My Billionaire Stepbrother (8 page)

God dammit!

I knew she was smart, but I’m not
used to being transparent to other people. She’s reading me like an open book –
an experience that is totally new and disorienting and not entirely unpleasant.

Who is this girl?!

How did she get so…tough, so
graceful under attack?

Somehow it’s a relief to be called
on my bullshit, but my hackles are raised and I can’t let her win. The only way
to defend myself is to lie.

“It wasn’t a big deal, Veronique. I
fuck women all the time. You saw me fuck a bunch of women yesterday. Today I
fucked you. I shouldn’t have, but I did. It was a mistake. And it’s over. Now
I’m going to go back to my bungalow and probably fuck someone else. See? No big
deal. Let it go. Pretend it never happened. I will.”

The silence that follows this lie
is deafening. The tide is moving around us, the sunset sinking into a blaze of
fire, but we are both rooted to the spot like statues. I feel myself turning
red, unable to meet Veronique’s eyes.

I’ve never felt more like a jerk.
I’ve never felt more out of tune with myself.

“Wow,” she says, finally. “Wow.”

I hear her splashing around and
look up to see her pulling her wet clothes back onto her body. Her movements
are deliberate. She’s not rushing, not collapsing into a weeping hysteria.

When she is finally dressed, she
stops and looks me square in the eyes. My gut clenches and drops like a little
boy caught doing something he shouldn’t. I am sure she can see right through me;
sure she knows what I am thinking and how guilty I feel.

“I feel sorry for you, Remington,”
she whispers, her voice firm. “I really do. Right now, I am not the one who
needs to grow up.”

Once again, I find myself surprised
and confused and completely unable to decide what to do with her. Her soft
words are a challenge – not a challenge of conquest, but a challenge of
character. Something in me wants to rise to the challenge, become a version of
myself that I can respect again. How does she manage to affect me so much in
such simple, profound ways? All she did was not lose her temper. All she did
was see through my tactics, call a spade a spade.

And I can’t believe how oddly good
it feels, to have someone see me so clearly. To not be in control.

She shakes her head and turns to
go. Stunned, I watch her wade to the shore and walk away. I’ve never seen
anyone behave with such poise, and the contrast makes my behavior seem even
worse.

What kind of man has to put a woman
down to build himself up?

I don’t like what I’m seeing in
myself. I don’t like what I’ve just done. I don’t like the feeling of loss and
loneliness that replaces Veronique’s presence. I don’t like that my attempt to
push her away just made me respect her more. I don’t like that everything she
does and everything she says convinces me that she is genuine – not the
gold-digger con artist I first assumed her to be.

I don’t like any of this.

I stare at her retreating figure
until it disappears into the trees, then I wade to shore, dragging the kayak
onto the beach, and plop myself down on my private deck to think. But thinking
is painfully clear and leads me to only one inevitable conclusion: I need to
man the fuck up and apologize to Veronique.

I can’t think of anything else.

“Oh god,” I groan, rubbing my face
in my hands. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve
felt this out of sorts about a woman – because it’s never happened before.

Maybe if I go inside, get some work
done. I pad across the deck in my bare feet and slide open my glass doors,
entering the bungalow. There’s a low fire burning in the sunken fireplace and a
spread of fruit and salad waiting for me in the kitchen. My assistant must be
here somewhere.

“Renaud?” I call. “You here?”

“Oui Monsieur.”

“Do you have those files I
requested?”

“Oui Monsieur.”

Renaud shimmers in and hands me one
thin manila envelope and one thick one. The thick one has “Jacques LaRoux”
written across in sharpie, the other, “Veronique.” I test the weight of
Veronique’s envelope and raise my eyebrows.

“Not much here,” I observe.

My assistant shrugs. “That is
because there wasn’t much to find out. Everything was most straightforward and
clean, sir.”

“Figures,” I grumble. “Of course
she’s a fucking angel and I’m a cocksucking douche.”

“Monsieur?”

“Just talking to myself, Renaud.”

I toss Jacques’ envelope on the
table for later and indulge in my curiosity about Veronique. I know this seems
creepy, but I had ordered these files the moment I found out about my Mom’s
wedding. I’m not a stalker; I was just very concerned about my mother’s safety
and stuck to my usual business practice of researching the enemy.

You can only beat your enemy if you
understand them.

Really Remington? You’re actually
thinking of Veronique as your enemy? After the stunt you just pulled.

Cursing myself, I slide the thin
envelope open and spill the papers into my hand. The first item is a newspaper
clipping describing Veronique’s mother’s death in a car accident years ago:
“Local Musician and Mother Tragically Killed.” The story includes a business
headshot of Veronique’s mother, Kimiko Wantanabe; a stunningly beautiful
Japanese woman posed with a cello. She bears a strong resemblance to Veronique.

“God, she died young,” I realize,
doing the mental math.

Veronique can’t have been more than
9 or 10 when her mom was killed, which is not too much younger than I was when
my father died. In spite of myself, I feel a tug of empathy and connection to
Veronique. Losing a parent as a child is…well. Hard.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. I
mean, I’d heard this story of Jacques’ first wife’s death and his young
daughter growing up too fast to try to hold the family together. I guess I just
hadn’t fully believed it was true.

Along with Kimiko’s photo in the
paper is another heartbreaking picture, and for a long time I can’t look away
from it: in it, Veronique’s father is kneeling on the street weeping, his face
contorted in grief, and a very young Veronique stands quietly beside him, her
arms around his shoulders as if to comfort him, her face stoic and calm. The
picture gives me actual goose bumps. Was she so strong even then?

Who was there to take care of
her
?

I don’t like this. I don’t like
this at all.

I sift through the file, finding
more official documents gathered by my assistants to piece together Veronique
LaRoux’s true identity. There is a copy of her high school transcript, where
she graduated Valedictorian: a copy of her student ID from the Curtis Institute
of Music: a copy of her prior term’s academic transcript.

The Curtis Institute. I’ve heard of
it. Prestigious.

“She’s a cellist,” I notice. “Like
her mother.”

Renaud nods. “And an excellent one,
by all accounts.”

“Straight ‘A’s’. There’s a glowing
concert review, last year’s W2 from an Irish pub. Couldn’t you find anything
personal on her?”

“No, sir. There was nothing
personal. Mademoiselle LaRoux is a very private person, hardworking. It appears
our agents were unable to find any information whatsoever about a social life.
It seems she studies and works, and that is all.”

I really don’t like this. In spite
of my best efforts to hate her, Veronique is turning out to be even more appealing,
genuine and goddamn amazing than I ever suspected. I feel more and more ashamed
of myself with every passing moment.

“No gambling?”

“No. She did not seem to inherit
that particular family tendency, Monsieur.”

“Drinking? Drugs? Boyfriends?
Girlfriends? Abortions? God dammit, she must have some flaw, some dark secret.”

“Well, sir, she is only human.”

I glare at Renaud. “Very funny.”

I find a printout of an email chain
between Veronique and her Dean at the Curtis Institute. She pleads for
clemency; he is dismissive and grim. I skim through it then glance up at
Renaud.

“She’s called this wedding an
emergency, missed her finals to be here. Will she be able to finish her term?
What’s going on?”

“As far as we could discover, she
is in danger of losing her place at school.”

“Fuck.”

I sink into a chair, thoroughly
convinced that I have been a total asshole from beginning to end. This proves
that she’s put herself out to be here, is just as worried about our parents as
I am, and had no safety net to protect her against possibly losing everything.

She’s a class act.

I misjudged Veronique from the start
and then deliberately hurt her based on my own fears and mistaken assumptions.
Now I’ve just used her and sent her off by herself on a strange island in the
middle of a personal crisis just as confusing as my own.

I burst to my feet.

“Monsieur?” Renaud calls after me.
“Where are you going?”
“I owe her an urgent apology,” I shout over my shoulder. “Put all those
documents in my desk, Renaud, and lock the drawer. Tell no one of this.”

Chapter Ten

“Veronique?”

I’m outside, walking, looking for
her. I’ve just heard a cry from the trees, but I can’t tell which direction it
came from. It’s now dusk. The light is fading toward the dark jungle night,
which doesn’t make it any easier to find her, and I’m already frustrated at
myself for creating this situation in the first place. Why couldn’t I have just
kept my dick in my pants?
Well, let’s be real: it’s because I didn’t want to.

But why couldn’t I have just kept
my big mouth shut afterwards? Why did I have to go and fuck it all up?

Now here I am chasing this woman
around the island, trying to clean up my mess. At least the island is quiet and
relaxing, with no one else around on the road. It was even an almost peaceful
walk until I heard Veronique’s abrupt cry from somewhere off the path, a
truncated wail of pain.

“Where are you?” I call.

“Ow!” I hear her yell. “Over here!”

Squinting, I can see a shape moving
along the ground in the ditch that runs parallel to the road, meant to drain
rainwater. In the shadows it’s almost impossible to tell at first that it’s a
person, but I know it’s Veronique. I crouch down, groping until I find her
legs. It’s all I can do not to laugh.

“What the hell happened?” I ask.

“What do you think happened?” She
snaps, groaning. “I tripped and fell in the dark. I don’t know where the hell I
am.”

Annoyance floods me – not at her,
at myself. I should never have been such a jerk, sending her off alone. North
Island is very safe, but she is a stranger and doesn’t know her way around.
Anywhere can be dangerous in the dark. I reach out to clasp her hand, thinking
I’ll lift her out of the ditch and redeem myself by getting her home alive. But
things never go as planned.

“Ow! Let go!”

Veronique shrinks away from my
touch, yelping.

“What is it?”
“My wrist,” she groans. “I landed on my wrist.”

“God. You’re a mess.”

I reach out, carefully taking her
hand. She hisses in pain and I let go, realizing belatedly that something
sticky has come off on my fingers. Blood.

“Veronique, you’re bleeding. Where
are you cut?”

“I don’t know, it’s my wrist I’m
worried about.”

“Can you move it?”

She tries, and sucks in her breath
in pain.

“Ow! Nope.” She groans, a sound of
mingled frustration and pain, but when she talks her voice is soft and
controlled. “UGH! God I hope I can still play.”

“Play?”

“Cello. I’m supposed to do a skype
final this week. It was like pulling teeth to get Curtis to agree to let me do a
makeup in the first place, so how can I tell them I can’t do it because I hurt
my hand? It’ll sound like, ‘the dog ate my homework.’ They’ll flunk me. And
here I thought finding a cello on the island would be the hardest part; of course
now I have to go and mess up my goddamn wrist. Perfect! Just what I needed.”

Right. Curtis Institute of Music.
Cello. Missing her finals. Saving her spot at school.

Fuck
.

As if it wasn’t enough for me to
humiliate her earlier, now I’ve gone and contributed to an accident that might
impact her entire career. My mind is racing, searching for a way to redeem the
situation, but I draw a blank.

There’s no way around the fact that
I am a big giant jerk. Hanging my head in shame, I vow to make it up to
Veronique somehow. Maybe money? But no, I reject the idea as soon as I think
it. She doesn’t need money now, not with the trust fund my mother has set up. I’ll
think of something else. There has to be a way.

Reaching with my hands, I sit on my
haunches and motion to her.

“Here, give me your arms. I’ll help
you up.”

It takes some shuffling, but I
manage to stand her up on her feet. She leans her weight on me, the curve of
her hip pressing into the side of my body and sending a thrill of sensation up
and down my spine.

“I rolled my ankle,” she grunts, by
way of explanation. “Heard it pop. I’m sorry, but I have to lean on you.”

“Ok.”

So polite. So formal. So almost as
if we didn’t just have steamy hot sex in the goddamn ocean.

Veronique fits perfectly under my
arm, her slim shoulders at just the right height to let her arm snake around my
back and allow me to put my arm across her shoulders. The touch of her hand on
my skin is like kryptonite, but I try to ignore the heat of her closeness and
focus on the task at hand.

“Let’s get you inside,” I say.

Together we limp back to the even
surface of the road, falling silent on the excruciating walk back to
Veronique’s villa. Each step jolts our bodies together in a friction that jarringly
makes me think of our naked rhythm together earlier. I try to force the thought
from my mind, but I can’t. It’s wrong to think of sex when she is in pain. It’s
wrong to think of sex at all when I’ve just treated her like shit.

It’s wrong to think of sex when the
lady in question is so very, very off-limits.

I can feel Veronique sweating with
the effort of walking, but she refuses to let herself cry or whimper. Her
self-control and pride are astounding, and I feel myself wishing she’d scream
or curse or cry or
something
. Her patience is making me nervous. I’m
sure she’d feel better if she cried.

I’d feel terrible, but I deserve
it.

“You can cry if you want,” I say.
“No judgment.”

She doesn’t make a sound, and I
feel even worse.

Finally we reach her villa. Thank
god. I can’t wait to put her body as far away from mine as possible so I can
get my thoughts back in control and remember why the hell I came after her in
the first place.

I get the front door open. Darkness
has fallen over the island, and I grope blindly on the inside of the villa wall
until I find a light-switch. The chandeliers high in the cathedral ceilings flicker
to life, and for the first time I have a clear view of what a sorry state
Veronique is in.

She’s a mess. Leaves are sticking
out of her hair; her wet clothes are covered in mud. Blood is trickling from a
cut on her forehead and a gash on her hand. Her legs are crisscrossed with
bruises and scratches, and her ankle is swollen like a black and blue balloon.

And it’s my fault.

Remington, you’re a maggot. You
let this happen to her.

“Jesus,” I say. “You look like
shit.”

Veronique’s face flickers, and for
a moment I think she might finally lash out or let herself go. There’s just a
glimpse of vulnerability, wounded feelings, fragility, mental anguish, and it
stabs me with fresh guilt. I didn’t mean for my words to hurt her on top of
everything else, but I can see that they did. But I’m not sure how to address
it, because as soon as the flash of feeling passes over her features, it’s
gone. And I’m wondering if I really saw anything at all.

She is a master stoic. It makes me
even angrier at myself.

“Thanks,” she says wryly. “You sure
know how to compliment a girl.”

Yeah, asshole. Jesus. Get it
together, Wilde.

Clearly I should just stop talking.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,”
I grunt.

We limp over to her couch and I set
her down as gently as possible, but I regret to say there are still some huffs
and puffs of pain from Veronique. I’m not a great nurse. She moans a little as
I lift her leg up onto a pillow. That’s what people do, right? Put pillows
under swollen ankles? Maybe I should fluff it?

I’m trying to do just that when she
reaches out with her good hand, closes her long fingers around my wrist, and
stops me. Even without looking I can feel her jade green eyes on me. It raises
the little hairs on the back of my neck, a hyper-awareness that is born out of
either lust or longing or guilt, hard to say which.

“Listen, Remington, leave it alone.
Thanks for getting me home and everything, but I can take it from here, really.
I’m sure you have more important things to do this evening. Other women, maybe.”

God.

I can’t help but chalk up a few
mental points to her for the barb, but I’m unsure how to respond. Of course she
doesn’t want me around. Why would she? I’ve been a perfect prat from beginning
to end. And in spite of all her poise and self-control, I’d bet you a million
dollars she’s just waiting to be alone so she can break down and cry.

“Let me ring the doctor first.”

I don’t wait for a reply. I walk
over to the kitchen phone, which connects directly to the resort’s front desk,
and in seconds arrange for the medic to come. Hanging up, I turn and see
Veronique is lying back on the couch, her eyes closed, her breathing calm. She
looks like a freaking angel. I close my eyes too, feeling like the biggest
idiot in the world. I can’t think of a single thing to say. I open my mouth,
stutter, and fall silent.

Without opening her eyes, Veronique
sighs. I know I’ve failed at resolving anything. I know I’ve failed to do
anything right.

“Go,” she says. “Please.”

I hesitate, hovering. In spite of
myself, I find it really fucking hard to leave her. Finally she twists her neck
around and blinks her eyes open, staring at me with the same preternatural calm
that she had when I was being a jerk in the ocean.

“Thank you, Remington,” she
repeats. “You got me home, you called the doctor. Now, please, I need you to go.”

It’s probably the first time I’ve
ever been dismissed. Nope, can’t think of another. Somehow, it makes me want to
stay even more. But that would be counterproductive. She’s exhausted. I’m
confused. No good can come of this. An odd, choking feeling of helplessness
comes over me. My face is hot with embarrassment and shame over my behavior,
but my body just does not want to leave Veronique. The conflict is heavy.

Part of me wants to clean her up
myself, wrap her with bandages, pamper her; but part of me is too angry to
stay. I’m angry with myself, not Veronique, but I know I am too mad to be able
to express anything but anger. If I open my mouth again, I know I’ll just say
something rash and dumb and mean.

And she doesn’t deserve that. I’m
my problem: not her.

She’s still watching me, her
request for my departure hanging in the air like a raincloud.

“Remington?”

Her voice chills me back to reason.
Without another word I cross the room and shoot out the door into the night. I
linger on the porch, out of Veronique’s view, and wait until the doctor shows
up. Just to be sure. Once I know Veronique will be taken care of, I take off
into the night, walking aimlessly down the road in the wrong direction. My
villa is behind me, but I feel like I could use a brisk power walk around the
island. It’s not large, and I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve definitely
got some energy to work out. Just me, myself, and the night.

And thoughts of Veronique.

My mobile is suddenly in my hand,
and I find myself dialing. There’s a ring and then my assistant’s voice greets
me promptly.

“Renaud? Get me the number for the
President of the Curtis Institute of Music. Philadelphia. United States. Now. I
need to get in touch with him personally. Then I want you to track down whoever
is organizing the music for the Governor’s Ball in Victoria and inform them
that their cellist has been replaced. We are hiring Miss Veronique LaRoux. Do
it now.”

It’s not enough to atone. But it’s
a start.

I drop my phone back to my pocket
and stop, mid-stride, feeling sick to my stomach at a sudden realization; in my
haste and my anger, I left without doing the one thing I set out to do in the
first place. And it’s too late now, too dark, not the right time. But I’ll have
to fix this. I’ll have to fix it tomorrow.

Because I never even apologized to
Veronique.