Step Wilde: A Stepbrother Romance (28 page)

The door handle turned. Wilder dropped me onto the floor and turned around, looking angry. It was Harrison.

“What the fuck, man?” Wilder said in irritation.

Harrison was pale. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s an emergency, Mr. Wilder.”

I squinted at him, feeling my stomach turn over. I thought he was playing some kind of joke on us.

“What could
possibly
be an emergency right now?” Wilder snapped.

Harrison looked meaningfully over at me. “I don’t think I should say in front of Ms. Martin,” Harrison said. He was stoic, but I could tell his hands were shaking slightly. “I wouldn’t have interrupted if this weren’t exceedingly important.”

Wilder ran his hands through his hair and sighed loudly. “Fine. If it’s
that
fucking important…”

He ripped off his robe and pulled his clothes on, unearthing them from the same pile mine had been in. Harrison left the room quickly and shut the door.

“What do you think that’s about?” I asked him, feeling worried.

Wilder pulled a t-shirt over his rippling, tattooed skin. “I have no idea. Harrison has never done anything like that before. So it must be something big.”

“What could it be that he couldn’t say it in front of me?” I asked, handing Wilder his jeans. He took them gratefully.

“I don’t know, Liv,” he said. “What time is it?”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The tiny green rectangle on the back lit up. “Two thirty or so.”

Wilder preened his hair in the mirror, then turned to face me. He took both of my hands in his and smiled. “We will meet at three o’clock in your room, okay? For food.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why not the restaurant? It has a bigger menu.” I was thinking specifically and longingly of a certain pasta and meat dish that was served flaming, tableside.

Wilder laughed and pulled me closer.

“Because I want the time between food and fucking to be as brief as possible.”

He reached behind me and slapped my ass. Goosebumps fell down my legs.

“And I don’t think I can possibly control myself that long in public.”

I blushed and laughed, pushing him away. “Seriously. I want that one dish that they don’t serve upstairs. I’m
starving
.” I batted my eyelashes at him. “
You
can eat in your room. But I’ll be in the restaurant at three.”

I enjoyed making him wait. He stared at me longingly.

“How many times do I have to say it, Liv?” he asked me with a slightly pained look on his face. “You’re going to fucking kill me one of these days.”

I raised my eyebrows and walked to the door, turning with a devilish grin. “Maybe that’s my secret goal.”

Wilder laughed and walked into the suite behind me.

“Three o’clock,” he repeated.

“Three o’clock,” I replied.

I liked making him wait.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

WILDER

Olivia and I parted ways outside of the suite where we’d filmed all day.

The weather was glorious. Birds were chirping in the trees, and people were milling around the downstairs courtyard by the pool. I wondered absentmindedly if Olivia and I could sneak out for a nighttime swim later.

I was lost in a daydream in which I was playing with her hard nipples through the wet fabric of a bikini top when I nearly slammed into Harrison, who was pacing outside of my room.

“Sorry, Mr. Wilder,” he said nervously.

I rolled my eyes. “If you were
really
sorry you would have taken care of whatever it is that you interrupted me about. So don’t give me that ‘Sorry’ bullshit.”

A gleeful look that was totally out of place in the moment crossed his face. It disappeared a second later; in its place came a calm smirk that was somehow even more unnerving.

“You have a guest, Mr. Wilder.” He motioned toward the door of my hotel room, whipping out a room key and sliding it into the door. The light flickered green and the lock clicked open. “After you.
Boss
.”

I felt more than a slight sense of apprehension as I walked past him into my own room. The blinds were open and so were the French balcony doors that overlooked the vineyards.

I nearly felt my heart burst out of my body as I saw who was standing there in a flowing white dress, the wind playing at the hem. She had her hands on the railing, her arms stretched as far as they would go.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Hailey?” I asked angrily. I looked back at Harrison but I saw that he had already closed the door.

Hailey turned around, leaning back on the metal railing. She was smiling and had no makeup on; her long bob hair had been braided into two French braids along the side of her head. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her like that. I almost didn’t recognize her.

“Wilde,” she said with a small smile.

My fists were clenched by my side. I repeated myself. “What. In.
Fuck
. Are you doing here?”

She motioned to the metal table on the balcony and the two cushioned chairs that sat there.

“Have a seat, Wilde,” she instructed.

“No,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here. I’m calling security.”

I walked over to the bedside table and lifted up the phone.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she intoned.

“Fuck off, Hailey,” I retorted, pressing the button for the front desk.

“Sit down, Nicholas,” she repeated. Her voice wasn’t so light this time.

Nicholas
. I hung up the phone just as the front desk woman answered. “Why the fuck are you calling me Nicholas?”

Hailey raised her eyebrows and motioned again to the patio furniture. I felt my legs were moving of their own accord as I stepped toward the balcony. I sat on the edge of the cushion as Hailey joined me.

“How are you?” she asked me with a smile.

I felt my entire body shaking. Then I realized why she looked so different. It wasn’t just the hairstyle or the lack of makeup. I stood up and walked back into the room, opening the closet door and peeking inside. It was empty. I walked into the bathroom and looked around. It was empty, too. I came back out to the balcony and sat again.

“You’re alone,” I said, giving her a quizzical look. I looked over the railing to make sure there wasn’t someone hiding in a tree. “There aren’t even photographers here.”

Hailey smiled. “I can travel light when I need to,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I only brought one of my assistants. Took my jet to get here. I won’t be taking a lot of your time, I promise.”

I laughed and rubbed my hands through my hair. “That would be a first,” I spat out.

She cleared her throat. “I need you to break up with your co-star,” she said.

I felt like a frog had jumped into my esophagus. “Excuse me? How do you know-“

Hailey held up a hand. “I paid the entire hotel staff to keep an eye on you. The gym guy took the pic. He took better photos than the one I leaked to the press, by the way. I knew it was her. That’s why I left.”

I took several calming breaths as I stared at her. I had no idea what to say.

“I didn’t make a scene, though, and you’re probably wondering why that is? I mean, you
did
break my blackmail agreement after all.”

I nodded slowly.

Then she did the most terrifying thing that Hailey
could
do.

She laughed.

“Oh, Wilde, you really thought I was going away quietly? Taking the publicity and the royalties from the songs I’ll write about you and just shut up? You thought I would allow your little film project to be the beneficiary of
my
actions?” She laughed again. “I expected more from you.”

My stomach was sinking into my feet. “I
knew
you had to be up to something else. I knew it. I fucking knew it.” I slammed my hand onto the table, a primal yell escaping my lips.

A cloud of birds erupted from a nearby tree, startled by the sound I’d made.

Hailey twirled the end of one of her braids. “I wasn’t back here sooner because I wanted to wait until the movie was done filming. And I didn’t want to interrupt shooting any more than this clusterfuck of a film already
has been
interrupted.” She giggled at that. “So I took my time. But I had what I needed a while ago.”

She tapped her fingers on the black cast-iron table. Her nails weren’t their usual red, but instead a pale, sheer pink. They’d also been taken from their normal, pointy-tipped shape down into soft ovals.

That scared me more than any of the other physical changes.

She’d used her talons to threaten to scratch me before. She knew that four fingernail marks across my famous, constantly photographed cheek would lead to questions of me abusing Hailey and her retaliating in self-defense.

They were always her defense mechanism. And now that those were gone, I wondered what held their place.

I knew there had to be
something
. Because Hailey was always three steps ahead of me.

“When I heard you and your side bitch broke up last week, I almost didn’t fly out. But then I just had this feeling last night that I should come out here anyway.” She laughed again. “You know, you should always trust a woman’s intuition, Wilde. I’m willing to be the sex scene you shot today rekindled the spark.”

She glared at me. I felt like her eyes were slicing through my skull; it felt like she was reading my mind. She pulled out her iPhone and tapped the screen. Then she handed it to me.

“Press play,” she said quietly.

I looked at the images that were flashing in front of me and felt like I was going to black out from sheer panic. A four poster bed. A white duvet.

Olivia taking off her white sundress.

Olivia standing there, naked. Olivia crawling into the bed, her ass in full view of the apparently hidden camera. Then grainy, green night vision. Olivia climbing on top of me.

I felt Hailey’s eyes on my face.

“You can fast forward to the good stuff. I recommend the thirty-two minute and fifty-five second mark, personally.” She tilted her head and leaned her forearms on the table. “How come you never offered
me
anal sex, Wilde?”

I threw the phone at her. My heart was pounding so loudly I couldn’t hear anything. I felt like upturning the table. The mini bar was beckoning to me from the room. I remembered Olivia’s face and it kept me from unscrewing the bottle of vodka that was sitting there so temptingly.

“So you’re blackmailing both of us now?” I asked her.

I could feel Hailey smiling even without turning around to look at her.

“I like to think of it as
leverage
. I know your new piece of ass has a severe aversion to the press. I’m guessing she’s not the kind of person who would be happy about a sex tape even if it
would
help her career.”

I couldn’t bear to turn around and look at her. If I did, I would want to assault her. I tried breathing through my nose. That wasn’t helping much.

Hailey cleared her throat. “If you go to anyone with this; call the police or the press - I’ve got my finger on a text message to my assistant. He sends it to TMZ in an email. There are copies of it in multiple places; on three different computers, a handful of jump drives, and on six different cloud accounts.”

I actually laughed and finally turned around. “You really think that I thought you only had one copy? Come on, Hailey. Give me more credit than that.”

She smiled. “Don’t you want to know what it is that I want from you?”

I turned around finally to face her. “What
do
you want, Hailey? What the fuck could it
possibly
be this time?”

She tilted her head and smiled. “I want you to stop talking to Olivia. Full-stop. No explanation. Stop answering the door, stop answering her calls. And don’t use someone else to do it, either. Harrison isn’t allowed- “

Suddenly a thought came into my head so clearly and strongly I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to put two and two together.

“Harrison. Harrison. The villa. The rescheduling. He had to find a place that would allow him to send someone into it. To place the camera,” I muttered.

I looked up at the perfect day unfolding around me. Thick, fluffy white clouds were drifting slowly across a brilliant blue background of sky. It was surreal to me that all of this was happening with the incredible contrast of nearly perfect weather.

“He fucked me over.”

Hailey smiled. “Yeah, he really, really did.” She tapped her nails again on the tabletop. “It was shockingly easy to get him to go along with it. I can’t believe how little you pay your assistant. He practically
lives
with you, Wilde.”

“Money. That’s all it took?”

Hailey smiled. “You should know this by now, Wilde. Stop playing coy. A million dollars will go a long way once he moves back to Portland. He won’t have to work for a few years, at least.”

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. “What else is it, then?”

She tilted her head in an innocent smile. “What else?”

“Stop fucking with me, Hailey. You didn’t shit out a million-dollar bribe just so I’d stop fucking my girlfriend. You must want something else.”

Hailey put her hand over her stomach and her smile grew bigger. “I figured me carrying your baby wouldn’t be enough on its own to make you stay. I needed leverage. So I planned ahead with the sex tape.”

All I remember after hearing that was total blackness.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

OLIVIA

The worst part was having to see Gina’s story in the press.

The story broke the same day that Wilder stood me up at the hotel restaurant. Suddenly there was proof in the form of testimony from a seventy-something-year-old woman that Wilder had left Hailey for me and that we’d posed as newlyweds for a sex romp weekend in the Italian countryside.

So while I was crying in my five-star hotel room because my boyfriend wouldn’t call me back, the entire world was either celebrating or judging our budding relationship.