“What’s the condition?” I ask, paying more attention to how Owen is responding to me perched on the edge of the dresser, seductively rubbing my right leg up and down against my left leg.
“You and Owen are never to see each other again.”
This gets my attention. I slide off the table and face Carl.
“You’d blackmail me to stay away from your brother?”
“Half-brother,” Owen interjects.
I raise an eyebrow at him, filing that bit of good news away for later when I ravage him.
“Half or not,” Mom says. “He’s your family now. That makes him off limits.”
I’ve spent my whole life without a father only to be screwed over by my mom’s husband as an adult.
“If the idea of just doing the right thing isn’t enough to keep your clothes on, maybe the threat of losing your company will keep you in line,” Carl says. “And from what I hear, Owen, your precarious professional reputation can’t handle one more scandal.”
Owen sighs and says, “You win.”
“What?” I practically shriek. “You’re just going to cave like that?”
Owen walks over to me, stopping mere inches from me. Damn if he doesn’t have a gravitational pull—and I’m about to fall into his orbit.
“As obnoxious as he is, he has a point,” Owen says. “I can’t afford another public scandal. Not after last year’s incident in Budapest. And it sounds like you can’t afford to say no to Carl’s money.”
Fuck, he’s right. I have big plans to take my company to the next level.
Plans that need more funds than I currently have. Those plans are exactly why I went against my better judgment and asked Carl to invest.
“Okay. We’ll stay away from each other,” I say.
Both Carl and Mom visibly sigh in relief. Judging by the way both of their bodies relax at my agreement, they believe me. Owen might even believe me. He might even believe himself.
I know the truth, though. I have no intention of staying away from the gorgeous man standing mere inches from me. In just the few hours that I’ve known him, he’s stirred something in me. Something primal and alive.
Something I have every intention of exploring again the first chance I get.
And screw anyone who gets in my way.
Chapter 7
Owen
I briskly walk down the stairs and out of that bastard’s tackily decorated estate to my car parked out front. Away from the alluring woman who so expertly sucked me bone dry. My dick is protesting my decision to put distance between me and her, but I’m listening to my clearer mind while I still can.
Thankfully, my car is parked along the circular driveway, so I don’t have to go hunting for it or wait for the valets to bring it around. I kept it parked there just in case I had to leave in a hurry.
This isn’t the first time my half-brother and I have come to blows, and one of us has stormed out. Okay, it is the first time it was over one of us having a dalliance with a girl.
I slide into the driver’s seat and press the start button when, suddenly, she’s in the seat beside me.
“Were you following me this whole time?” I ask the petite blonde with the magical mouth.
“I thought that was the plan,” she says with this sexy half-smile that has my dick standing at attention.
“Do you not hear well, or are you just a rebel? We promised your parents we’d stay away from each other.”
“Not my parents—my mother and her new husband,” she says. “Big difference.”