Dirty Little Secrets: A Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

There was no way I’d give in to my desires.

I was in control.

T
wo weeks
after breaking up with Sydney, life was still miserable. I was sleeping badly, and I knew it was because I’d never been cheated on before. I’d had boyfriends, and even though I’d fallen in love once or twice, in every instance we broke up amicably, or at least before any cheating happened. Sydney’s cheating shook me to my core. Things were compounded when I got a phone call from my agent.

“Hey Alix,” she said, her normal bitchy perky self. The fashion industry has a lot of people like that. “I’ve got a job for you. High profile too.”

“What is it?” I asked, thinking that perhaps doing some work would help. The weather was great, and an outdoor shoot by the ocean or up in the mountains would be just the sort of thing to clear my head.

“
Men’s Health,
” my agent said. “Uh, there’s one catch though. Karla’s in the shoot as well. Think you two can get along?”

“Sure, why not?” I said. Karla McDonald and I were rivals, and perhaps could be called frenemies. An Australian girl who used to play volleyball down under, she and I were similar in body size and type. She was a bit bigger in the butt, I was a bit bigger up top, but both of us could wear the same clothes by the same designer and do a good shoot. Because of that, we were often in competition for the same contracts.

Sometimes we ended up doing the same shoots when the client wanted to do the whole “angel and the devil” sort of vibe. I’m a blonde while Karla is a very dark brunette. Despite the tenseness of competition, we had great on-camera chemistry, and quite a few clients insisted we did themed shoots together, which was definitely profitable. It was certainly a strange relationship in my life.

“Great,” my agent told me, “the shoot’s on Friday. Think you can be in tip-top bikini shape by then?”

“I didn’t think
Men’s Health
did bikini shoots,” I replied, curious. “What’s the shoot about?”

“Sex and exercise, what else? I said bikini because according to what they’re looking for, there’s two sets that will be shot with the same male model. In one you’re in the gym with him, wearing skimpy exercise clothes, and in the other you’ll be in lingerie doing foreplay. Think you can handle it?”

“I guess,” I replied. I’d done lingerie and sexy shoots before; they weren’t all that different from a normal shoot once you got past the fact that I was mostly naked. While I might have a man’s hand on my waist or hip, sometimes on my arm or shoulder, that was usually it. If a guy got aroused, I was supposed to just deal with it, and he was normally wearing shorts under the ever-present sheet around his waist. It was easier with the gay models—it was kind of like playing pretend. “I mean, of course. I’ll be ready. Thanks for the heads-up.”

T
he next day
, I was working through my daily yoga and exercise routine when my cellphone rang. I was on the recumbent bike, just cooling down, so I picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey, sweetie.”

I inwardly grimaced. I was twenty-one, for God’s sake, and yet my mother insisted on calling me
sweetie
like she did when I was in preschool. “Hello, Mom.”

I knew my mom didn’t like calling me, and I really wasn’t trying to be a bitch. But ever since she married Derek Prescott, I had a hard time keeping my temper around either of them. It wasn’t like Derek was a bad guy, but he wasn’t my Daddy. “Did I call at a bad time? I was kind of hoping I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

I glanced at the timer on the bike and realized I’d only be giving up a minute of cool-down, so I let it slide. “No, Mom, you didn’t interrupt me. What can I do for you?”

Like I ever could, even if I wanted. Since marrying Derek, my mother didn’t want for anything. The man had more money than he could count, and I had to give him credit, he was a loyal, almost doting husband. My mom had hit the gold digger lottery, that was for sure.

“Well, honey, this upcoming weekend Derek wants to have a family gathering before our five-year anniversary. I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been by the house, and I know you’re busy, but it would really mean a lot to Derek and me if you could come.”

“Oh, Mom, you know how my work is,” I started, before I heard something in my mother’s voice I hadn’t heard before. She was sincerely asking me; this meant a lot to her.

“Please, Alix? I . . . I miss you.”

What about missing Daddy? You never missed him, now did you?
I wanted to ask, but somewhere inside, I clamped down on it. It was perhaps the most infuriating thing about my relationship with my mother. I’d be ready to go off on her, to yell or to ask her about why she had done what she did to my Daddy, but then something inside would just shut up, not letting me vent my anger. I knew I was wrong for it, but I just had this deep resentment that was hard to shake. It was the same this time. I wanted to tell her to kiss off, but instead, with a voice I could barely recognize as my own, I agreed to go over to their house on Friday after my photo shoot.

“By the way, Derek spoke with Kade, and he’ll be coming too. He’s driving in sometime Friday afternoon.”

Kade. My stepbrother, who I had tried so hard to make a good relationship with. I mean, it wasn’t his fault that he was Derek Prescott’s only son. In high school, I’d always looked up to Kade as he studied his way through USC and then Stanford, before going up to Portland and starting his own law office.

There was only one problem. In public, at least when Derek or my mother were around, he was polite, charming, and really very friendly. But as soon as it was the two of us, he would mercilessly taunt me. When I showed him one of my test shots from a new photographer I had been working with, he’d said I looked like a zombie. When I was interviewed by a magazine, he’d made fun of some of my answers, saying I was the epitome of a Valley Girl blonde. After I’d done one, and it was the only, photo shoot with Khloe K, he was so brutal with his taunts and jibes that I’d thrown myself into my pillow crying after he left.

I didn’t even know why, because I was never mean or snippy with him. I honestly tried to be nice, but for some reason he kept pushing me away. I’d almost given up on him, which made me kind of sad. I didn’t want to have nothing good come out of my mother’s marriage to Derek Prescott.

After a moment of silence, I finally replied. “I see. Well, I hope he has some good stories about life in Portland. I haven’t had a chance to go up there yet.”

“I know, it’s been a long time for me too. Okay, honey, thank you so much for agreeing to come over to the house and give up your weekend. I know you must have a busy social schedule and everything, I really appreciate it. Love you.”

I smiled despite myself. “Talk to you later, Mom.”

F
riday morning
, I felt ready to put the past behind me. I had a new shoot going, and was heading over to have a hopefully relaxing weekend afterwards. If anything, even if I couldn’t stand either my mother or her husband, the Prescott mansion was more than capable of giving a girl a great place to relax. In addition to four-poster beds and mattresses that were made for a queen, there was a half-Olympic-sized pool and a full-sized Jacuzzi for relaxing. I had to admit, the few years I lived at the Prescott home before I turned eighteen were surreal. Since moving out on my own, supposedly because of the business of my modeling career, I’d come to miss it.

Walking into the studio where the shoot was supposed to take place, my heart froze when I saw the camera equipment that had been set up. Every photographer has a certain way they like to set things up, a tendency to favor certain types of equipment. Looking at the setup, I knew, even before he walked out of the back room, that Sydney was shooting the series.

“Sydney,” I said when he came out. He looked at me and smiled, like he hadn’t torn my heart out and crushed it just a few weeks prior. “When did you get this assignment? My agent didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, it was last minute, just yesterday, in fact,” he replied, coming closer. “You know, Alix, I’ve really missed you.”

“Guess you should’ve thought of that before you had what’s-her-name on her knees,” I replied, shuddering at the way he looked at me. “Listen, I’m not going to walk out, but realize this. This is the last time you and I work together. I don’t care if it costs me some shoots, but I’m telling my agent after today that you and I are not to work together again.”

“Alix, come on. I forgive you for the way you acted at the party, you know,” Sydney said. “The least you can do is get over yourself and come back to me.”

I stared at him, unable, or perhaps just too shocked, to speak. Finally I turned and went into the wardrobe area before I hit him. I nearly threw my bag into my chair, not even noticing that Karla was already in her chair, getting ready.

“G’day luv,” she said in her thick Aussie accent. “I see you’re rarin’ to go.”

“Hey, Karla,” I replied. “Listen, no offense today, but just, I’m in like a really bad mood, okay? So while I normally appreciate the little jokes and humorous insights you make, not today, please?”

“What’s going on?” Karla asked, her accent cutting by a third. I had always suspected she played up her
Aussieness
to have a unique advantage. I know it helped her on her Instagram account, where she had nearly half a million followers. The girl made a lot of money off that account, too. “I thought you’d be excited to work with your boyfriend for a shoot like this.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I replied shortly. “Didn’t the word get out?”

Karla shook her head. “I’ve been back home until this past Tuesday, doing some shoots for companies and sponsors in Sydney and Adelaide. What happened?”

“He did,” I replied simply. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now though, okay?”

“Okay,” Karla said. “But if you need some help, just tell me. I’ll be happy to try and get you to smile. Hey, did you see the shoot schedule? We’re doing the workout portion first. Hope you’ve been doing your Pilates.”

I shook my head in amusement. Karla knew that, despite the similarities in our physiques, our athletic backgrounds could not have been more different. She was a former volleyball player who still enjoyed doing sports or training daily. I, on the other hand, didn’t dare do too much. In high school I’d been into athletics, and it had cost me a few contracts since I added muscle too quickly for clients’ liking. So for me, the less physically active I was in order to keep decent muscle tone, the better. It did give me another option in modeling, however, as I grew older. In my mid-twenties, I could become more active and go into the fitness modeling scene, where having some more muscle was considered even sexier. It was appealing, honestly. I didn’t like not working my body.

“I’m just going to change,” I said instead, not being pulled into Karla’s banter. “Hey, who’s the guy we’re working with?”

“Greg,” Karla replied, “You remember him from the Body Glove campaign last year.”

I did. Greg was a nice guy, a total professional, and yeah, pretty cute. Best of all, he was everything Sydney wasn’t, so I didn’t have to worry about any of that. I pulled out my wear for the first half of the shoot, a cleavage-enhancing sports bra and running shorts that barely dropped below my butt cheeks before starting in on my hair and makeup. Despite what you may think, for most shoots models have to do their own hair and makeup. Only the superstars or the shoots for live television get makeup artists, everything else being corrected via Photoshop. Karla left and headed out into the shoot, giving me a bit of privacy to gather my composure.

I was mentally ready when she came back in, knocking on the door frame. She was in full-on Aussie mode, and I had to admit, rivals or frenemies or whatever, I liked her. “How’s ya togs, luv? No more sookin’, we want to get this done before the arvo.”

I gave Karla a smile, which she returned with a nod. “Good on ya, that’s what I was hopin’ for. All right now, boom boom, shake the room time.”

As the shoot went on, my temporary confidence started to take hammer blows. It seemed no matter what pose I was taking, or how I was trying to do things, Sydney was critical, having me hold poses or change positions on a constant basis. I could tell Greg and Karla were both getting annoyed, to the point I heard Karla mutter under her breath at one point, “Fookin’ wanker today, isn’t he?”

Regardless of whether Sydney was being overly critical or not, his words kept hammering at my self-confidence. Despite being a model, I’ve been accused of actually being really shy, which I’m not totally sure is true. I mean, I know I don’t like partying it up out in public, but just because I prefer to be at home instead of doing shots in a club and tearing up the dance floor, that doesn’t mean I’m shy, does it? But whether I’m shy or not, being constantly criticized by my ex-boyfriend, who was a silver-tongued devil and already knew all my mental buttons, just broke me down. I almost walked off set twice as he had me so upset.

Still, I had to admit the words created magic. When I was pissed off, especially in some of the workout scenes, it made me look fiery, aroused even. With the way Sydney had arranged me in relation to Greg, it looked like I was ready to tear his shorts off. When the last photo was taken of the bedroom scenes, I was exhausted and shaky, but ready for some comfort, even if it was from my mother or Derek.

Instead, when I came out of the dressing room in my casual shorts and Stanford t-shirt that Kade had given me for Christmas a few years prior, I found Sydney still there, putting away his equipment. “Alix, a moment, please.”

I wasn’t ready to talk to him. “No way, Sydney. If you have anything to say, you can go through my agent. And after the way you talked to me today . . . go to hell.”

I started to walk away, when suddenly he grabbed me from behind, twisting and pushing me up against the wall. “No, you don’t get to just walk away from me like that,” he seethed into my ear, pressing up against me. “Not unless you want our little private project to find the light of day.”

I was scared, shocked, and not thinking clearly. “What the he—” I started, before realizing what he was talking about.