “
Yes
,” I say, pointedly dropping the second word he wants to hear.
Screw you, prick
.

“Get the fuck out of my kitchen.”

My eyes dart up to his, “Excuse me?”

His eyes are
smirking
at me, but when he says it again, his voice is booming across the silent kitchen. “I said get the
FUCK
out of my
FUCKING KITCHEN.
”

I can feel the heat flushing my cheeks, the embarrassment that he’s actually following up on his threat with this. “Are you fucking kid-”

“OUT!”

The kitchen is pin-drop silent, and I feel every eye on me as I tear off my apron and toss it at Oliver’s feet. “

Whatever,” I hiss, pushing past him and out the door.

*****

In the locker room, I finally let the breath I’ve been holding inside out in a rush. The emotional charge of having a man with that sort of power - asshole stepbrother or not - yelling in my face catches up with me as the door slams shut behind me, and I’m blinking back tears and fanning my heated face with my hands as I pace the length of the room back and forth. 

My thoughts are a tangled jumble inside my head as I suck in breaths of air, trying to center myself. On the one hand,
yes
, whether I like it or not, Oliver
is
my boss, and defying him like that in the
way
that I did was never going to end well. 

But on the other hand,
what an asshole!
He made an example of me instead of just telling me to fuck off like he could’ve. He decided to cut me down to size as some sort of power-game in full view of the entire kitchen staff, just to make a point.

I’m bent over at the sink, splashing cold water on my face when I hear the voice behind me, “It can get a little hot in there.” 

I jerk my head up and then narrow my eyes as I see Oliver grinning at me in the mirror behind me. “Oh
fuck off
.”

“Hey,” he shrugs, “I told you I wasn’t going to go easy on you.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for the heads up,
ass
.”

I turn and move to push past him, but he grabs my wrist, pulling me back. I bite my lip and I stop short in my tracks, turning to look up into his eyes; his icy, dark brown eyes. I can feel a buzz run through me from the point where his hand touches my wrists, the power in those hands searing my skin. 

“You know,” he says, his lips parting in a smug grin, “All you had to do was say ‘yes, chef’.”

We’re talking about it like he means work, but I can tell just by that look in his eyes that we’re really talking about the subtext here. We’re talking about him being frustrated by the girl that won’t say yes to the man who never hears no. I shake my arm loose of his grasp. 

“Well maybe I’m not that easy.”

“It wouldn’t be fun if you were, luv,” he says, winking at me.

I blush and bite my lip, swallowing the dirty daydreams of what could be and sizzling memories of what was as I meet his stare eye-to-eye, our faces inches apart.

“I’m not going to play this game with you, you know,” I say quietly, willing myself to not blink; willing myself not to yield an inch in this little tit-for-tat we’re doing here alone in the locker room.

“Oh and what game is that, sweetheart?” he murmurs, that thick accent caressing over my skin and teasing my ears.

“You know what I’m talking about, Oliver.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You playing this little power-trip of yours because I wouldn’t do certain things before,” I say quietly. “You know,
before
before.”

He smirks, “
Things?
”

“Things like sleep with you.”

He drops his jaw in overly-dramatic shock and shakes his head, grinning at me, “
Wow!”
 

I roll my eyes with a huff and whirl to walk away from him. He stops me with a firm hand on the locker room door, “Look, let’s go get a pint and I can make it up to you.”

My brow wrinkles, “
Just
like that.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re a raging dick to me and then you want to ‘grab a pint’?”

“Chloe.” He rolls his eyes at me, making my blood boil a little, “It’s the
kitchen
, it’s not fucking personal.” 

I tighten my lips, saying nothing in return, and he arches a brow at me. 

“Look, you want this life?
This
is it.
This
is the game.”

I’m silent, just pursing my lips and glaring at him as he holds my gaze. Finally, he rolls his eyes, “Alright, you know what, fuck it. Forget about it.” He turns and starts to open the locker room door. 

Just before he steps out, I finally crack. “
Okay,
okay,” I sigh loudly, “So how far away is this pint?”

He turns, grinning broadly at me as he brings a hand up to rub his chin, “So that’s a yes?”

“To the drink? Obviously, it’s what I just-”

“No, sweetheart, I mean is that a yes to you sticking around and learning to thicken that skin when it comes to this craziness we call professional kitchens?”

I roll my eyes, “Does it get me a drink? Fine, yes.”

Oliver grins as he slings an arm over my shoulder and walks me out the door, “Then hold on tight, luv, the ride’s just getting started.”

There’s just the smallest hint of a wrinkle in Chloe’s brow as we step into the pub. I grin to myself, watching as she quickly and nonchalantly hides it when she turns to me and shrugs casually, as if this is
exactly
the type of place she was expecting to come have a drink at.

The Rusty Knot is the farthest thing from an expected type of drinking establishment for a girl like Chloe;
any
girl, actually, and I know it. But of course, that is
precisely
why I’ve brought her here. The place reeks of stale beer and chips, and cheap cigarettes. Pipe smoke hangs like a mourning shroud over the mangy assortment of drunks, thieves, villains, footy hooligans, and of course, cooks.

The floor sticks to your shoes, the clientele is most likely waiting for you to pass out to nick your wallet, the bartender is a right bruiser of a geezer, and the beer is flat and warm even by
British
standards.

This is the last fucking place in the world a girl like Chloe would ever drink anything. 

That all said, I fuckin
love
this shithole. And anyways, we’re not exactly here for me to impress Chloe, we’re here because I felt like testing her. 

And I gotta hand it to her, she’s passing with that Paul-Newman-cool look she’s trying to sell me.

“So what’s good here?”

I smirk at her honest question “Nothing,” I say with a grin.

She’s out of her element in a place like this. Fuck,
I’m
not quite at sorts in a hovel like this, but she’s playing it cool and she’s playing it with grace.

Which is sort of sexy as fuck.

She’s grown up a bit since that time before; she’s grown up a
lot
actually. She looks worldly and more confident.

And
hot
. 

I mean, she looked good before, but it was in this sort of “cute-sexy” inexperienced way. Now? Now she’s like
woman
hot; she’s just plain fucking
sexy
. Here’s a girl that’s just come off working a damn commercial kitchen line during service. She’s been standing in pools of her own sweat for six hours, in full fight-or-flight mode listening to the machine print tickets and me yell shit all night.

And she looks fuckin’
great
. She’s in jeans and a t-shirt, she’s got her dark hair pulled back in this basic ponytail, and I feel like there’s no way she’s even wearing makeup right now. And yet, somehow, she’s possibly the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Fuck me, she even
smells
good. I’ve always wondered how that was even possible when it came to girls. Like, a guy is going to smell like a fuckin’ jock-strap after a shift like the one we had. Her? She splashes some water on her face and puts on a t-shirt and she smells like Goddamn lavender and sunshine. Like how is that even possible?

“Oliver.”

“Huh?” I blink, realizing I’ve been staring at her.

“Were you just trying to impress me by how gross your regular drinking spot was or are we actually going to drink something?”

Damn
. And see, there’s
that
, too. She’s got a bit of sass to her that’s stirring things in me a girl like
this
really ought not to be stirring. 

Okay, I get it; it’s weird. Our parents are getting married soon, which sort of casts a bit of a pallor on any sort of wayward thoughts I might otherwise have for a girl who looks like
this
. But whatever, I’m a guy, she’s a hot girl, and it’s not like we’re
actually
related or anything. 

Right then, keep rationalizing the fact that you’re fantasizing about fucking your stepsister, perv.

I grin, rather forcing myself back into the moment and back into my role as captain knob-head, “Oh, definitely the first. Chicks get all sorts of wet when I show them how rebel my pub is.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Oliver, if you honestly believe a single girl has
ever
been turned on in a place like this, you might want to start worrying about what
else
they’ve probably told you that you’ve believed,” she says with a sly arch of her brow.

My grin widens as I chuckle and hold up two fingers to the surly looking barkeep; there’s no point naming anything, it’s not like this place gives you the luxury of
choice
when it comes to a shitty pint.

He turns to grab two foggy glasses from the back shelf, and I lean down towards Chloe, “Luv, they don’t have to
tell me
anything,” I husk into her ear, loving the way she stiffens even as she tries to put up this smooth criminal look she’s trying to work with.