Page 4 of Privilege

Chapter Three

Cara

I flush. It’s an involuntary response to the guy in the doorway holding a dry-cleaning bag. He looks like he just finished fucking someone’s mom. Like there’s a trail of naked women littering the hallway, panting and covered in sweat and cum.

Jesus Christ.

The Walking Orgasm breezes past Rich and tosses the bag on the bed beside me. He grabs my hand and pulls it to his mouth, bright green eyes staring down at me as he kisses the back of my hand. His lips linger.

“What are you doing home?” Rich snaps in an uncharacteristically nasty tone .

“Taking care of the things you can't,” he mutters. He doesn’t break eye contact with me. The pad of his thumb brushes my knuckles.

I yank my hand away and scramble backwards on the bed, but he tosses himself down beside me, rolls onto his side, and props his head up with one hand.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Cara,” he says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

He crowds me, boxes me in despite the bed being the size of Texas, the front of his slack-covered thigh brushing against mine. Those green eyes glint with… I’m not sure what. A dare? A promise? A death sentence?

I swallow and try to sit up but he looms over my body and sticks his tan, muscular forearm in my way. His crisp white linen shirt is pushed up to the elbows.

You’re going to wrinkle, I think stupidly.

We’re so close our noses are practically touching. Is it normal to feel your heartbeat in your throat? He reaches all the way across my body and grabs the hanger of the dry cleaning bag, which he slowly drags across my lap. I jump when his fingertips graze my thigh .

He smirks.

Definitely a death sentence.

I shimmy away and clear my throat. “What’s this?” I ask, holding the bag in front of me like a shield.

“A dress,” he says slowly, like I’m stupid.

“Why did you get me a dress?”

“Because I knew my brother wouldn't.”

I blink, stunned. Brother? My head snaps to the side and I glare at Rich. I knew he didn’t like talking about his family, and I never pushed. But I’d always assumed he was an only child. He’s never, ever, mentioned a brother.

“Step-brother,” Rich says coldly. “And I didn’t know Mother would be throwing a party.”

The brother quirks an eyebrow, still lounging lazily on the bed. “That’s just stupid. Clearly your education is working wonders .”

“I thought we’d have time to go to town tomorrow!” he snipes. He sounds almost petulant. I’m reeling from this entire situation and Rich looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. Or been scolded, caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Am I the cookie?

The brother sits up, puts his hands on his knees, and rises slowly off the bed. He’s staring at Rich, his face hard. I swallow and take an involuntary step back.

“The Prodigal Son has returned,” he says slowly. “This calls for celebration.” It sounds like a threat.

He strolls towards the door and pauses in the doorway, the back of his dark hair catching on the collar of his shirt.

“Welcome home,” he says without turning around. And then he’s gone.

I exhale, long and hard as I take in Rich’s ashen face and balled up fists.

“Rich, are you okay?”

He’s staring at the dry cleaning bag. “I’m fine,” he says, voice curt, and then he turns on his heel and disappears into the bathroom. The soft shhhhhh of the shower coming on makes it clear he doesn’t want to talk about it.

I've just been attacked by wolves. Or possibly tossed into a snake pit. I was expecting some tension with the parentals, maybe undue pressure to take over the family business or some kind of intense, unrealistic rich people expectations. But I wasn’t expecting a brother.

I wasn’t expecting THAT .

I squirm a little, uncomfortably aware of the delicious clench in my lower belly.

My boyfriend is a fucking smokeshow as Sasha regularly likes to remind me, with his floppy hair and chiseled jaw, broad shoulders and athletic body.

He’s the kind of guy you notice across the bar, who stands out when you pass him on the street, who you quasi-follow at the grocery store because how can someone that hot have to do normal people things like buy food?

But this guy? This walking, talking, portable human pheromone bomb? You’d never find him at the grocery store. Gods don't eat.

I wince at myself, but I eye the clothing bag anyway. Because I knew my brother wouldn’t, he’d said. How can six words say so much about a person? About their relationship?

A tiny voice inside my head has raised its hand and is whispering something along the lines of but wouldn’t it have been nice if Rich had thought to mention a dress code?

I ignore it, because it obviously slipped his mind in his stress about coming home.

But still… How did this guy know I wouldn’t have appropriate clothes unless he knows who I am?

Do him and Rich talk? If they do, why hasn’t Rich ever mentioned it ?

To shut up my death spiral of anxiety and nerves I unzip the stupid dry cleaning bag and pull out the dress.

It's beautiful. A delicate, cream-coloured summer sundress with a crocheted neck and flared skirt. I touch the material, finger the embroidered overlay, and can't help but think that this is exactly the kind of dress I’d always ogled in my mom’s shameless celebrity gossip magazines.

But that isn’t what has my mouth hanging open.

It’s the $5,000 dollar price tag, zeroes barely visible between a note scrawled in sharpie:

Make it up to me later - D

Well… shit.