Addy is the last person I ever thought I'd see again. I was sure I was done with her. Now I've committed myself to working for the father I despise and for the girl I accidentally fell in love with six years ago.
The same girl I ran like hell to get away from five years ago.
Out of sight, out of fucking mind. I convinced myself that putting distance between Addy and I would quell the part of me that ached for her, but that sure as hell hasn’t turned out to be true.
Eight quick miles later and I'm back at Addison's penthouse building. It's empty inside, except for the doorman, who looks up from the book he's reading. "Good run, sir?"
"Hell, don't call me 'sir'. I'm not a damn officer." I'm catching my breath while he reaches underneath his desk and comes up with a cold bottle of water that he hands to me.
The doorman nods at one of the tattoos on my arm, the Eagle Globe and Anchor. "Marine?"
"Yep."
"I served in 'Nam," he says. "Good on you. You working for Miss Stone now?"
"Working, yeah." I laugh. I don't tell him I'm her stepbrother. I guess I am just another one of her employees.
The doorman nods and points to his nametag. "I'm Edgar," he says. "Anything you need, you let me know and I'll get it for you. I've been the doorman in this building for going on ten years now, and I know this town better than I know my own family. Know all the residents here, too. Miss Stone, she's a good girl. Brings me tea from this little cafe near where she records in the studio, every time she goes there. She never forgets, either. Knows I don't like coffee."
"That sounds like Addison," I say. I thank him for the water, and I'm about to head for the elevator but pause. "Are you the only doorman here, Edgar?"
"I'm here days mostly. Pete is nighttime usually, not me. But his wife just had a baby and he's out for the rest of the week. Got someone else filling in shifts during the day."
"So it's pretty regular, the two of you. You know everyone who's supposed to be here."
"Yes, sir."
"It's Hendrix," I say.
Edgar nods. "Hendrix," he says. "Your parents must have been music fans."
"My mom was," I tell him. I don't tell him the whole story. My mother wanted to name me Hendrix Morrison. She was a music teacher who loved classic rock. She and my father were an odd combination, the Army Colonel and the hippie musician. The Colonel insisted she name me something more manly. My middle name, Cannon, was their compromise. I guess it was fitting, since artillery turned out to be my job in the Marines. Then everyone took to calling me "Cannon" anyhow. Chicks thought it had to do with my dick size.
"Well, I'll bet she's proud of you now," he says.
"I'm sure she is." I don't know if that would be true or not. I'm not sure what the hell she'd think of me now, actually.
"Addison doesn't like all that stuff, the fame and all that," Edgar says, out of the blue.
"You like her," I observe.
"She's not stuck up like a lot of stars are," Edgar says. "She's a nice girl. You take care of her."
I catch the note of protectiveness in his tone. It's funny how Addison has a way of making people protective of her. In my case, protecting her means I sure as hell need to keep my damaged bullshit away from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADDY
SIX YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO
"What do you think?" Grace dangles her feet over the edge of the pool, kicking her toes lazily in the water. She leans back and arches her chest up, her boobs basically falling out of her bikini top, but she doesn't care. My older sister is gorgeous, and she knows it. She's always known it. Why I wound up being the famous one is something I'll never know. Grace was always the pretty one, with her emerald-colored eyes and dark hair and legs that are at least a foot longer than mine. Not to mention her boobs. I think she basically got the boob gene, because my A-cups do nothing to fill out my swimsuit.
"What do I think about what?"
"Come on," she says. "You know what. Or who, really. Our new stepbrother."
I wrinkle my nose. "I have no opinion whatsoever."
Grace grins. "Don't be such a goody-goody," she says. "You totally have an opinion. You just don't want to say it out loud because it's not nice and you're the nice girl."
I exhale heavily. Everyone has pegged me as the "nice girl" since I was a kid, including Grace. Especially Grace. I'm the good girl and she's the bad girl. Grace says it jokingly, but there's always an edge to it. Our mother, never able to see anyone except in black-and-white categories, labeled us that way when we were young. She hated Grace's father, and Grace took the brunt of it. It doesn't help that Grace and I look like total opposites. Or that Grace has completely embraced the bad girl role, rebelling against everything possible and coming home with tattoos and piercings and basically whatever she can do to get my mother's attention. What Grace doesn't realize is that being the good girl is just as annoying. It's not as much fun for me as she thinks it is. "I'm not the nice girl," I say.