Sweet Billionaire Stepbrother(14)
Of all things, trusting anyone was probably the thing I found the hardest to do. Not that I was a control freak, I’d just seen too many people physically and emotionally broken in my line of work, sometimes by the very people they were meant to trust the most.
Like my father. Injured in the line of duty, he’d suffered greatly before he died. His legs had been torn off by a hand grenade that had been planted by a terrorist in a shopping center. He’d gone through months and months of rehab, only to lose the battle to pneumonia because he’d contracted an illness that made him vulnerable while he was in hospital.
Groaning, I slumped back into the chair and closed my eyes. Let the torture begin. Why was it that women had to go through all this crap to be acceptable?
But a small part of me was excited to see what they could do with my blank canvas. I’d seen before and after pictures of famous people and it was truly amazing what could be done to enhance a person’s features.
10: Grayson
Lifting the weights above my head, I worked my muscles until I felt the burn. I groaned on a heavy exhale and slowly lowered the bar, exerting as much control as I could on my fatigued muscles. Working out always helped when I was frustrated or annoyed or simply needed time to figure things out. I preferred to take my pent up emotions out on dumbbells and punch bags.
It was one of the things Dad had taught me from an early age. Building his empire had brought enormous stress along with huge success and he swore by a fit body and an agile mind. It was a philosophy that served me well and I’d put extra effort into this session. Sweat trickled down my spine and caused a shiver to run through my body.
Ever since Layla had mentioned Seth Matthews I’d had an uneasy knot sitting in the bottom of my stomach. His older brother, Hawke, had been my nemesis throughout school and we’d always been in competition for everything. Highest grades. Girls. Captain of the team.
I hadn’t paid all that much attention to his little brother because I’d never really considered him to be a threat and now the little prick was intruding into my life in a way I didn’t appreciate. Layla was special. I didn’t want some upstart jock wooing her simply for the sake of adding another notch on his belt like his damn brother had done throughout high school and university. Bile rose to my throat as I thought of Seth laying his paws on Layla.
“What’s eating you, Grayson?” Dad asked as he emerged from the sauna wrapped in a towel, his face red and shiny. His body muscular and fit, he was my idol. Not only did I want to look as good as he did when I got to forty-nine, I wanted my mind to be as sharp too. Everything about him shouted success and power. He knew how to make things happen that other people only dreamed about. The man had it all.
Prominent. Important. Winner.
Even the greying on the sides of his dark hair suited him, made him look more distinguished.
There were very few people who dared cross Milton Forbes. He could ruin a man’s career with a phone call or catapult a fledgling business into the stratosphere just by their association with his company. Our company. The one that gave me all the privileges I could possibly want in life, including a fully kitted home gym that rivaled the best out there. It was also my future prison if my father got his way.
“Nothing. Why?” I raised an eyebrow as I peered at him. The man missed nothing.
“The way you’ve been groaning. You’ve been taking your frustration out on everything in here this morning.” he said dryly as he dropped the towel, turned the taps on and stepped into the shower. The women of the house never came down to the gym this early, so it was usually just the two of us at the crack of dawn.
“Just some stuff on my mind.” I said, avoiding his curious gaze.
“A problem shared—” He stopped talking as he soaped up his body.
I wiped the sweat from my face with a small towel and walked out of the small changing room and back into the gym to the treadmill. I gulped down half a bottle of water and set the machine to a killer pace. My footsteps thudded loudly in the silence until I plugged in my iPod to drown everything out . . . including Dad.
Twenty minutes later, Dad stepped out from the dressing room dressed in a suit pants and crisp ironed shirt, the seams pressed flat just the way he liked it. Impressed that he’d recovered so fast, after his grueling workout and sauna I noticed that he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Was the man superhuman?
I hit the stop button on the machine. My knees were shaking and I was breathing hard. I got off the treadmill and doubled over trying to catch my breath.
“Whatever it is must be big. Talk to me, son.”
Damn. I hated when he did that. Ever since my mother left, whenever he thought I was upset he’d persistently question me until I spilled my guts.
“It’s Layla. She’s going to the ball with Seth Matthews.”
Dad raised an eyebrow with a slightly puzzled look on his face. “You have a problem with that?” He knew about the strong competitiveness between Hawke and me. I guess he didn’t understand my problem with his younger brother.
“He’s a jerk. Just like his older brother.”
“Ahhh. You don’t want Layla to become his next victim?” Dad caught on fast. “I know you feel protective over both your sisters, but it’s not your call, Grayson. Layla is old enough to make her own decisions.”
He was right. And that was exactly why it bothered me. Obviously she’d have boyfriends and all that shit, but of all the guys in the universe did it have to be a f*cking Matthews? I’d heard talk about what a hard nut Layla was to crack and that every guy had her on his to-f*ck-list simply because she was truly not interested. What was it with men and their dicks? We may look different but we really haven’t evolved all that much since our caveman days. We hated when we couldn’t make a woman succumb to our charms.