Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
I force a laugh, but it comes out strangled. “Sure,” I say, and my hand is shaking just a little as I turn the page. “Yeah, really hilarious.”
Slowly, I page through the rest of the spread even as my mind tries to picture Trevor striding up and down the stage, bare chest gleaming. OMG, I have to see this! My pulse races as I halfheartedly page through the rest of the spread: all the bachelors, lined up in identical tuxedos, grinning like sharks. Trevor is in the center, taller than the rest, mouth curled just enough to show he knows this is a joke and he’s in on it. The other men are bankers, accountants, CFOs, real estate dudes, even a minor league hockey player. No one else matters.
My eyes trace Trevor’s silhouette. There’s a hot pulse in my wrist, a flush climbing my neck. I feel ridiculous, juvenile. But the fantasy is already alive and squirming: what would it be like, to stand in the audience and bid on my gorgeous stepbrother? To win? To take him home, just for a night, and see if he’s as untouchable as he pretends?
Victoria stands, smoothing her robe. “I have to get ready for Pilates,” she says, and floats out of the room, her cup still half full. “Have a good day, you two!”
Henry grunts, already lost in the sports section of the paper.
“You too, toots,” he mumbles, frowning as he takes in the latest baseball stats. Meanwhile, I sit there for a long moment, not moving, not breathing, just staring at the magazine. Trevor Cahill, my stepbrother with the huge cock, is going to be sold, and I want to buy him.
How? I have no idea. But I have to come up with a plan.
I close the magazine with a snap. The sound is sharp and final, but it does nothing to quiet the static in my head. Trevor’s going to be mine, come hell or high water. I just have to figure out the how.
The sun is higher now, glaring off the marble, but the heat in my belly has nothing to do with the weather. I picture the auction, the stage lights, Trevor bare chested in a spotlight. I picture him looking out at the crowd, knowing exactly who is there for him.
My heart thunders once, loud enough to drown out the world.
I take another sip of coffee, lukewarm now, and let myself scheme.
This is going to happen.
It has to, because I still have my v-card.
And I want my stepbrother to take it.
5
A DEVIOUS PLAN
Kayleigh
The Fig Leaf’s break room is barely a room at all—just a cinderblock corridor behind the retail floor, pungent with mulch and lemon Lysol, and lit by the watery square of a single skylight above. The space is humid, everything sweating faintly: terra cotta pots, hunched bags of potting soil, metal utility sink. The air here always smells alive, half dirt, half oxygen, and on slow days I like to wedge myself into the battered stool by the battered Formica table, nursing a mug of bad coffee and watching the plants try to colonize every flat surface.
Today’s coffee is cold, but I swirl it anyway, trying to ignore the layer of silt at the bottom. The sound of pop country trickles in from the front, but I can’t hear the lyrics, only the lazy bass and the drummer’s brushstrokes. My phone vibrates, shivering on the table.
Mary Kate Ashton is FaceTiming from the sun-drenched kitchen of the house she shares with her fiancé, the light so bright it turns her hair to spun gold. She’s still in pajamas—white tank, powder blue joggers, feet bare and tucked up on the counter—but her makeup is flawless, lashes shellacked in black and lips sugared pink. She looks like she just stepped out of a J.Crew ad for sleepover club, except she’s showing off a diamond ring the size of a macadamia nut.
“Tell me everything,” she says, grinning so wide I can count her teeth. “Was it actually as bad as you said in your text?”
“It was worse,” I say, putting my chin in my palm. “You missed the stripper, aka my stepbrother’s date. There were actual fake boobs. Like huge flotation devices that practically made the old ladies go into a faint.”
Mary Kate cackles, the sound bright and unguarded, and tilts her phone to the side. Her huge engagement ring flashes in the light, making my eyes water.
“So it’s real now?” I say. “You’re really going to marry Dr. Robinson?”
She does a little jazz hands with her left fingers. “Engagement announcement drops next week. After Kent’s divorce from my mom is final, we’re doing a trip to Turks and Caicos. And the honeymoon’s a full month—first class hotels all the way from Amsterdam to Istanbul.” She sighs dramatically. “I have to get my passport updated, and like, all my shots. Plus the wedding’s probably going to be in the Maldives.”