Free ESCAPE: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 2) by Ava Dark Page A

and doesn’t say anything.
    He shakes his head, then looks at me. “I like you. More than that.”
    “I more than that you too.”
    “Are you drunk?”
    “Me?” I press a finger between my breasts. I look down at them, and my finger suddenly comes up and hits myself in the nose. I stare at him, mouth agape. “Why’d you do that?”
    “You’re not that drunk.”
    I rest my head on him. “Tell me what’s wrong, o’ brother of mine.” I cringe as soon as I say it. Maybe I am a bit drunk.
    “That.” He pushes my head off him. “Look. I love you, but…”
    But I can’t hear him. Those words, and my world’s gone dark, gone bright with light. So bright that I can’t see anything at all, can’t hear anything over the ringing of the light.
    My vision clears, my ears stop ringing. Cade’s looking at his glass.
    “I love you too,” I whisper.
    But he must not hear me over the airplane.
    “Maybe it’s different for you, but my family…”
    I wait.
    He downs his glass in one gulp.
    “Hey there, Sinatra.”
    He smiles while looking at his empty glass.
    “You know that sheriff?”
    “The one who tried to frame us?”
    “No. Well, maybe. Bridget. Bridget Burton. From the airport.”
    “Oh. Yeah. What about her?”
    Cade lifts his glass as though to take another drink, sees it’s empty, lets it and his hand drop back to his lap.
    “She’s… She’s my— Cynthia’s cousin.”
    I stare at him, waiting for him to continue.
    He looks from his glass to me.
    “Okay. Is that supposed to be… impressive? So what, this is some family feud? I don’t get it.”
    He shakes his head. “Do you think my mom loves your dad?”
    “I don’t know. I think they did, at one time.” I gesture back and forth between us. “It was pretty good there, at first.”
    He nods. “And now?”
    I shrug. “I think my dad will do whatever your mom says.”
    “But do you think he loves her? Is in love with her?”
    “Who knows. Maybe some people just aren’t meant for true love.”
    “Oh maybe they never find it. Or if they do, it’s someone they can’t love. Someone they aren’t supposed to.”
    “Like Romeo and Juliet.”
    “Or like Juliet and Juliet.”
    “Uh.”
    “Mags, Cynthia is cheating on your dad.”
    I’m silent for a minute. “I don’t know how I feel about that. I think I don’t feel anything. I think I knew, maybe.”
    “But do you know who with?”
    “No. Do you?”
    Cade nods.
    I stare. “Well don’t keep me in suspense! It’s killing me. Spill.”
    But he doesn’t smile. He looks up at me, into my eyes. “It’s Bridget. My mom is sleeping with Bridget.”

Chapter 24
    My world is rocked. I never thought Cynthia had unassailable moral character, and have long suspected she’s cheated on my dad.
    But that was suspicion. I could chalk it up to hating her guts.
    But this…
    “Hey,” I say to Cade, touching his thigh.
    He pushes my hand away gently, and puts it in my lap.
    “That’s not…” The same thing, I want to say. But I can’t bring myself to.
    Is this why he pushed me away? Is this why he is hot one minute, and then ice the next? There’s so many questions I want to ask him.
    And I can’t ask him any of them. Not now. At least not right now.
    But they’ll be time for that, I tell myself. Because whatever else is happening, I’m with him now. I’m safe.
    He just saved me again. Maybe I wouldn’t have been sent to Guantanamo, but I would have gotten sent back to that house. Back to Cynthia.
    And while I’ve never had to endure waterboarding or standing for ten hours straight, in many ways my house was worse.
    I stare down at my hands, resting awkwardly in my lap, unable to move them for fear it will make things more awkward, and yet, yearning to reach out and touch him, the desire growing second by second.
    We sit in silence for a long time.
    Every so often, I look at him. He spends most of the time on his phone.
    I’d use mine, but the broken screen makes it