Free CHERISHED (By the Alpha Billionaire #3) by Rossi St. James

ONE
     
    MAISIE
    “Can I come in?” Luke asked.
    I held the door open just a few inches. “What for?”
    “I want to apologize to you, Mais,” he said. “I never wanted us to go down in flames like that.”
    “Could’ve fooled me.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s late. I’m going to bed. I don’t need your apology, Luke. I need you out of my life.”
    “You’re so stubborn,” he said. “Will you please just let me apologize?”
    “You’re not sorry you fucked my stepsister. You’re sorry you got caught.”
    I wanted to slam the door in his face, but then I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before.
    Tears.
    Real tears.
    I didn’t want to be the asshole in the situation. “Five minutes. That’s all you get.”
    I held the door wide and let him pass through. It was odd. Just a couple weeks ago, we were sailing along like we’d always done. For five years it was the two of us and our cozy, worn-and-faded-jeans relationship. I never saw the Sara thing coming, though I probably should have.
    Sara was all tan skin and dark hair. Her long lashes were naturally curly and wide smile and perfect teeth took up her entire face when she grinned. Tall and lithe, she moved with an innate elegance I could never mimic. Women wanted her and men wanted to be her.
    Our parents had been married since I was twelve and she was eleven. We were both only children and thrilled to have sisters. We were close. Until she hit puberty and gained five inches on me. It was like walking around in her shadow constantly. Her supermodel looks made me feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, hobbling behind her in the hallways at school.
    But when I started dating Luke, he claimed he didn’t see in Sara what all the other guys saw. He made me feel like the prettiest girl in our entire school. He ignored her whenever he was with me. I felt lucky to be with a guy like him.
    “What changed, Luke?” I asked, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind my ear. I could give two shits about his apologies. I just wanted answers. “You always used to tell me Sara was nothing compared to me.”
    He knew how insecure I got when it came to how people constantly compared us. It wasn’t fair. I was curvy and blonde. She was tall and dark. We were apples and oranges, but people compared us anyway because they were assholes like that.
    It also didn’t help that my dad and her mom were teachers at our high school. Everyone knew them. Everyone knew us. Our family was very prominent in our little Missouri town.
    I couldn’t count how many times I’d over heard, “Oh, Maisie and Sara are stepsisters. Must be hard living in Sara’s shadow. Maisie would be so pretty if she just lost some weight. She’s got a pretty face, even though Sara’s a little bit prettier.”
    As years went on, and I went off to college, I thought I’d shed that insecure part of me. I forced her to grow up and bury the hatchet. Forget what people said. It was none of my business anyway. I came back home, where Luke was working as an electrician for a his dad’s business, and found my teaching job. We were happy and comfortable.
    And then Sara came home from college, claiming she couldn’t find a job in her field, never mind the fact that she had a bachelor’s in English Literature. She’d interned at a publishing house one summer, but apparently she didn’t impress them enough to be offered a job upon graduation.
    “You changed,” Luke said.
    His words caused me to take a step back, almost choking on my own words. “ I changed?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “You stopped being affectionate with me. We stopped having sex. You stopped being fun.”
    I raked my hand through my hair. “We stopped having sex. How is that my fault? If anything it was both of ours. And just because you’re not getting laid doesn’t give you a free pass to go out and fuck someone else.”
    “You’re right,” Luke said. “I should’ve dumped you before it went that far with