“No,” he quickly and calmly replies. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Give me some time to come to terms with it and to say goodbye to Ash in my own way. I know what I need to do to make this happen, and I will do it, but let me make peace with it first.”
“That’s not an unreasonable demand,” my older brother Balthazar says, entering the room from the hidden stairs behind the shelving unit. I wonder how long he was standing there and how much he heard.
“You would go easy on your brother?” Father asks, eyeing my eldest sibling with something akin to mild curiosity.
“His mopey ass won’t be able to perform his role to the required standard, and as much as I like pussy, there are only so many hours in the day.” His lips twitch as he leans against the wall, flashing me a knowing grin.
Baz is loving this.
It’s what he’s wanted for years—to fully immerse himself in his responsibilities as the renowned player heir. His manwhore ways are even more legendary than his predecessors, and that thrills him.
Getting to lord his superiority and power over me is an added bonus.
He knows how I feel about Ash. He knows how hard I have resisted my Luminary responsibility and how much I will loathe screwing around with others in the name of duty. This isn’t some grand charitable gesture on my brother’s behalf. He knows this will prolong my agony, and he's going to twist the knife as deep as he can.
“Very well.” Father concedes because it seems like his heir can do no wrong in his eyes. “You have two months to satiate your lust for the Shaw girl, and then you must end things permanently and commit to Julia and your duties. But you move in with her today. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I spit out as I rise, wondering how I can soften the blow with Ash. This will devastate her, and I’m not sure how I can explain it when I’m forbidden from telling her the truth.
“You’re excused,” Dad says, not even looking at me as I storm across the room toward the door.
“Little brother.” Balthazar calls out after me, and I stall with my hand curled around the door handle. I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. “There can be no going back. She must understand with no ambiguity.”
Pain stabs me through the heart as I contemplate what I will need to do. It will kill me as much as it will kill her, and I know I will lose Chad too. But I’m running out of time and plays. “I understand what I need to do.”
“Which is?” The amusement dancing across my brother’s face sends me into a silent rage, but I conceal it.
I won’t give either of them the satisfaction of knowing how much this will break me. “Rip her heart out and stomp all over it.”
ChapterFive
Ashley
“Iknow this sucks, but you can’t just walk off!” I yell at Chad as he paces the sidewalk in front of the townhome that is supposed to be a new start. I don’t point out he literally has nowhere else to go unless he wants to commute to LU every day from his mom’s poky apartment. I won’t add insult to injury. “He is fucking loving this!” I add in a quieter tone, angling my head and shooting daggers with my eyes at the asshole lounging in the open doorway above, watching our argument with an expanding smile. “You reacting like this is playing straight into Ares’s hands, babe.” I grip Chad’s shoulders, forcing him to stop walking and look at me. I clasp his face, fixing his gaze on mine. “I will find some way to get rid of him. I promise. But for now, you need to calm down and come back inside.”
“How?” my boyfriend asks, placing his hands on my waist and pulling me in close to his body. “How will you get him out when he always seems two steps ahead of us?”
It’s frustratingly true. “We need to up our game. To turn the tables and gain the upper hand.” Running my hands over the velvety-soft cropped bleach-blond hair on his skull, I stretch up on tiptoes and plant a slow, lingering kiss on his lips. “You don’t need to worry about it. Focus on football and your family, and leave my stepbrother to me.” I know who I can turn to for advice, and I make a mental note to call Lo later.
He opens his mouth to speak just as a familiar Range Rover pulls into the parking spot alongside Chad’s truck. Dad is having my Lexus SUV delivered tomorrow. He insisted on hauling it into the garage for a quick checkup, which seemed overkill to me because it was only serviced three months ago.
“What the fuck is that motherfucker doing here?” Jase asks as he climbs out of his car and slams the door shut. His gaze narrows on Ares as my stepbrother flips him the bird.
“He lives here,” I say, my sigh heavy with resignation. I had a blazing argument with Dad over the phone, but he won’t back down. Not until I give him some reason to, and I’m determined to find one sooner than later.
“And I thought this day couldn’t get any worse,” Jase mumbles, exchanging a loaded look with Chad.
All the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle in awareness. “What’s happened?” My gaze bounces between my two guys as I arch a brow.
“Let’s talk inside,” Jase says. He quickly looks around before bending down to brush his lips across my mouth.
While we go to great lengths to hide our relationship—for obvious reasons—Ares knew about it from the get-go. He refuses to explain how he gleaned that knowledge, which only makes us more suspicious of his motives. Apart from us, only Lo and her husbands, Jase’s older brother, and a few of the guys’ close friends from Lowell know. Creed and Nix are attending LU with us, but the rest of the gang accepted scholarships to USC. So, it should be easy to continue as we are until we find a way to extract Jase from his fake relationship with Julia.
“I’m not going in there,” Chad says, pouting and throwing a tantrum like a toddler.
It’s starting to seriously piss me off.
