Page 8 of Jealous Stepbrother
She’s standing in my office again, chin lifted, eyes stubborn, that scarlet mouth that still makes me want to destroy something—starting with the guy who spent a good ten fucking minutes staring at my girl at the coffee shop, while she remained entirely oblivious.
She thinks she’s here on her own terms. She isn’t.
I made sure of that.
I suck in another slow breath, tongue the inside of my cheek where the tiniest sting remains after that slap that sent electricity straight to my balls.
Jesus. It’s fucking good to have her back within touching distance.
Breathing distance.
The last four years have been a study in restraint. And failure.
I told myself I could forget her if I kept busy. Build the brand. Expand into Europe. Focus on the work. Tried—and failed—to fuck women who weren’t her.
That lasted about a month, with my sexual appetite shriveling to nothing every time I tried a hook-up, until I was forced to give up before I humiliated myself with a limp dick that only seemed to work at the smallest thought of my sexy stepsister.
Then I saw her a year later. Not in person—at first—but in some grainy student profile photo attached to an article about an emerging design competition. Scarlett Rockwell, sophomore. Not in the business program anymore.
Design.
I remember the jolt in my chest. At first, I was pissed, because… yeah, what was new, right? She was supposed to stay in her safe little lane. Business school would have kept her at arm’s length from me, from my world, and firmly in my father’s clutches as he’d hoped after my disappointing him.
But then…
Then I saw her sketches. Raw, unpolished, but there was something undeniably magic there. A style I recognized and a voice that was entirely her own. It was like looking at a reflection that took a moment to click that it belonged to me.
And I knew.
She’d changed her life. And some part of that—no, all of that—was because of me.
I’ve never admitted it to anyone, but that was the moment I decided she was mine. Not just in the way I’d wanted her at nineteen when she was forbidden skin, lips, and heat. Now I wasobsessed. I wanted her talent, her mind, her hands working for me. For my vision. My name.
Mine. Inside and out.
Outside my bed and deep within it.
And maybe, if I’m being honest, because it gave me a fucking good kick.
For once, I’d won against my old man. He’s still clinging to the delusion that I’ll come crawling back to run his empire, still pissing on every corner of my independence every chance he gets. And Annette—ever the diplomat—keeps trying to smooth things over like the cracks aren’t already fault lines.
But Scarlett? She’s a fault line I want to split wide open, explore every crevice, excavate every last treasure in this lifetime and the next.
When I saw her name on the internship shortlist, I didn’t think. I acted. Quiet calls and quiet pressure. Quiet promises to the right people, and yup, a few weighty threats to the wrong ones.
Because no one was going to get her before I did.
And when I say get her, I mean all of her.
The talent and the attitude and the body I still remember in far too many flashes in the witching hours when she destroys any hint of sleep or peace. I see pieces—the arch of her back, a supple curve of her thigh, the exact sound she made when I?—
No. I can’t relive that. Not yet. Not here.
Truth is, she came back faster than I expected. When she stormed out in a blaze of fury, heels snapping against the marble like she thought she could walk away from me a second time, I thought she’d hightail it home to the Upper East Side, pout for a day at least.
Stunned the fuck out of me when my spies told me she was on her way back to me.
And now she’s here.
