Free RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) by Mia Carson

picture, and Mom’s happiness was like a knife in my chest. I smiled at her, and felt guiltier than I had known because she didn’t know. She didn’t know that the man and woman clapping for her from opposite sides of the aisle (Jessica looking very lonely) had betrayed her.
    Finally, the couple was out of the door. The five of us—me, Jessica, and the three hippies—followed them out. They stood next to a Mercedes with the words ‘Bride & Groom’ on the back window. Mom ran over to me as I left the building, bounced over, really. She never seemed to simply move anywhere anymore. Her happiness infused her steps. She jaunted, she pranced, she bounced, she danced, she rushed. She was always moving faster and more purposefully than she had before she knew Andrew.
    “I have some news!” she exclaimed.
    “News?” I asked, keeping my voice impassive. I had no clue what this was. A slight tingle moved up my spine, telling me it might be bad news, telling me it might involve never seeing Jessica again. But that was just foolish speculation. Mom leaned forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. “We’re going to Malta for a week.”
    “Malta!” I gasped.
    “Malta!” she agreed, taking her hands from my shoulders and clapping them together. Behind her, I could see Jessica being told the same thing by Andrew, and behind them, near the car, I could see the three hippies carrying suitcases to the car. They must have planned this in secret, I guess. They knew we could take care of ourselves. Both of us had been to college, had lived alone.
    “I’m—” I stopped. The tingle in my spine disappeared. It was replaced with warmth rising in my chest. Jessica smiled for a second when Andrew told her, smiled and looked in my direction. She smiled at me, and then quickly turned away. It all happened in less than a second, but I saw it. She was thinking what I was thinking, then. We’d be alone. She and I would finally be completely alone in the house for an entire week. “I’m happy for you, Mom,” I said. “Really, that’s great news.”
    “Thanks, Eli!” she laughed, and kissed me on the cheek. “We’re going right now. Can you take Andrew’s car?” As she said car , Andrew moved around the side of her and handed me the keys. I took them numbly, like a man who had just been told he’d won the lottery. This was amazing. This was excellent. Suddenly, the next week was bright and optimistic in my mind. A whole week with Jessica!
    “Sure,” I said, spinning the keys on the key-ring. “Why not?”
    “Okay.” Andrew nodded. “I think it’s time for us to go, Annabelle.”
    “I think it is, too, lover-lover-man!”
    I cringed at that. Lover-lover-man . Jessica saw me cringing and offered me another smile. I smiled back. When we smiled at each other like that—or looked at each other, communicating silently—I felt as though an invisible rope was thrown around us, a rope that allowed us to share our deepest desires and fears with no need of words. I knew she was happy that we were going to be alone for a week, and I knew that happiness confused her.
    But it didn’t confuse me. No, the time for confusion was gone.
    I knew what I wanted.
     

Jessica
     
    I had had no idea that Dad and Annabelle were going to randomly jet off to Malta. Apparently it had all been booked beforehand, though. Dad had said it was a last-minute thing last night. That was fine by me. I realized, as he told me, that a large part of my anxiety about living with Eli came from the necessity of being two people. I was the person Dad and Annabelle saw me as, the loving daughter who was happy for their marriage and looked at Eli like a stepbrother, and I was the person I really was, the wolf in the hotel, the woman who’d fucked a man she did not know. Yes, it was out of character, but since then when I’d thought of it, that woman had seemed much more me than this fake-smiling one.
    I said goodbye to Dad and Annabelle with a smile and a