Chapter 10
Fia
Fuck. Shitty-titty-fuck-wank-fuck.
I was a little hungover.
A little thirsty.
A little in love with my step-brother.
That wasn’t a problem, though. I fell in love all the time. With people, with moments, with settings. Maybe I shouldn’t label it as love, then. Maybe a very keen liking. An infatuation. A temporary one.
I’d fall out of it as quickly, suddenly, and subtly as it had grown.
I lay there, his soft snores behind me, his hands holding me tight to his body, feeling all of him behind me. I was aching.
As much as he was ready to go again, I was not.
I should go. I should throw myself across the room, put on some clothes, and disappear into Everly and Luca’s room.
But the second I moved, he would wake up.
And we’d have to talk. I’d have to admit that I had left the door unlocked and that it was no longer a one-time thing and that he was starting to get under my skin.
And my moans were not forgiveness.
Even thinking about the situation he’d put us in made me want to suffocate him under the duvet. But the way he’d manhandled me last night, I knew I had no chance.
The worst part? If he did vanish from my life, I’d be gutted.
Though I already was because we couldn’t be what we were — lust-filled, desperate.
I’d let myself daydream a little; I’d let myself want a public date.
He’d wanted me to text him. Not nudes. Words.
Like he wanted us to form some kind of emotional attachment. If we had done that over the last two months, where would I be now? Would he have told me?
Would I be more than a little bit in love? Would I be heartbroken?
Maybe I already was.
It was a quiet thought. In Hungarian.
Like I somehow wanted to keep it a secret from myself. I wasn’t sure when my thoughts stopped being in Hungarian and started being English. Maybe in secondary school, when my native tongue began to rot in my mouth, slowly, softly.
I’d taken him as a tie to my family, a mysterious tie with a huge cock who gave multiple orgasms.
No part of my soul thought he had done this maliciously. We had both fallen into this without expectation. It had surprised and consumed us both.
And I needed to escape it.
I tried to pull myself out of his grip, but he pulled me tighter in his sleep, like a king cobra, suffocating me.
This was his house. Last night, he’d told me this was his room. I hadn’t unpacked because I’d hardly had time, but… would his clothes be in the wardrobe? He’d invited me — trusted me — with the most personal space he had.
Alone.
After he’d thrown his whole ‘this is a wedding, and oops we’re family now’ stunt, he was lucky that I hadn’t packed scissors and taken them to all of his stereotypical bad boy dark clothing.
I’d been too preoccupied with locking or unlocking the door.
I reached over to the bedside table beside me. It was made of simple, dark wood that matched the headboard. On it lay a coaster and a lamp.
So normal and domestic.
In the drawer were condoms, tablets, a nail file, and two books.
One was on mental healing — which I had not expected — the other was a fantasy novel.
They both had bookmarks nestled deep within the pages, and I flicked through them, careful not to lose his place.
His non-fiction chapter was about self-compassion and pressure.
I tried to look over my shoulder at him.
He always carried arrogance in spades — sexual, looks, speed.
He sighed behind me and pulled me closer again, his hand stroking my bare stomach.
“Morning,” he said into my neck, pressing a kiss there.
My neck was my ultimate weakness. I clenched at the shiver down my spine.
“Morning,” I said, voice tight.
I couldn’t be angry about sleeping with him last night. That was my stupid decision.
But I could remain pissed about everything else.
“Can you let me go?”
He released me immediately and shook out his arm. I could only assume it was numb from how tightly he’d clamped me to him all night.
“How did you sleep?”
“Fine,” I said, then sighed. The worst part was that I didn’t want to be angry. “You?”
He nodded. “Best night’s sleep I’ve had in two months.”
Since the last time we’d shared a bed, and I’d run away the morning after.
“You’ll have to get some medication,” I told him, dragging the sheet off the bed as I stood, trying to cover the body he’d licked, slapped, caressed, fucked. “Because it will never happen again.”
He was silent, lying there, naked.
Sweet lord. It was not fair. How could he lie there, looking up at the ceiling, palms under his head, showing me everything? Those solid abs I’d traced and the scratches on his chest from how I’d ridden him so hard, I’d had to bite into his shoulder to keep quiet so our parents didn’t overhear us.
And then there was that solid cock, jutting above that defined V, past his navel, because he was massive. It was all in proportion.
Just one look, one heartbeat, seeing him in the sunrise that came through the open balcony doors… and I was ready to climb back on him and claim that morning wood.
“Never?” he asked. “Yet you’re looking at me like that?”
He stood, unapologetic for his huge erection, and walked over to my stunned, frozen body.
“We have nothing to feel guilty about,” he said, running a hand down my arm. “Stop beating yourself up.”
“We can’t—”
“We can,” he said. “There is nothing we can’t do. As I said, I’d go and tell our parents right now.”
I stepped directly before the door. “No. You can’t. There’s nothing to tell them.”
“I’d tell them we are together,” he said. “If that would make you feel better. I would take all responsibility. We are not just sex, Zsófia.”
I’d clearly struck a chord last night.
“I’d tell them at breakfast, before they leave for their honeymoon.”
“Oh yes,” I laughed with disbelief. “Nothing says ‘honeymoon’ like incest!”
His laughter was real, and he wrapped his arm around my neck, pulling me into his chest. “You’re funny when you’re frustrated.”
“I do not mean to be funny,” I snapped.
He pressed something onto my head — I feared it was his lips — and laughed against my hair.
“Give me two days.” He squeezed me. “Please. Just two.”
My heart thundered, pulsing in my ears.
Zoltán Farkas was begging me to give him a chance.
He pulled back and took my hands in his. “Please.”
I wanted to be strong. I wanted to say no. For the sake of our families, jobs, and sanity.
But looking into his dark, pleading eyes, I felt myself crumbling. And then heard my voice saying, “I’m making no promises, Zolt.”
His grin lit up his entire face. The cheeky smirk broke my deep breath and made me smile too.
And then he grabbed my ass, hauled me close, and leaned down.
I threw my palms on his chest. “No. Do not kiss me.”
He froze, frowned, and stepped back.
And, of course, I’d let go of the sheet. It had fallen between us, and I was naked. His appreciative eyes raked over me. I only sighed and got in the shower, feeling his gaze following me all the way.
When I was done, he was nowhere to be seen. And I wasn’t sure if my shoulders sagged in relief or disappointment.
He’d made the bed and taken the condom wrapper.
For twenty minutes, I tried to send a text to my mum, coming clean. Her last message had been telling me to enjoy myself on my mini holiday with my sister… and I couldn’t lie to her. Not outright. Not when it came to the man who had cheated on her and ruined her self-worth for so long.
Mum had told me I was wrong for thinking it, but I couldn’t help it. When he cheated, that was a choice against me, too. That was him risking our family.
So I left her on read. I dressed, putting on a denim skort and an off-the-shoulder yellow top, before sliding on my trainers and knocking on Everly’s door. Luca answered, and the three of us went down to breakfast.
A few other guests had stayed last night, and the garden had been set up with tables for the meal, the flower centrepieces from yesterday starting to wilt. A long rectangular table was on the veranda, where Imre, the bride, and her sons sat. And Zolt’s mum waved and called us over.
I looked around the tables for my nagyi, but she wasn’t there. She was the calm. Everyone would behave around her.
There were three seats left, and Everly sat herself in the remaining one by Zolt, eyeing him up and down with that big-sister glare of hers.
If she knew what had happened last night… if she knew what I’d offered to do… no, she was always on my side. Even when I made mistakes. She would probably roll her eyes and tell me not to get hurt. Or to make sure it was worth it.
It would hurt. It wasn’t worth it.
I was doing it anyway.
“It’s such a shame we are leaving,” Zolt’s mum said. “We would have loved to spend more time with you.”
I smiled as she took my hand over the table. “We have a lot of time for that, and I guess Imre doesn’t before the next race. The honeymoon is a priority.”
Next week.
Her smile stiffened the second I didn’t refer to him as Dad, and she nodded with a weak smile. “Yes. You’ll visit? Between work?”
I nodded. “I’ll try my hardest.”
“You can fly back with Zolt and Imre. They always come back home. Benedek… not so much.”
Benedek shook his head and laughed, calling down the table to her, “Some of us have to work.”
Zolt shook his head and then spoke to his mother.
In… a language I did not understand.
I blinked, running back through the sounds he’d just made. There was a root word in Portuguese… demais, which meant ‘too much,’ but the rest was lost on me.
Had he just called me too much? Was he insulting me in a language I didn’t even realise he knew?
He… knew a language I didn’t?
It wasn’t that I owned all languages — because of course not — but my back straightened. I’d thought of him only in Hungarian terms.
For me to be hired, it couldn’t be a common language and… I didn’t even know if he was any good at speaking it.
His mother was replying in the same language, but it was all passing me by while I looked at him, sipping his orange juice and shovelling my father’s homemade palacsinták onto his plate.
I didn’t know him at all. Not in the way I thought I did. Not enough.
What I did know was a variety of neon-green flags and bloody, burgundy ones, unhinged with warning.
I wanted to unwrap those layers.
And I wanted some palacsinták.
I picked one up with my knife and fork, dragging it to my plate and slathering on some apricot jam.
Zolt’s lips twitched into a beaming smile as he stared wide-eyed at my plate, then me.
Okay, it was an obscene amount of jam. But my muscle memory hadn’t moved on much from when I was eight.
I rolled it up, keeping threatening eye contact, daring him to judge me.
He reached over, grabbed another, and loaded the biggest tablespoon of jam onto his before rolling it up. It made wet noises.
He took a ravenous, caveman bite — which shouldn’t have been attractive — and then licked his lips. All while keeping his eyes steady on mine.
I glanced over to Everly. Thankfully, she was too busy chatting to Luca for her to notice that Zolt’s tongue made my eyes roll, thinking about how he’d made me moan last night.
Zolt’s mum queried me about my master’s and my life in London. And I found out the most about Zolt.
She’d grown up in Cape Verde until she travelled to Europe and fell in love with Zolt’s father. He’d died when Zolt was young, and his paternal grandfather had stepped in until he passed last year.
I knew Simon Farkas. He was often a man of honour at award shows and races, and I’d been lucky enough to shake his hand once or twice.
My entire childhood, I’d interacted with impressive racers.
There was something about Simon Farkas that was beyond confidence. Knowledge. Care. Expression.
Zolt had a bit of it — he knew he was bloody good at what he did.
And then she was up, and they were leaving, my father crushing me with a hug and asking if we could have breakfast before the next race. As a family.
I wanted Zoltán Farkas.
And I hated to admit he was right, but… he was.
If there was anything between us, we should have declared it this morning because now it was too late. We were a family.
We were step-brother and sister.
And it was too late.
Too late to confess.
Too late to undo it.
Too late for me.
We were family. There was potential here.
And when I saw Nagyi appear, her fragile, wrinkled hand on Imre’s shoulder and her beaming smile aimed at me… I knew I couldn’t risk everything for a man I couldn’t trust.