Thief: A Bad Boy Romance (50 page)

S
ports Romance
:

Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

Score: A Stepbrother Sports Romance

S
tandalone Stepbrother Romance
:

Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance

Cockney: A British Stepbrother Romance

Crude: A Stepbrother Romance

S
oldiers of Fortune Series
:

Heat

Burn

Scorch

Roar

A
ubrey Irons enjoys writing
about bold, sassy, and intelligent women and the dominant, cocky, and quite typically forbidden alpha males who love and lust for them; gripping stories, happy endings, and enough heat to keep things extra steamy!

In the real world, Aubrey is kept plenty entertained by her own tattooed Marine husband, their precocious and adorable three year old, and one
very
ill-behaved puppy.

T
here’s
a reason I hate Oliver Beckett: he’s a huge, massive
pr*ck.

London’s hottest new bad boy chef is a panty-dropper. He burns his way through party girls’ bedrooms as fast as he blazes around his military-precision kitchen.

He’s a face from my past I never thought I’d see again. The tattooed smooth-talking British exchange student from five years past. The one who brought me in like a moth to flame for one night of firsts... before he left me behind forever.

The one who almost had my v-card.

Except he’s not in my past anymore. Now I’m stepping off a plane in London to start my new job in his kitchen. London, where we’re moving because my mother is marrying his father.

Yeah, not just my boss. That smug, arrogant jerk is about to be my
stepbrother
.

He might be all grown up now - gorgeous and demanding and wildly successful. But what happens when the man who never hears no comes up against the one woman who won’t take his bullsh*t? The one that won’t submit.

He wants me to beg him for it, but I won’t.

I mean, I can’t, right? That would be so wrong.

So deliciously wrong.

I think I’m in big trouble.

T
his book is dedicated
to anyone who has ever cooked, waited on, or mixed drinks for others, and smiled through the aching pain in their feet in order to earn a living.

You are not given
nearly
the gratitude you deserve.

This book is also dedicated to the molecular compound C
₈
H
₁₀
N
₄
O
_{2 (caffeine).}

And to my husband, for being my absolute favorite scoundrel to cook for in the whole world.

“
A
re you
shitting me
?!
”

“Language, Chloe!” My mother frowns at me, and part of my brain is trying to process what she’s just said,  but I’m still staring at the tablet she’s plopped down on kitchen table between us.

The tablet with the news webpage on it, and right there on the cover, a picture of
him
.

The boy from the exchange program five years ago when we were seniors in high school.

“Boy”: yeah, right
. Because the
man
smirking at the photographer in the picture on the website is anything
but
a boy. He’s bigger than he was then, even as cut and muscled as he was back then. Bigger shoulders and a broader chest stretching the tight v-neck t-shirt he’s wearing in the picture. That cocky, arrogant, and lopsided grin, and what I know are heart-stoppingly gorgeous dark brown eyes behind those sunglasses. He’s got more tattoos now too, more than he even had back then, when they were all part of his bad-boy image.

The bad boy; the hot, dangerous, and gritty British hooligan covered with tattoos and the mouthwatering accent that drew me in like a moth to flame.

And there he is, on the front page of some British news article.

“Chloe-”

I jerk my eyes back up to my mom, and suddenly my thoughts jump tracks entirely, back to the bomb she’s just dropped on me. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head before I open them back up and stare at her; “Wait, you’re not
serious
are you?”

“Chloe,” She rolls her eyes; “Of
course
I’m serious.”

“Mom, you’re getting
married?
How the hell have I never known about this?!”

“Oh, lower your voice, Chloe!”

Mom shakes her head as she walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

“Jesus, mom,” I make a face, glancing at the clock on the wall. It’s noon.

“Oh, relax, we’re celebrating.”

My brain is still shocked by the news, but my eyes also keep darting down to the picture on the webpage. The article headline is something about a new restaurant. That’s right, he cooked or something. I glance back at my mom sharply; “Mom, how am I
just
hearing about this?”

My mother takes a big gulp of her wine before she glares at me; “Well it’s not
my
fault that you managed to get kicked out of law school after two weeks.”

I roll my eyes; “Mom, I
dropped
out; there’s a slight difference.”

“And does that distinction put you any closer to being a lawyer?”

I groan, pinching the arch of my nose between my fingers; “No, mother. Which is exactly the reason I left.”

Seriously, we’ve been through his three hundred times.

“Well maybe if you’d spent as much time in undergraduate thinking about your career as you did working in those
restaurants,
you’d have been more prepared.”

I groan loudly and my mom shrugs and takes another sip of her wine.

“But hey, what do I know?”

“Mom!” I snap; “Can we back it up here? Who
is
this guy?”

“I’m not sure I like being interrogated like this, honey,” she says frostily, taking another quick sip from her glass. “And you’re
‘just hearing about it now’
because I
just
got off the phone with him ten minutes ago when he asked me.”

I scrunch up my brow. “He asked you over the
phone?
Who the hell is this guy?”

She sips her wine, and then drops her eyes to the tablet sitting in front of us.

“Well, you remember that nice boy Oliver Beckett don’t you? The one we had stay at the house for that exchange program during your senior year?”

Yes, mom, the boy who nearly took my virginity in the back seat of your mid-sized sedan.

“Yes,” I snap.

My mom tsks and shakes her head; “You two don’t talk, do you? Oh he was such a nice boy, Chloe.”

No, he wasn’t.

“No, mom, we haven’t talked since back then.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

Mom’s being cagey. After ten years alone together, even having been away most of the last four I can tell she’s avoiding the subject at hand, “Mom?”

“You know, his
father
is quite nice, too.”

I frown.

“Quite nice, actually. And maybe
you two
haven’t kept up, but Barney and I have stayed in touch since Oliver left.”

“Um, Okay?”

“A lot, honey,” She says quietly.

I can start to feel a horrible sensation creeping up inside of me.
Oh c’mon, there’s no way-

“Mom where is this goi-”

“You might say we’ve been doing the long distance thing,” Mom bites her lip and looks at me, “You know, dating.”

The horrible sensation starts to turn into a roar inside of me, and suddenly, my eyes are darting back to the table, and the cocky, smirking, arrogant, panty-melting grin of Oliver
fucking
Beckett.

“Mom-”

“It’s Barney, honey!” My mom squeals excitedly; “He’s asked me to marry him, and he wants me - he wants
us
to move to London!”

The bottom drops out then. And I’m just in free-fall as I stare at the boy from those nights five years ago. The boy whose kisses I can still remember, the boy whose hands I can still feel. And I’m putting the horrible little pieces together as the floor starts to sway beneath my feet.

The boy who nearly took my v-card, and then told everyone at school that he did.

The boy who’s about to be my new stepbrother.

Oh. My. God.

I
t’s grey
, it’s fuckin’ raining, and it’s miserable outside as I scowl and trail my dad through the arrivals terminal at Heathrow. Fuckin,
of course
it’s raining; it’s England, land of eternal
non-
sunshine.

Dad looks at his watch and frowns before glaring up at the arrivals screens, as if it’s obviously someone’s
fault
that their plane is all of ten minutes late.

Not that I’m much better; that’s ten more minutes of me being
here
as a participant in this whole fucking train wreck instead of elsewhere. Elsewhere like the restaurant.

“Pop, I need to get back.”

“They’ll be here in a minute, Ollie.”

“
Dad
, I’ve got stocks to prep, mis to set up-”

Shit to cut, cook, sear, broil, sous vis;
you name it. If it’s food and it requires some sort of preparation, it’s probably on my to-do list.

“Cool it, boy.”

“Shit doesn’t cook itself, dad.”

He shoots me a look; “This is important, Oliver.”

Yeah, to you
.

I’m still trying to process this shit, even now when “this shit” is about to land in England and walk right into our lives. The “shit” I’m somehow just learning about within the last week, I might add.

“You were busy with taking over at the restaurant, Oliver, I didn’t want to distract you with that.”

Give me a fuckin’ break. There’s what, like twenty million eligible women his age in Great Britain, and dad goes for one from
America
. And not just
any
woman,
of course
.

Nope, he goes for Chloe fucking Caulfield’s
mom
.

Surprise, your old pop is getting married again, and guess who your new stepsister is? I mean it was a long time ago, but it’s still too fucking weird.

Okay, so it’s also a teeny bit interesting, if I’m being honest.

Chloe Caulfield. I haven't seen her since that senior year exchange trip. Rigid, bookish, uptight, and one might even say
bitch
if one were being crude. And yet, things sure got interesting back then. Interesting like three days of sleepless nights, three days of sneaking around to make out late into the night. Three days of pressing myself against her, seeing how far she’d let my hands go before pushing them away. Three days and nights of wanting so much more that an uptight virgin like her was going to give, even if I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Well, until it almost did.

“Ever been properly kissed?”

She darts her eyes to the floor, her cheeks going this flushed red color. “Of course I have.”

“Naw, sweetheart, I mean real proper kissed.”

She wrinkles her nose, “What, like frenching?”

I have to grin. “If it’s 1985, sure.”

But whatever, she’s here, even if it’s apparently only for a few months until she goes back to school.
“Taking a break”
I think is how my dad phrased it. Yeah, right; heard that one before.

She was a pain in the ass back then, and I can’t imagine that’s done more than grow in the five years since.

She was also temptation on a fuckin’ stick.

I’m suddenly wondering if that’s grown too. Four months might not be long, but it’s going to be an eternity if we’re anything like we were back then. I barely survived four
days
of that girl before.

Four months? Yikes.

But whatever, I wouldn't have time for this shit even if she
wasn’t
going to be my stepsister. I’m
way
too busy with the restaurant. Fuckin’ ‘ell, I’ve been “chef” for three weeks and it already feels like forever. Three fuckin’ weeks since dad fired Martin and stuck me in his place. Martin of the two stars, and now me with zero of them.

Hey, no pressure.

Every day a fucking battle to make sure they respect that in there. A kitchen is a war zone; it’s a military regiment that needs the discipline of a damn army to run efficiently. I’m not talking a burger joint kitchen here either.
Jolie
is the fucking
big leagues
. This is 200 quid a head dinners, and that price
demands
the type of discipline from a kitchen that you rarely find outside of the Queen’s guard. And if you’re the type of utter idiot like me who wants to be at the top of
that?
Congratulations, you’re the general. Now, act like the toughest motherfucker in a room full of guys who willingly spend the majority of their waking hours in an insanely stressful environment involving sharp knives, open flame, and close quarters for a living.

And I have to
run that
with an iron fist.

So like I said, I’m a
tad
busy, and a
touch
high-strung at the moment, and hanging around Heathrow waiting for the girl I don’t want here
anyways
is pushing all my buttons.

But whatever, at least I’ll be so busy with
Jolie
the next few months that I’ll probably never see her anyways.

“Dad,” I glance at my watch, “I’m seriously pushing it on time. I’ve gotta get back. Look I’ll just take my own taxi or the Piccadilly train or something.”

“Oy, cool it boy-o, they’ll be fine at the kitchen. We’re closed Mondays anyways.”

“No, they won’t be, and I’ve
still
got shit to do, you know.”

“Ah!” He says cheerily, completely ignoring me. He points to the gate flashing their plane’s call numbers. “Looks like they’re here!”

Wonderful.

He turns to me, “Besides, you ought to wait for Chloe anyways before you go back.”

I groan, checking my watch and wondering how fast I can bribe a taxi driver to go on the M4 today; “Why?”

The gate opens, and suddenly, there they are. I can see Mrs. Caulfield -
Laura
- beaming as she sees my dad. And he’s grinning too as he starts to move towards her.

God, ‘Mrs.
Caulfield’
? Fuck, do I have to call her step-mum now?

The throng of travelers and loved ones milling around the exit ramp begins to part, and then there
she
is.

And she’s staring right at me.

Our eyes meet across the crowd of people reuniting. All around people are hugging and kissing and shaking hands and generally glad to see each other. Which puts us
distinctly
out of place, because one look at each other and it’s clear neither of us is glad to see the other.

But fuckin’ hell, any hope I had of her losing her hair or putting on eight-hundred pounds or something since the last time I saw goes fluttering away the second my eyes land on her.

Shit.

She’s wearing jeans, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and rain-boots, but she might as well be in a fuckin’ red-carpet
gown
. Or fuck,
lingerie
or something.

Because, fuck me sideways, she’s even hotter than I remember. Those searing blue eyes like cold rain, that dark brown hair like a wave of silk down over her shoulder, that defiant way she’s holding her head up high and her shoulders back.

That
perfect
rack and an ass that gets my cock hard
right there
standing in the middle of Heathrow Airport.

This
is going to be bloody problem.

Whatever,
I tell myself.
You’ll barely see her. She can deal with this whole situation however she wants to.

But suddenly, the last thing my dad said to me pings and resonates inside my head.

“Dad,” I grab his coat before he takes another step through the crowd; “What do you mean I should ‘wait for her’.”

I narrow my eyes at him as he turns back and throws me a quick questioning look. “Oh, bugger, didn’t I tell you?” He’s smiling away, as if none of this is at all blowing apart my whole world.

“Tell me
what
?”

They’re getting closer now as they push their way through the crowd; the smiling bride-to-be and her scowling, sexy as fuckin’ sin daughter. My dad shakes his head, “Must’ve slipped my mind with all this happening so fast. She’s a baker you know.”

“So?”

Oh, fuck.

And instantly, I’m seeing where this is going, and I’m slowly shaking my head even before my dad can open his mouth.

“I hired her. She’s your new pastry cook.”

And then they’re right in front of us, and my dad and Mrs. Caulfield are laughing and hugging, and I’m just standing there, staring at Chloe with our eyes locked.

Yeah, this is going to be a right bloody fuckin’ problem.