Possessive Billionaire Stepbrothers (Stepbrothers' Forbidden Fantasies #7)

1. Nora

NORA

The helicopter blades slow behind me, and I'm still trying to make sense of what Dad just said.

"You'll ride with the boys, kiddo."

The boys. My three new stepbrothers. Who are not boys—they're men, fully grown men with jawlines and tattoos and the kind of presence that makes every room feel smaller.

And I'm supposed to spend an hour alone with them in a helicopter while my father and his new wife fly off to Paris for their honeymoon.

"It's just an hour," Dad says, squeezing my shoulder. He's wearing a linen shirt that probably costs more than my rent, and he looks happy in a way I haven't seen since Mom died. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at me. "They'll take good care of you. Promise."

I nod because what else can I do? Tell him I've spent the last forty-eight hours actively avoiding his new stepsons because every time one of them looks at me, my body does things I have no explanation for? That I need to get off this island immediately before I embarrass myself further?

"I love you," he says, pulling me into a hug that smells like his old aftershave—the one familiar thing in this entire surreal weekend.

"Love you too."

My new stepmom, Vivienne, appears beside him, immaculate in cream linen, not a single dark hair out of place despite the wind from the chopper. She touches Dad's arm. "Darling, we should go."

Darling. My high school English teacher father who still drives a 2009 Camry is someone's darling now. Someone who owns islands and helicopters and probably refers to continents the way normal people refer to neighborhoods.

They board. Dad waves from the window. The blades pick up speed, and the noise swallows everything else—the ocean, the birds, my own breathing.

I stand there with my hair whipping across my face, watching the helicopter lift off.

It rises, tilts, and then it's just a dark spot against the blue sky. Then it's a speck. Then it's nothing.

I'm alone.

Not alone. The thought arrives with a sick little swoop in my stomach. I'm the opposite of alone.

The wind dies down. The silence that follows feels too big, too empty. I can hear the ocean behind me and the rustle of palm fronds and my own pulse in my ears. I take a breath and turn toward the villa?—

"We forgot to tell you."

I spin around so fast I almost trip. Cade is standing ten feet away, hands in the pockets of his shorts. He's barefoot. Somehow that makes him look bigger. Or maybe he's always this big and I just keep forgetting because my brain refuses to process it.

"The next chopper won't be here until the day after tomorrow."

My stomach drops. "What?"

Rhett steps forward from somewhere behind Cade—how long have they been standing there?—arms crossed over his chest. His gray eyes catch the sunlight and for a second I forget how to blink. "Yeah. Engine troubles."

"So I guess you're stuck with us."

Jude. I don't see him until he speaks because he's leaning against the railing at the edge of the helipad, grinning at me like he just told a joke and is waiting for me to get the punchline.

Two days. The words repeat in my head but they don't make sense. Two days on this island. With them. No other guests. No wedding party. No buffer. Just me and three men who?—

Cade chuckles, low and unhurried. He takes a step closer. "Why do you look so scared? Afraid you won't be able to control yourself around us?"

The laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. It sounds wrong, too high, too sharp. "You wish."

"Then there's nothing to be afraid of, is there?" Jude pushes off the railing and tilts his head, hazel eyes bright with something that looks like a challenge. "Or are you itching to go back to whatever loser boyfriend you have?"

"I don't have a boyfriend." The words come out too fast. I try to stop talking. I should stop talking. "I'm still a virgin."

Silence.

Not the comfortable kind. Not the kind that exists between sentences.

The kind that opens up like a sinkhole and swallows everything—sound, air, thought.

I can hear the ocean. I can hear my own heartbeat.

I can hear nothing else because all three of them are staring at me like I just confessed to murder.

Cade's expression shifts. Something dark flickers across his face—his eyes drop to my mouth for one second, maybe two, then back up. His jaw tightens.

Rhett goes completely still. That massive body just—stops. Mid-breath. His hands fall from where they were crossed over his chest and hang at his sides like he forgot what to do with them.

Jude's grin dies. Not slowly. All at once. His mouth flattens and his eyes get darker, the hazel going almost brown in the sunlight, and he stares at me like he's trying to solve an equation that doesn't add up.

Heat floods my face. My neck. My chest. My freckles are probably glowing. I can feel them glowing.

I move. I don't say anything else—I can't, my brain has physically left my body—I just turn and walk. Fast. Not running. But fast.

I pass Cade. He doesn't move out of the way. The path is narrow and I have to angle my body to get past him and for one horrible, endless second I'm close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin. Close enough to smell whatever soap or cologne or just—him—that makes my stomach clench.

His voice comes from right next to my ear. Low. Almost a whisper.

"I'll keep my bedroom door open. In case you get bored."

Dad met Vivienne four months ago.

I was at the rescue center when he called, halfway through scrubbing down the puppy kennels with Dina. My phone buzzed on the counter and I almost didn't answer because my hands were covered in soap and fur, but the ringtone was Dad's and he never calls during the day.

"Kiddo, you got a minute?"

I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder. "Yeah. What's up?"

"I need to tell you something." His voice had that nervous edge to it—the one he used when I was sixteen and he had to explain why he was selling Mom's car. "I've been seeing someone."

The scrub brush froze in my hand. "Seeing someone?"

Dina's head whipped around.

"For a few months now," Dad continued. "I didn't want to say anything until I was sure, but—" He exhaled, and I heard the smile in it. "I'm sure. Her name is Vivienne. Vivienne Ashford."

The name meant nothing to me. I rinsed my hands and dried them on my jeans. "That's—Dad, that's great. I'm happy for you."

"You mean it?"

"Of course I mean it." My chest ached in the good way, the way it does when someone you love is happy. He'd been alone for so long. Too long. "When do I get to meet her?"

"Soon. I promise. She's—well, she's a little different from what you're used to."

I laughed. "Different how?"

"Just—Google her. You'll see what I mean."

I Googled her.

"Oh my God," I said, still on the phone. Dina leaned over my shoulder to look at the screen. "Dad. DAD. She has a Wikipedia page."

Vivienne Ashford, CEO of Ashford Real Estate. Net worth: $2.4 billion. Properties on six continents. Headquarters in Manhattan. A photo of her at some charity gala in a dress that probably cost more than the rescue center's entire annual budget.

I scrolled. And scrolled. And kept scrolling.

There were articles about real estate acquisitions.

Profiles in Forbes and Vanity Fair. Photos of her shaking hands with mayors, governors, people whose names I recognized from the news.

She was tall, polished, ageless in the way rich people are ageless.

Every photo showed her in tailored suits or evening gowns, always composed, always immaculate.

"Your dad is dating a billionaire," Dina hissed in my ear, too loud, bouncing on her toes. "NORA. Your dad is dating a BILLIONAIRE."

"I can hear you," Dad said through the phone. "And yes. That's—yes."

I kept scrolling. Found an article from three years ago: Vivienne Ashford's Unconventional Path to Motherhood. I clicked it. Skimmed. My stomach did a weird little flip.

Four marriages. Three ended in divorce. Vivienne adopted sons from three of her ex-husbands—boys who weren't biologically hers, boys whose fathers she'd married and then left.

The article speculated it was because she couldn't have children of her own and needed heirs to keep her extended family from contesting the Ashford estate.

I didn't know how I felt about that. Sympathy, maybe. Curiosity. A strange protective instinct for Dad that made no sense because he was the adult and I was the one who still called him when I couldn't figure out my taxes.

Then I found the photos of the sons.

Cade Ashford. 33. Dark hair, dark eyes, a jaw that could've been carved from stone. He was standing in front of some building in a suit, mid-stride, looking at the camera like he'd been interrupted and was deciding whether or not to care.

Rhett Ashford. 30. Taller—God, he looked tall even in the photo. Black hair, gray eyes, tattoo sleeves visible under rolled shirt cuffs. He was at some outdoor event, hands in his pockets, not smiling, just—there. Solid. Unreadable.

Jude Ashford. 29. The only one smiling in his photo. Hazel eyes. A grin that looked like trouble. He was at a charity poker night or something, leaning back in his chair, chips stacked in front of him, looking like he'd just won and was about to win again.

They were attractive. Obviously. Objectively. The way a marble statue is attractive—something you notice and then move on from because it's not relevant to your life.

I stared at the screen a little longer than necessary.

"She has three sons," I told Dad.

"I know. You'll meet them at the wedding."

"The wedding?"

The wedding was two days ago.

Feels like two years.

I arrived on the island the morning of the rehearsal dinner—flown in on a helicopter because apparently that's just a thing people do now. I'd never been on a helicopter. Never been on a private island. Never seen water that exact shade of turquoise or sand that white or a house that size.