Page 4 of Conflagration
I swallow hard as her words register, and I’m stock-still, trying to catch my bearings, but my mind’s suddenly fuzzy from the bourbon. This can’t be happening.
She leans in and presses hers lips to mine, moving her arms up to link around my neck as she begins to rock her hips against my now-growing erection. Whoa, this just took a drastic turn. This is my brother’s girl—ex or not, I know I should stop her, stop this. But all I can think of is Knox taking my place in the company without having to put in any work. Rage swirls in me as Dad’s voice replays over and over in my mind. I have to do something to get these thoughts out of my head.
As soon as Megan bites down on my bottom lip, I make my decision. All rational thought slips out of my mind, and I decide that fate must be smiling on me because I now get to take something of his.
Allowing my hands to wrap around her waist, I pull her in closer and slide my tongue into her mouth. She responds with a moan against my lips. I have no idea how long we make out on the couch, but when she pulls away, she’s breathless. She gets off my lap and gives me a seductive grin. Then she strides down the hallways towards my bedroom, beckoning for me to follow her.
I sit on the couch for a moment, the little devil and subsequent angel on my shoulder waging a fierce battle as my conscience wars with my anger. In the end, the devil wins out. I grab the bottle of bourbon and follow her down the hallway, all the while wondering what in the hell I’m doing. But at this point? I’m too far gone to care.
The next morning, I wake with a pounding headache and an even bigger mistake in my bed in the form of my brother’s girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. Whichever, I know I fucked up by breaking the bro code. Not even the bro code, but theblood-bro code. Fuck. Rubbing my forehead, I know I need to get her out of here as soon as possible. When I nudge her awake, she stirs, her eyes opening slowly as she blinks the sleepiness away before smiling at me seductively. Double fuck.
Clearing my throat, I move to edge of the bed, not meeting her gaze. “Hey, uh, look… About last night…” I begin, but she comes up behind me and slides her arms around my neck until her hands are intimately touching my chest. Her lips hover over my ear, and the warm breath sends shivers down my spine. Not because it’s turning me on, but more so because I feel like a complete asshole as I remember everywhere her lips were last night.
“Last night was incredible,” she breathes. “I’ve clearly been with the wrong Wellington.”
Letting out a deep breath, I shrug her off and get up from the bed. “Megan, last night was a mistake. That shouldn’t have happened.” I’m trying not to hurt her feelings, but this can’t happen again. And no one can ever find out about it, or else I might as well pack my bags and change my last name. Loyalty is a fierce Wellington trait, and I just proved that maybe I’m not fit to be my father’s namesake. The thought pisses me off all over again, and I have half a mind to throw her back on the bed and fuck her until I can’t think anymore.
Megan gives me a sexy smile, unfazed by my calling us a mistake. “You may think so now, Branson, but I’ll show you that’s not true. It was the furthest thing from a mistake. We both wanted it, and you can’t deny it was good. Now, I’m going to go freshen up and then I’ll get out of your hair,” she says with a wink, and I groan, wishing she’d just leave.
Throwing on a pair of basketball shorts, I head to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee to help cure this bourbon-and-busty-blonde hangover. After finishing two cups myself, I’m about to head back to the bathroom to see what the hell is taking her so long. The sooner she gets out of here, the better. I need a chance to regroup and come up with a game plan to change my dad’s mind. Or see if I need to get out now and find another company where I can rise high. As much as I want to work in the family business, if there’s a glass ceiling put in place just because of my name, I have no problem finding a company where I can work my way up to the top. I haven’t worked my ass off to only be second-in-command to someone who doesn’t even deserve it.
I’m halfway down the hall when I hear a knock at the door. Motherfucker. I can go weeks without having a visitor, and the one time I want to be alone, I get two in the span of twelve hours.
Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s barely nine a.m. on this Saturday morning and I wonder who in the hell would be coming around now. When I open the door, instant panic wells up in me. This can’t be fucking happening.
Standing on the other side of my door is none other than my kid brother, Knox. Whose ex-girlfriend is currently naked in my shower. Fuck me all over again.
My heart’s pounding, and I suddenly hope that Megan continues to take her sweet-ass time until I can get him out of here. Whether they’re broken up or not, I’d rather him not witness her early morning walk of shame out of my apartment. Although, with the way she’s acting, I don’t think she’d mind one bit if she was seen leaving my place.
“Knox,” I grumble, and suddenly, that one little word brings Dad’s voice barreling back into my mind. Knox. Because of that damn name, my fuck-off little brother is going to be Dad’s successor, and even though it’s not his fault, I still see red.
I can’t think clearly, not with the pounding headache and the resounding affirmation that I’m not good enough in my Dad’s eyes—by no fault of my own. And if I had a cooler head right now, I’d probably know that it’s not Knox’s fault either, but I’m too blinded by my rage to think logically. All the anger boils back up inside me over the fact that he’s taking this from me. And he doesn’t even give a shit. Hell, maybe he does know and that’s why he’s fucked around in school instead of working his ass off. Because he already knows he has a place at the top of the company.
“Hey, Bran, what’s up? What was so urgent that you wanted me to come over right away?” he asks, confusing me.
What?Frowning, because I know I haven’t even looked at my phone this morning, I’m about to question him when he looks beyond me, his eyes widening. I turn to see that Megan has emerged from my room, conveniently wearing nothing but the discarded dress shirt that she practically tore off me last night.
She feigns a look of innocence when she sees Knox, but there’s something in her eyes that lets me know just who sent Knox that oh-so-urgent text.
Turning back to Knox, I see that he’s turned ten shades of red and his jaw is tense. Fiery anger mixed with hurt swirls in his eyes. “You two?” is all he manages to get out. His voice is raspy and he chokes up. His eyes water, and for a split second, remorse floods my veins.
Then, once again, I remember. During the night, Megan told me all about their breakup, how he said that he didn’t love her anymore and wanted to explore other relationships now that they were moving on to a new part of their lives. How he didn’t want to go to college attached. And now I know why Megan came over. She wanted revenge, and she used me to do it. She wanted to show him that she could move on just as easily as he had, and sleeping with someone else wasn’t enough. It had to be me—his brother, his competition.
“You are both fucking dead to me,” he says, sounding half defeated and half in shock.
“Knox,” I begin, wanting to explain that, while it was fucked up, nothing had happened before last night. Before they were over. But before I can continue, he has me pushed up against the wall, teeth clenched and seething.
“Don’t say another fucking word to me. Ever again. I know we’ve never really seen eye to eye, but goddammit, man, this is so fucking low. Even for you.” He pushes off me and turns to leave, but not before giving Megan a once-over, letting out a small chuckle, and shaking his head. “Three fucking years I wasted on you. What a joke. Thanks for teaching me a valuable lesson. Trust no one. Not even family.”
With that, he’s gone.
I want to go after him, but I tell myself that he’ll get over it. He’s not hurt because he loves her. He’s just pissed that she came to me after they broke up. I value my goals, my dreams, my plans. They obviously mean more to me than she did to him, or else he wouldn’t have let her go so easily. On the other hand, I’ve worked my entire life for something that’s being ripped away from me and handed to him.
So do I feel bad that I fucked his girlfriend? Maybe. That bro code was significantly broken last night. I can’t deny that. But right now, I’m too blinded by my anger to care. Right now, he’s not my brother. He’s my competition.
Knox is gone and it’s all my fault. Or at least partially. He’d hightailed it out of my place after the showdown with Megan—who said she’d explain to him that it was a one-time thing and nothing had been going on in the past. Apparently, however, her explanation was a bit different from the truth, and now, not only is Knox gone from my apartment, but he’s departed the entire fucking state.
It isn’t until the next day when Mom calls, crying and in hysterics, that I realize that Megan’s version of events may not have been entirely true, and Knox left before I could set the record straight. I should care. I should feel like a guilty piece of shit. But the whole time Mom’s wailing about Knox having taken off and enlisted, I feel numb. Mom tries to blame me, but somehow, she’s placated when both Megan and I tell her that we didn’t get together until after they’d broken up. In turn, it just makes her angrier at Knox.
