Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
My weekend passed in a blur, but I am kind of grateful. I still lived at home with my dad and step-mum, it wasn’t ideal, but when you’re between jobs, it works. I didn’t have to pay rent, they looked after me even though I was twenty-three.
My dad and step-mum have been married for a little over five years, together for seven. I was sixteen when he came home telling me he had met the love of his life, I scoffed and rolled my eyes. My dad was a hopeless romantic, always had been, and he was the one who told me to never settle.
That’s why I am a twenty-three-year-old virgin. The only action I get is from my books.
He came home with Loretta and even I fell in love with her after an hour, so I knew he was a goner.
But then there was her son, Silas. He was twenty-six when I first met him.
Ten years my senior, but he was the first boy I ever had a crush on.
Way out of my league and totally too old for me, but I kept my head down and focused on college.
He had pale skin, almost translucent, crystal blue eyes that pierced through your soul like an icicle, and jet-black hair that fell into them sometimes and all I’d want to do is brush it away before kissing his lips.
But that was then.
Now, now I would want to get that icicle and stab him straight through the heart with it.
I was so excited after being an only child to have an older brother. Thought he would want to hang out, thought we would be cool… but he was more interested in making my life as miserable as he could, and when that wasn’t enough, he fucked my friends for—and I quote— fun .
They hated him, which in turn made them pull away from me and before I knew it, I was a lonely girl in college with no friends, until I found a few that seemed like true friends.
He relished in my loneliness.
But then he got into firefighting, and I was grateful for him to be out of my hair.
I hadn’t seen him since my eighteenth birthday, which as per usual, he made all about him.
What little friends I managed to scoop up whilst at college, he plucked them out one by one and fucked them too. But one cut a little deeper for some reason, my friend Kelly.
My dad had arranged to surprise me with a holiday to New York for me and her and just as he was about to do this big grand gesture by pulling a curtain back with some cute little set he had made, there he was in all his glory… my step-brother Silas, with Kelly, bent over as he fucked her senseless.
She thought he was the one. Little did she know this was his favourite party trick.
He ghosted her, and of course, as always, it was my fault.
Loretta was mortified, kicked him out and my dad was distraught.
And me? I went to New York with my dad and step-mum.
Because he ruined every. Single. Friendship.
He didn’t care.
As long as I was miserable, he was happy.
That’s when he burned the last bridge.
Sitting on the sofa watching Friends , Loretta walks in and hands me a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits.
I give her a warm smile as she sits next to me, hand on my thigh.
I know her tells.
She is about to tell me something I am not going to like.
“How are you?” she asks sweetly, her eyes fixated on the screen.
“I’m okay, I have an interview Wednesday for a veterinary nurse,” I nod, dipping my biscuit into my tea.
“Only a couple of days then, this is good news, how are you feeling about it?”
I nod as I swallow.
“I feel good, think this might be the one… all those years of studying only to land on my feet and have the floor ripped from beneath me when it goes up in flames,” I sigh, “never understood why they didn’t re-open.”
“Could be a lot of reasons, sweetie.”
I sigh.
“So…”
Here we go .
“Silas is on leave from work and has something he needs to tie up here so…”
“So, you told him he could stay at the B&B across the city, right?”
She laughs, but then shakes her head from side to side.
“No, he is going to be staying here.” And I exhale sharply, brows raised.
“Great,” I roll my eyes.
“Look,” she turns towards me, head tilting to the side. “I know what he done all those years ago were inexcusable, but?—”
“But he is still an ass.”
“Maybe, maybe not. He is thirty-three now… I would like to think his man-whore days are well and truly over. Last I heard, he had a girlfriend.”
“Poor girl,” I mutter as I bring the rim of my cup to my lips and take a mouthful.
“Hallie…”
“It’s the truth.”
She simply nods in understanding.
“He’ll be here shortly,” her voice is quiet as she stands and walks towards the hallway.
“Great.”
And then she sighs.
Regret blooms in my chest, but he just brings out the worst in me.
And that’s the problem.
We’re no good.