My Billionaire Stepbrother (Lexi's Sexy Billionaire Romance #1) (20 page)

Leaving my old life made things better. Bringing it back made them worse.
 

It’s so obvious. Of
course
I said that only the world’s crap stayed in places like where my old man lives. I said it because I believe it. I still do, now that I think about it. Angela could have left but decided to stay. That’s on her, not me. Why should I feel bad for looking down on who and where I used to be? Why should I feel bad for thinking those old days were unmitigated shit? Why should I pretend to think they were fabulous now?

I look out the window. Samantha and Duncan are somewhere beside me, but I barely care. I drank a lot as we finished dinner, and I finished dinner because I’m
Parker Fucking Altman
.

I ride for a while in melancholy, trying to ignore Sam and Duncan’s yammering.
 

I open the windows. I close them. I turn on the radio over Duncan’s protests. Then I turn it off. For a while, I stare out the window, feeling nineteen again, effortlessly slapped back to my old shithole because I foolishly allowed a moment of weakness to suck me in. Didn’t my shrinks warn me to stay away? It’s
fine
to divorce your parents, they said. Dad’s a dick? Then let him rot. And if he has prisoners of fortune with him, that’s
his
problem and
their
problem, not
Parker Fucking Altman’s
problem. I’m a good person. I give millions to charity. I don’t have to help my dad, and screw anyone who thinks I do. Screw Angela if that’s what she’s implying, which after enough alcohol I’m sure she is.
 

My money is mine to spend as I please, and I can have any prejudices I want. I earned what’s mine. I refuse to feel guilty about my success, or about the failure of others.
 

I don’t stop to examine my logic because with booze in my veins, I already feel a lot better than I did when Angela stormed out and I failed to follow her. Instead, I try to unpack this newer, better set of emotions. And you know who’s good at helping me with things like this? Duncan.
 

I turn to Duncan and say, “Let’s go somewhere noisy.”

Duncan owns this club called Supernova, so he tells Brian to take us there. I’m too old for clubs, but at this point I don’t care what anyone thinks I’m too old, too rich, or too good for.
 

I’ve got my first tab of Molly two minutes after entering the thumping, riotous mass, and by the time I’m into rehashing dinner’s events with Duncan, I’ve forgotten why it seemed like such a big deal. Ten minutes after that, there are two slutty girls on either side of me and way too much touching.
 

Duncan takes charge of the situation because he’s a motherfucking player. He starts reading the two sluts the WinFinity balance sheet, and I think they both have orgasms every time he recites a number above seven figures.
 

I show the girls my watch. I promise them rides in my jet. Duncan says he wants to get in on that, and before I know it we’re both in his limo because it’s bigger than mine. I consider calling Samantha but can’t remember if I broke up with her. Then I remember through my blissful haze that she’s already here, somewhere in the club. I text her rather than trying to find her. I tell her she’s welcome to come back to Duncan’s, where the hot tub’s about to get sticky. Of course she’ll show. If anyone can be bought, Samantha can. And right now, I’m in a buying mood.
 

I don’t remember much of what follows. There are more drugs, though I’m not sure what they are. All that matters is the more I take, the more I feel like myself.
 

I wake up in a suit I’ve not worn in months, not sure how the hell I got it if it was in my closet rather than Duncan’s. There’s a wash of color and feelings, then I realize my dick is in someone’s mouth. It’s Samantha’s. There’s still no indication as to whether or not we’ve broken up, but I won’t care for at least five or ten minutes. She almost makes me cum, but then she rises up and I realize she’s been naked the entire time.
 

Samantha impales herself on my dick and rides it for long enough to get off, my own staying power seemingly enhanced by sleep or mind-altering substances. I have no idea what time of day it is. This stops bothering me when Sam hops off, returns my cock to her mouth, and jerks me off until I shoot a gallon of jizz down her throat and all over her face.
 

Sometime later, I hear a vibration. It occurs to me that Sam might be riding a silver bullet for seconds because I’m spent. But no, Sam’s moved beside me, maybe asleep or passed out, a stray jet of cum on her cheek.

I realize I’m not in Duncan’s apartment. We’re in mine, and Duncan isn’t here. Nor is anyone else. At some point, I must’ve come home. I probably didn’t drive myself; Duncan has keepers that stop us from hurting ourselves or embarrassing WinFinity too severely, and they’d have herded me into a car.
 

That explains the suit. It’s one Sam likes. Maybe she made me get dressed for her. She gets off on me being powerful. There’s this thing we do where I sit in a leather arm chair with a glass of scotch, all gussied up in one of my fanciest suits, sipping my liquor while acting like a big shot who’s too fucking good for her. Samantha then debases herself in several ways and ends up either sucking me off or backing onto my fuckstick while I — you guessed it — continue to act like I’m above it all. Maybe that’s what happened, and this morning’s an encore.
 

The buzzing goes on for another few seconds, stirring Samantha. She’s still wearing my cum on her cheek and I consider telling her to wipe it off, but it’s funnier to see her stumble around with it on.
 

“That’s yours,” Samantha says.
 

I reach for my phone. It’s Angela. It takes me a while to remember
Angela
Who?
then to remember why that particular Angela would be calling.
 

The haze clears, and I remember last night’s events. It feels like a lifetime ago. What I’m doing now, that’s normal. What I did yesterday, that was the mistake. I live large. I don’t bottom-feed. I don’t like the lack of power I feel while down in the muck.
 

“Who is it?” Sam asks.
 

“Nobody.”
 

Since I’ve got the thing in my hand and my biological needs are handled for now, I decide to check my email. I see that Angela’s sent me an email, too. It starts with a line saying she has some stuff she needs to say. That’s why she’s writing rather than calling. But then of course, she
just
called. It smacks of desperation.
 

I guess I dodged a bullet. Angela’s hot and we had that thing back in the day, but she’s clearly needy. I’m not that guy anymore. None of that old stuff was good: the home, the father, the stepmother, the emotionally messed-up and apparently needy stepsister. I had a moment of weakness. I’m over it now.
 

I read the email anyway.
 

Maybe I was wrong,
Angela writes.
 

Maybe I reacted without giving you a chance to explain.

Maybe, like you once told me, I’m just letting Mom and Bill pile their crap on top of me.
 

I hated you for too long, Parker, and I think I wanted to believe what Samantha said without giving you a chance, maybe to protect myself and what I felt. About myself, about you, and about the fact that I knew at some point, I’d need to go back home.

But I guess it was all, including last night, about me more than you.

I shouldn’t have stormed out like that.

I saw last night, before Samantha got under my skin, that you’re still the man you always were.
 

And I’m sorry.
 

The buzzer rings. Stupid doorman. He should know never to let anyone out front disturb a man as rich and powerful as me before —
 

I look at the phone’s time.
 

— before 2 p.m.
 

“That’s the breakfast I ordered.” Samantha stands and wraps herself in my robe, still with my jizz on her cheek.
 

I’m sorry, Parker,
Angela writes.

It was my choice to stay away from you all this time. You didn’t abandon us out of spite. You did what you had to do.
 

You’re still the man you always were.
 

And I’m sorry.
 

Samantha takes the call on the intercom. The delivery girl’s voice, canned and distant, sounds somehow familiar. She doesn’t even say she has food for Sam. She just says, “Thank you,” after Sam says, “Come up to the penthouse.”
 

I’m sorry.
 

I’d like to see you again, Parker.
 

I need to go downtown tomorrow anyway, so I’ll stop by sometime around —
 

My heart rate speeds up as I look around the room. Part of that is probably the Molly hangover. Part of it might be coke, if I did any. Most of it is seeing the place. Either Duncan and some of the other revelers came back here before splitting or Samantha and I went ‘round the world. She’s broken chairs before by herself, and working together, we’ve fucked the foundations off more than one bed.

— around two or three.

Samantha, wrapped in my robe, her tits practically hanging out.

The trashed penthouse.

I don’t even know how many girls I fucked to forget last night, but right now I feel like they’re all tattooed in a list on my guilty face.
 

There’s a knock on the door. Samantha answers with my evidence still on her cheek.

ANGELA

I
WAS
STUPID
.
 

I
FEEL
stupid.
 

I don’t know why I reacted like I did. All I know is that something sprang within me like tripping a mousetrap. Samantha was being a superior bitch, but that had nothing to do with Parker. He already told me she was a bitch. He was divided about Duncan. He likes his old friend a lot, but Duncan was and always had been an asshole.
 

What about last night failed to meet my expectations? Samantha was a bitch; Duncan was an asshole; Parker was neutral.
 

Well, not
neutral
.
 

If Samantha was telling the truth, it sounds like the current Parker Altman is kind of a mess. And also kind of an asshole. He crapped on the old neighborhood; he did drugs and drank; he apparently had sex with more than one woman at once.
 

But the more I thought about it at home, after dodging more of Mom and Bill’s questions (many involving their reverse inheritance, which they thought I was working on) and sprinting into my room and crying, I decided that not much has changed at all.
 

I told Parker that he was
that guy.
But was he really? Or was this the expected progression of a man who grew up so damaged?
 

He craps on the old neighborhood today? He craps on his dad, my mom … maybe dusting me some in the process? Well, he did that growing up, too.
 

He does drugs? He drinks?
Check
. Those were just two of the many things Mom said made him bound for the pit of Hell.
 

He has sex with multiple women? He may have always done that, and now he’s a hot billionaire.
 

I don’t want to be with that Parker, but I strongly suspect he’s no longer on the path to
being
that Parker. During the time we spent together, he was kind and sensitive. Honest. And that, too, seemed familiar. He was such a delinquent hardass when we were kids, but when I got him alone and past his defensive wall, he was kind, sensitive, honest. It was hard to blame Parker for how he was back then, and I now see that it’s not fair to blame him for it now. He’s broken. The way I’m broken, but with different results and money as an accelerant.
 

Now that I’m in his building, I want to apologize, not blame him. I was unfair last night. I’d barely been back in his life for a day and not only expected him to change all at once (or rather, to become
more truly who he’s always been
all at once); I’d been expecting him to not have a past.
 

I should only care about the moment Parker pulled up in front of my house — that, and who he is deep inside, at his wounded core. Anything before then is none of my business. When you date a man, you shouldn’t care that he had sex with others before you. Same logic here, and even though adjusting means ignoring groups of women rather than singles, the principle is the same.
 

I’m at the door before it occurs to me that whoever buzzed me in was female.
 

Perhaps Parker has an assistant. I
know
he has one because his assistant sent my card. Maybe he has another one — a woman. Or a maid. Or an appointment in his apartment.
 

But the door opens, and I see Samantha. She’s in a loose robe, clearly naked underneath. I can tell her chest is surgically enhanced, and somehow this feels like a victory. She also has something on her cheek, but I barely register it before the smile crawls across her face.