Ruined (A Barnes Brothers novel) Read Online Free Page A

one time he’d actually needed to
be
the hero he was always pretending to be in movies? He hadn’t been able to do shit.
    “Marin!”
    He jerked his head around just in time to see Travis catch her.
    She’d passed out.

Chapter Three
    One year later
    The little red number on his machine was blinking.
    He didn’t even bother to see how many messages he had—the count wasn’t right anyway.
    He hadn’t answered his phone in days. Sometimes he picked up when it rang, but more often than not, it went to his voice mail and he hadn’t listened to those messages in quite some time.
    He wasn’t totally lazy, though. Every couple of weeks, he went in and deleted the messages—all of them.
    There was one person he didn’t mind talking to these days—no, make that three.
    The pizza guy was fine because he took the tip, left the pie, and asked no questions.
    The chick who delivered his food for him was good, too. She brought in the groceries, accepted her tip, and ignored the mess—although she had once politely left a card with a number on it for a cleaning service. He’d ended up using the cleaning service. They came out twice a month now, and he had to admit they were just as discreet and quiet as she was. They must like the tip, too.
    And then there was Marin.
    Sebastien wouldn’t have thought that Marin Lassiter would be welcome, considering that the first day she’d seen him with his shiny new scars, she’d passed out, but there you go.
    His brothers, his parents, his sisters-in-law, his friends—all of them grated on his nerves. From time to time, he didn’t mind Zane or Keelie, although Zane would eventually try to get him to call the family. Travis would probably be welcome, but that guy was so buried in work, he never emerged for longer than it took to call and Sebastien didn’t do phones anymore.
    Unless it was Marin.
    When Marin called, he answered.
    When she knocked on the door, he opened.
    So today, when she appeared on his deck carrying a picnic basket, he disappeared into the house to shower and try to look presentable.
    Now ten minutes into his hot shower, he figured he was about as presentable as he was going to get.
    Well, save for the raging hard-on. But he’d grab some board shorts and a T-shirt. Half the ones he owned no longer fit. He’d put on nearly fifteen pounds during the past year and all of it was muscle.
    The thought of going out there and seeing Marin . . .
    “Get it together, Barnes,” he muttered.
    Sebastien should have been able to put Marin out of his head once and for all after what had happened that day in the hospital, but he’d never been able to. She’d been there
every
day, often until the nursing staff kicked her out late at night, and she’d been the one who persisted in seeing him even when everybody else got tired of his foul temper.
    Granted, he’d never really used it on her as much as the others. Even his family had tried to plan their visits around hers. He’d be an idiot not to notice that, and he’d felt like a piece of shit knowing he was pushing everybody away, but at the same time, he hadn’t cared.
    He didn’t want anybody to be his cheerleader or his therapist. He was tired of his mom trying to clean up after him, and he was tired of his dad telling him that there was a reason for the things that happened.
    Sebastien knew the reason this had happened—it had happened because he was an asshole and this was his punishment. Further proof of that fact was the long list of people who no longer wanted to be around him.
    Trey hadn’t been out to see him ever since Sebastien had told his brother’s cute fiancée Ressa that if he wanted her opinion on something, he’d ask her advice on self-help books. Until that time? She could keep her advice for her patrons.
    Trey e-mailed off and on, but Sebastien deleted them unread. Not because he was mad at his brother. Sebastien was mad at himself and he didn’t want to make things worse.
    Zach still came out