Prince Albert (A Step-Brother Romance #4)

Gaige sips his beer. "Taken."

"Taken by who, exactly?" I ask. Then I pause. "No, never mind. I don't even want to know the answer to that question. Did you fucking follow me here?" I ask, my voice rising in pitch. Someone looks over at me, and I lower it, aware I'm about to cause a scene. Or I am causing a scene. We look like a couple having an argument. "Have you been listening to my date? Did you bug me or something?"

Gaige laughs. "Seriously, you think I bugged you? Listen to yourself, Delaney."

"That's it," I say. "I don't even care what you did. I'm totally out of here." I dig in my purse for cash, and slap enough down on the table to cover my bill, refusing to even make any eye contact with Gaige before I storm out the door. He doesn't follow me out of the bar.

Back at home, I'm still furious with him, but I have no one to vent to. I start to call Daniel, but what the hell kind of explanation can I give him for my stepbrother's ridiculousness? Daniel texts to ask me how the date with Bennet went, but I ignore him. Instead, I turn on music and take a bath, trying to tune out everything else. I can't believe Gaige, going in there and acting like some kind of caveman, telling Bennet to leave.

Why are you pissed? He did what you yourself wanted to do to Bennet – he told him to get lost. I know the nagging little voice in my head is absolutely true. But even so, he had no right to do it.

I'm not even relaxed after a hot bath. I'm still irritated. And Gaige isn't next door, or if he is, he's been super stealthy about sneaking into his room. I slip into a pair of comfy pants and a tank top and grab my novel to head up to the roof, to the sunroom.

My father's estate is a sprawling, Texas-sized mansion on twenty acres. I told my father it was ridiculous when he bought it. The house itself is a monstrosity with too many rooms to count – I think thirty or something – and he bought it the year before he and Anja got married. My mother had custody of me since she split with my father, and we lived in New York after that, with me spending summers with my father, in the less ostentatious house he had before this one.

All that changed my sophomore year of high school when he bought this place. I hate everything about the house.

Except for the sunroom. Anja calls it the solarium, because sunroom is apparently not the correct fancy word for it. It's enclosed in glass on the rooftop, like a greenhouse, filled with tropical leafy plants and lots of chairs for sitting. Anja says it makes her allergies crazy. But I love it.

I pop into the kitchen on the way, startling the cook, Deborah, who insists on making me a cup of tea, even though I insist I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. She also insists on preparing dinner for me, finally acquiescing to leave something in the refrigerator, since there's no one else in the house. My father and Anja are gone tonight, some business thing with foreign investors my father is entertaining, Saudi contacts, I think. Deborah tries to protest when I send her and the housekeeper home, but if at this point in my life I can't fend for myself, that'd be pretty messed up.

I set my tea down on this little table beside one of the lounges and stretch out on my stomach, my novel in front of me. No cell phone and no one around. Now hopefully, Gaige will stay gone.

My luck in the Gaige department lasts for all of thirty minutes before he's standing right in the doorway in front of me. "Getting rid of my date wasn't enough screwing around with my life earlier?" I ask. "You came back for more?"

"I came back for more." The way he looks at me, like he's hungry, makes that statement drip with innuendo. Damn it, why does Gaige have to look so irresistible?

I sit up and cross my arms over my chest. "So you're no longer just fucking around with me? You're screwing around with my dating life too?"

"Oh, please," he says. "You should be thanking me."

"I should be thanking you?" I can already feel myself getting more irritated, my voice rising. At least I don't have to keep it down now, since no one is here but us. "For acting like a total Neanderthal and sending my date home?"

"You weren't into him anyway, so don't act like I didn't do you a favor by getting rid of the guy," he says. "You could have at least stayed and finished your drink with me like a civilized person."

I jump to my feet. "Civilized, huh?"

Gaige nods, the edges of his mouth curved up in a smile. "There's no excuse for poor manners, Delaney."

I think I might have to clock him across the head with a vase. I can see the headline now: Gaige O'Neal, Murdered by Stepsister in Completely Reasonable act of Aggression. I'm almost positive the cops would understand.

Gaige's stupid voice interrupts my fantasy. "What, you're tongue-tied now?"

"I'm thinking of ways to dispose of your body."