Biker Stepbrother (2 page)

PRESENT

“You going out with Holden tonight?” My mom stood in the doorway of my room, a pink martini in her hand with lipstick on the rim.

“Not tonight.” I sighed as I slicked my flat iron over my blond waves.

“Trouble in paradise?” She stepped into my room, perching herself on the foot of my bed. She must’ve been bored. That or Sterling was passed out downstairs and she wanted someone to talk to.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She tucked a strand of her platinum blonde hair behind her ear, the cuff of her shirt falling to reveal a hint of a faded, homemade clover tattoo she’d been trying to have lasered off for years. It wasn’t just a tattoo though, it was a permanent reminder of our previous life.

A decade ago we were holed up in a smelly, dirty trailer in Nevada with some asshole named Big Nash and his two sons, the brothers I’d had once and had never forgotten in all the years that had passed.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll pass,” she said as she sipped her drink. I could almost hear her silent lecture about how Conners girls were tough. We didn’t cry. We did what we had to do. She stopped calling us Conners girls the moment she met Sterling Chadwick and became a kept woman. The giant, sparkling rock on her finger caught the light and threw sparkles on the wall next to me.

Sterling was about twenty-five years older than her, old enough to be her father. He was silver-haired with an abundance of wrinkles, a bachelor at the time who’d never desired to settle down until it was too late. Sterling came complete with a mansion in Brentwood, a chalet in Aspen, a fleet of luxury vehicles, and a net worth that could rival even the fiercest American business magnates.

What he saw in Tammy-Dawn Conners, I never figured out. I supposed she made him happy. Maybe she reminded him of someone. All I knew for sure was it didn’t take long before Tammy-Dawn Conners traded in her cut off jean shorts and spaghetti strap tops for Roberto Cavalli maxi dresses and limited edition Chopard bracelets. As soon as they married, Mom decided to go by Tamara Chadwick on account of it sounding classier and giving her a clean slate, she said.

But it didn’t stop there. Mom insisted Sterling adopt me, and for some insane reason he agreed to, at least by name. He wasn’t legally my father, but he happily accepted the role and let me take his last name so we’d feel more like a family unit. And of course Mom insisted I go by Eve Chadwick on account of new beginnings.

She’d originally named me Everly after the Everly Brothers, who were playing on the radio when I was conceived in the backseat of a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. She was still in high school when I was born. Had she been older when she had me I suspect she would’ve put a little more long-term thought into my name.

I never did meet my father. Mom said he wasn’t worth meeting, and she slapped me across the face for asking about him when I was younger so I never asked again.

“Holden is such a nice young man,” Mom mused as she watched me slick on some lipstick. “You’re very lucky to have him.”

I rolled my eyes. Holden was Sterling’s best friend’s son and held a high-ranking executive job at Holden’s real estate development company. He showered me with lavish gifts and took me on luxury getaways when he wasn’t busy shoving his nose up Sterling’s ass at the office. Sterling loved Holden like the son he never had and Holden soaked it up like a sponge.

“Luckiest girl in the world.” I didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm in my tone.

Mom stood up, smoothing her hand over her pressed slacks. “It makes Sterling so happy to see you with Holden.”

Translation:
don’t you dare think about leaving him.

Mom did anything Sterling asked, as if she were afraid that one minor disagreement would bring our entire world crashing down. She’d worked hard to find us a better life. I knew she didn’t love Sterling. She just wanted to feel safe and loved and not have to worry about money ever again.

I shuddered to think of where we’d have spent the last ten years had she not taken that secretary position at his firm which lead to a hot and heavy affair which lead to a quickie engagement and subsequent marriage.

Tammy-Dawn Conners was a resourceful woman, and Tamara Chadwick was determined to hold onto her fancy lifestyle at any cost. Underneath it all, she and I both knew that no amount of designer clothes and trips to the plastic surgeon would ever erase the fact that she was still Tammy-Dawn on the inside.

“Sterling thinks Holden’s going to propose to you soon,” my mom gushed. “You will say, yes, won’t you, Eve?”

My hand clenched around the blush brush I held. I’d been dating Holden for three years, since my sophomore year in college when we both attended Pepperdine. It was nice seeing a familiar face around campus, and after we began hanging out, things just sort of evolved. As soon as he graduated, Sterling gave him a job. An engagement seemed like the next natural step, but in the pit of my stomach it didn’t feel right.

“Eve,” my mom said, snapping me back to reality. “You
will
say yes.”

She wasn’t asking anymore.

“Holden’s not going to propose,” I said, brushing it off. “I’m only twenty-two. I’m too young to get married.”

Mom stepped into my space and squared her gaze with mine. Her once leathered skin had been smoothed, peeled, polished and Botoxed into a youthful state. Chanel No. 5 wafted off her warm skin and saturated the air around me. Sometimes when I looked at her, I saw small glimpses of the woman she used to be. And other times, I felt as if she were a complete stranger.

“It is very important that you say yes when Holden asks you to marry him,” my mother’s voice was low.

I opened my mouth in protest, but she’d already turned and left my room. I finished getting ready and left the mansion, heading to Malibu to meet my best friend, Skylar, for drinks.

***

“There she is,” Skylar said with a mile-wide grin. Her pink, manicured fingers gripped a martini glass and an untouched Amaretto and diet sat next to her. She was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people I’d ever met, second only to one.

“Sorry I’m late.” I slid into the booth at the Sunset Room, an old hangout of ours during our college days. “My mom was bugging me about something.”

“What’s Tamara hounding you about now?” Skylar rolled her eyes.

Before I had a chance to answer, Skylar’s eyes glazed past mine and honed in one a group of guys heading towards our table.

“Oh, god,” I moaned. Us blondes were a dime a dozen in Malibu, but for whatever reason anytime we were together, we were never left alone for very long.

Skylar’s cherry lips spread into a megawatt smile. She loved the attention. I’d learned to ignore it over the years. Holden was a very jealous boyfriend.

I turned towards the men to catch another glimpse. There were three of them and judging by their copious tattoos and ridden-hard looks, they weren’t from around there. My skin pricked and a zing of pain seared through my insides. I hadn’t been around men like that for over ten years. Even with all her faults, Mom had done a good job of sheltering me from the ugly parts of life ever since we fled Bolton.

My eyes widened in Skylar’s direction, and I flashed her a look, praying she could read my mind. Those guys were bad news.

“Hello, boys,” she said, turning on the charm.

A guy with a shaved head took a liking to her right away. “This seat taken?”

Skylar slid over, making room for him. “What’s your name, stranger?”

While I tended to gravitate towards the clean-cut suit types, Skylar had a weakness for bad boys. And older men. And married men. And, well, men in general. I loved my sweet Skylar, but men were here kryptonite and not even years of therapy had fixed her yet.

“Vince,” he said. “And what does a pretty girl like you call herself?”

“Skylar,” she said, spinning her drink between her fingers as her mouth curled into a smile that could only mean she was basking in the attention he was pouring over her.

So much for our girl talk.

I drew in a long, frustrated breath. I wanted to vent to her about Mom and Holden. I wanted to ask her what I should do if Holden asked me to marry him. My mind was heavy with a thousand weighted thoughts and no one to share them with meant they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“I’m going to get some air,” I said, though Skylar barely heard me. I slipped past the other guys who groaned and muttered something along the lines of “cock tease” as I walked away.

The second the night air washed over me, I sucked in a long breath only to inhale the secondhand smoke of a man standing a few feet away. I wasn’t a smoker, but the distinct smell of Marlboro Lights made me nostalgic for the brief period of my life when I had a family.

We may have lived in a rickety trailer and Big Nash may have been the world’s biggest asshole and a poor excuse for a father figure, but Gray always saw to it that I was shielded from the brunt of the bad stuff. When Mom was dealing with Big Nash or too drunk to function, Gray would swoop in, take me and Little Nash down to the park or turn up his radio so loud we couldn’t hear what was going on. Despite the circumstances, those were some of the best years of my life.

It was fucked up. I knew that.

The sweet and biting smoke scent tickled my lungs, reminding me of the way our trailer always smelled. Stale smoke mixed with fresh. My eyes shut for a brief moment as I thought of him. His chestnut hair and emerald eyes were a stunning contrast against his flawless, milky skin. I thought about him often, especially when life got too hard and I wished I had him around to make it all go away. He was the only person who ever made me feel truly safe and unconditionally loved.

I just hoped he was happy, wherever he was.

“Mind if I bum one?” I asked the man standing in front of me. I wasn’t a smoker, but that night I missed Gray something fierce.

The man slowly turned around, his leather jacket a tad out of place for Malibu and a sure sign he wasn’t from around there. A lit cigarette dangled from his full lips. He gripped it between his middle finger and thumb, handing it over to me.

As I took a drag, a tall man with a whole mess of muscles and tattoos stared back at me with the most mesmerizing green eyes I’d ever seen.

My heart caught in my throat.

“Gray?”

I’d recognize those big brown eyes anywhere. Standing before me, a grown woman a few inches shorter than me with coke bottle curves and shiny, blonde hair, her face softened as her eyes studied me like I was some sort of desert mirage.

“Everly?” My eyes landed on her full, pink lips as she lifted my cigarette to them and inhaled a second time.

Her arm fell to her side as she stepped closer to me, hesitating for a second before throwing herself against me and slipping an arm under mine. She pressed her head against my chest and breathed me in.

“Oh, my god. It’s really you.” She held onto me tight, anchoring herself to me like a shipwrecked sailor.

A hint of flowery perfume radiated off her. Last time I’d seen Everly, she was just a string bean of a kid who followed me around like a lost puppy. The once frail little girl I’d felt an overwhelming urge to protect had done grown up. Judging by her unquestionable beauty, time had been kind to her.

She handed my cigarette back, and I took an extra long drag as I drank her in. Had she not been my sister in a former life, I’d have been focusing on the ripe, round melons peeking out from her low cut top or the way her eyelashes played out as she looked up at me.

“Been a long time, Everly,” I said, staring her square in the eyes so as to keep my attention proper.

She batted her hand and smiled. “No one calls me Everly anymore. I haven’t been that girl in a long, long time.” Her eyes fell and landed on the concrete sidewalk.

“How you been?”

Her dark gaze met mine again. “I’ve been okay. Think about you all the time.”

“No shit?”

She nodded. “Want to go somewhere? Catch up? Maybe tell me what you’re doing in Malibu of all places?”

I flicked the cigarette butt to the ground and stomped it with the toe of my boot before glancing back at my bike. The truth was, I’d driven to Malibu to find a place to sleep right on the beach. I’d heard of people camping along the shore before, and I knew of a secluded beach I could go unnoticed for a while.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

Everything about the way Everly looked told me life hadn’t been nearly as hard on her as I thought it would be in the time that lapsed. She was clean, polished, pretty and put together.

“Beach,” I said.

“As in… the beach?” Her perfectly groomed brows furrowed. “Or like a hotel along the beach?”

“The beach.”

Her head cocked to the side and her lips pursed. “Everything okay with you?”

My nostrils flared. I wanted to tell her what was going on, but a simple sidewalk conversation wasn’t the time or the place.

“No,” she said. “I’m going to put you up in a hotel.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re not sleeping on the beach.” Her eyes danced between mine as she studied my face. “Something’s up. I can tell.”

I nodded towards my bike and she followed. I threw a leg over the seat and kicked back the stand before she climbed on behind me. Her arms slipped beneath mine and she held on tight.

“There’s a hotel up the road,” she said loudly as I started it up. The rumbling damn near drowned out her sweet voice. “Two miles a head. Take a right.”

***

I emerged from the shower, hair still dripping wet and donning a clean change of clothes. Two days on the road, and I was covered in dirt, bugs, road grime, and grease. A shower and a clean shave had never felt so good before.

“Feel better?” she asked, leaning against the headboard of the hotel bed and aimlessly flipping through channels on the T.V. Her shoulders relaxed as she inhaled a deep breath. “Smells good in here. Like soap.”

I crawled across the bed, sitting next to her. In many ways she was family, but in another way she was a complete stranger. I barely knew her anymore. The beautiful woman sitting next to me, who was an integral part of my childhood, had popped back into my life for a reason. I just had to figure what that reason was.

“How’s Little Nash?” she asked, turning to me.

“Not so little anymore,” I said with a chuckle. “Goes by Nash now. Dropped the ‘little’.”

“I figured he would.” She smiled fondly. “He’s doing good though?”

I rubbed my calloused hands together as I struggled to find the words. “He’s in the club.”

“Your dad’s club?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t… did you?”

The flicker of the T.V. screen brightened her face and the reflection of a sitcom shone in her dark irises. I nodded, bringing my thumbnail to my mouth.

“Why, Gray? You always said you weren’t going to be like him.”

“I’m nothing like him,” I shot back. “I promise you that, Everly.”

“No one calls me Everly anymore. I go by Eve now.”

“Eve?” I scrunched my nose, looking her up and down.

“Mom’s idea. Sterling and Mom changed my last name to Chadwick when I was fourteen then Mom started calling me Eve.”

“Ah,” I said. “That makes sense then.”

“What makes sense?”

“Why I could never find you.”

Her body turned towards me completely. “You went looking for me?”

I nodded, struggling to keep my eyes above the crevice of her heaving breasts that was mere inches from my face.

She’s practically your sister.

“A few years ago,” I said. “I always wondered where you two went off to.”

Everly rolled her eyes. “Mom woke me up in the dead of night and loaded me up in the car when Big Nash was passed out. I wish I could’ve said goodbye to you.”

“I knew you were leaving,” I said.

“You did? How?”

“I overheard Big Nash talking with another club president. He owed him some money. Heard him talk about selling you to settle the debt.”

Her hand flew to her lips, trembling subtly as her eyes grew large.

“I tipped off your Mom,” I said. “Told her you guys needed to leave.”

“So it was you.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “You saved me.”

I shrugged. “I just did the right thing was all.”

Her eyes misted and she wiped away a single tear. “Oh, my God, Gray. I was so angry at her for so many years for taking me away from you. And here, you loved me enough to send me away so I could be safe.”

I nodded.

“I’ve missed you,” she gushed, only then several tears streamed down her soft cheeks. “So much. You have no idea.”

Her soft hand found mine in the dark, and she interlaced our fingers. A jolt of electricity sent shockwaves through me from head to toe.

“Did you come looking for me?” she asked softly. “Is that why you’re here?”

I couldn’t lie. Not to her. “I’m on the run, Everly.”

Her brows rutted. “From who?”

“Someone killed Big Nash a couple days ago. The club thinks I did it.”

“You’d never kill anyone.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Her hand flew up to my arm. “I know you didn’t. I believe you.”

“I was the V.P. of my father’s gang,” I said. “Everyone knew we butted heads. I’m the only one with any kind of motives, and I’m the only one who went home while everyone else went out to the bar night he was shot.”

“You’ve been framed,” she said. I didn’t want to believe it, but hearing the words said aloud reinforced the reality of the situation. She curled up next to me, wrapping my arm around her shoulder the way she did when she was just a little girl. “We’ve got to get you out of this.”

I leaned down and cupped her face with my hand, staring hard into her deep, brown eyes. “There is no ‘we’. You have nothing to do with this. I can handle my own mess.”

She shook her head, her bottom lip beginning to pout out. “Gray, you protected me when we were younger. You looked out for me. It’s my turn to repay the favor.”

I shook my head. “Can’t allow that. I can’t let you get tangled up in all this.”

She leaned her head against my chest, pressing her ear against my heart as it loped like a runaway horse. Being with Everly felt like home, and I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

“Let’s not talk about me anymore,” I said. “Tell me about you. You happy, Everly?”

Her body tensed and her arms gripped me like a vise before she drew in a long breath and let go of me. She situated her body against a pillow and stared up at the popcorn celling.

“I’m miserable, Gray,” she said with defeat in her voice. “If we’re being honest.”

Her finger innocently trailed down the cleavage of her chest until her hand came to a rest on her flat belly. She turned to me, her face a vision of a bittersweet kind of toughness.

“Someone hurt you?”

“No,” she sighed. “Not really. You ever feel stuck, Gray? Like you’re just treading water and you’ve got nothing and no one to hold onto?”

“I know the feeling well.”

She turned on her side, resting her head on her elbow. The warmth of her hand found mine again. “You were always my life preserver. Ever since our lives took different paths, I haven’t had anyone else there like you. Nobody to turn to when the water got too rough.”

“What about your mom?”

She shot me a look. We both knew Tammy-Dawn Conners only really gave a shit about one person and that was herself. “What about her?”

Everly rolled back over, staring up at the ceiling and pulling her hand off mine.

“She married some rich bastard. She’s officially a Stepford Wife now,” she said with an eye roll. “As long as Sterling is happy, that’s all that matters.”

“The last ten years pretty hard for you?”

“Not by most people’s standards, no. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Please don’t think I’m a snob. I’m not.”

“I know you’re not.”

“I mean, I spent my teenage years in a mansion in Brentwood. I attended the best schools. Sterling paid for my Pepperdine degree with his pocket change. My first car was a Range Rover.”

“But…?”

“My future isn’t mine. That’s the problem.”

I shook my head. “Your future
is
yours.”

“There are expectations about what I’m supposed to do next,” she said, treading carefully with her words. “I don’t want to bore you with the details.”

I studied her lips as she spoke, two full rosebuds belonging to one of the most beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on.

“God, I’ve missed you.” I tensed my body, forcing myself to restrict the bizarre urge I had to claim her mouth. A decade had passed, and my urge to love and protect her with every fiber of my being had never left. And this time we were two adults, two passing ships in the night, searching for a safe place to drop our anchors.

My good intentions betrayed me, and my hand found the side of her face as my body inched closer to hers. I breathed her in; flowers, money, trepidation. Before I had a chance to change my mind, my thumb traced the soft bud of her bottom lip and I leaned in to taste her.