BASTARD: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

want you to come with me. I need you.”
    I chuckle without humor. “Yeah.”
    “I’m serious. I need someone I can trust. It’d be a junior position, but you could move up. It only pays sixty a year, but you wouldn’t have rent, or anything else really.”
    I stare at him. “Sixty what?”
    “Dollars. Thousand.” He frowns when he sees how I’m looking at him. “What is it?”
    I continue to stare. “You’re offering me, a nineteen-year-old with no college, and no programming experience, a job that pays sixty K a year?” I shake my head.
    He raises an eyebrow. “Are we negotiating now?”
    “No. What?”
    “I can bump it up to sixty-five, if you insist. But people might get suspicious. And I don’t want the media to accuse me of nepotism.”
    “That’s not my point.”
    “So you don’t want the money.”
    “No. I mean, yes. But no.” I exhale forcefully. “Stop changing the subject. I can’t go with you.”
    “Because of our wonderful parents.”
    “At least they were there,” I mutter, unable to meet his eyes.
    “And now I am. And I promise I’ll take care of you.”
    God, I want to believe him. It sounds so good. But he’s already hurt me once. I barely survived it. I can’t do it again.
    “I came here for you,” he says.
    “What?”
    “I wasn’t at your restaurant by accident. I knew you worked there. I came for you. I couldn’t take being without you anymore.” He looks at the door to the house. “I didn’t know it was so bad. I would have come sooner. I thought you were living out a happy little life, and didn’t need me ruining it for you.”
    I bark a bitter laugh.
    “But I’m here for you now. Please Mags, I need you.”
    My eyes burn and I can’t even think straight. I feel sick and happy. Like my body doesn’t know whether to vomit in joy or laugh in sorrow. “I can’t deal with this right now.” I turn away and walk quickly toward the door.
    “Mags! Maggie!”
    I ignore him, and pull open the screen door, which squeals loudly, then walk inside.
    ‘Mom’ is waiting.

Chapter 8
    “Who was that?” Cynthia asks, sitting at the kitchen table in that cutoff turtle neck sweater which shows a bit of midriff and which I secretly want to steal but could never pull off, working on her laptop. She hasn’t completely dropped the facade, but her artificial sweetness is gone.
    “Just a friend.” I wipe my eyes and head into the kitchen. It’s not that I want to be with her, but I am hungry. And looking at the hotel menu, with all its amazing, and incredibly expensive dishes, didn’t help. And I need something to take my mind off of all this shit.
    “Where’d you meet him?”
    “Work,” I answer truthfully.
    “I heard you left early. I see why now.”
    I say nothing, instead opening the fridge. I thought she’d stopped checking up on me. Maybe Nina, my boss, just stopped telling me.
    There’s a slice of cake.
    I close my eyes and tell myself it’s not worth listening to Cynthia lecture me. I bend over and open the vegetable crisper.
    “So you just walked right out on your shift, while you still had tables? Do you think that’s wise?”
    “Why do you care? You hate the place.”
    “Doesn’t mean you don’t do your job. You entered into an agreement.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Don’t be so apathetic. You wouldn’t want me to ground you again.”
    I freeze pulling the celery out of the fridge, my mind immediately going back to that week, when I was sixteen, when my damnation well and truly began.
    I try to shrug it off. I close the fridge and toss the celery on the counter.
    I open the drawer noisily—on purpose because I know she hates it—and pull out a knife.
    My fingers wrap tightly around the smooth wood and it makes me feel better.
    I’m an adult now. She can’t punish me like she used to.
    “Pretending to ignore me isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
    I turn on her, glaring down at her face.
    Her stupid face, wearing that stupid, satisfied