Free My Billionaire Stepbrother (Lexi's Sexy Billionaire Romance #1) by Lexi Maxxwell

rub my face in the past? Most of all, how dare he adopt this sad, reflective tone while he ruminates on all that once was? Am I supposed to sympathize with his birthday sorrow? Am I supposed to tell him that no, he didn’t do anything to be ashamed of in his thirty years of life?  
    Fuck him and his pity party. He has everything. We have nothing. Fuck him if those old guilty wheels got to turning. He should feel guilty. Fuck Parker Altman. Fuck him for the way he left, for all he abandoned. And fuck me , while we’re at it, for knowing exactly what I think he might actually be regretting beneath it all, and feeling its unrelenting tug.
    “Angela,” He nods toward the car. “Would you like to take a ride? To catch up?”  
    I’m insulted. I want to punch him. I want to slug his tuxedo-clad, pompous-ass chest. I want to slap his pretty, magazine-cover face. The world is falling in love with Parker Altman? I’m over it. His charm is useless on me.  
    I’m supposed to take a ride? A pitiful taste of the good life touched to the tongue of the penniless girl? It’s a scrap tossed to a starving dog: a tease, and nothing else.  
    “No thanks, Parker.”  
    “I’ve been thinking. And I don’t really like the way I left things.”  
    “Hmm.”  
    “Not with Dad. With … ” He hesitates. “With you, I guess.”  
    “Why me?”  
    He won’t say it.  
    “Dad is Dad. I’ve tried with him. I give him anything, and he uses it to hang himself. I’ve seen shrinks, Ang. They all say I should just let him go. Because every time I try to make up with Dad or even just listen to him for a few minutes, it’s like he gets his hooks back in me. And your mom? I’m sorry, but she’s never given any indication that she’d accept anything from me anyway, she hates me so much.”  
    I’m thinking about the card Parker got from “all of us.” I’m thinking that Mom isn’t as resistant to accepting charity as she used to be, if she ever was. Parker has clearly forgotten his roots. Everyone has a price. My mother hated him plenty, and still does. She’s only softened on him in the past few days because she thinks he might be willing to pay her price. If he does — if he’s willing to “renew acquaintances,” complete with all the financial responsibilities that come with such action — she’ll pretend to like him plenty. Just like the moneybags son she never had.  
    “But you and me, Angela. We were good, weren’t we?”  
    I don’t know how he means that. He could mean “we were good” in the way people say that after reconciling an argument, or he could mean something else. I don’t want to give him hints in case my gut’s wrong.
    “What about it?” I can hear my bitterness. We were doing fine without him. I don’t like the way he’s shown up and made me aware how much we could use some help. Before, there was no chance of a renewal. No chance of having Parker and his money back in our lives. Now that it seems like there could be, my choices are to refuse or accept it. Now the decision is in my hands, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to resist. And even if I am , I know how hard it will be to return to our shoddy state of normality after turning him down.  
    “Sometimes I think about you. About — ”
    “Why did you really come here, Parker?”  
    I look at his car. Inside, through several panes of not-quite-blacked-out glass, I can see his driver’s head. Waiting patiently, ready to obey the great Parker Altman’s whim. I refuse to do the same. We have little left these days. If I give him my pride, we’ll have nothing at all.  
    “I just thought we could talk.”  
    “‘Talk.’”
    “Yes.”  
    “Not because you feel guilty.” Now the bitterness is obvious.  
    “I — ”
    “If you feel guilty, Parker, why are you just showing up? Not calling? And not just showing up to knock on the door, but instead making a spectacle, waiting for us to see you out here in all your