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  “No.” I went to open the door, but he slammed the car into park and then reached over and pulled my car door shut. “I’m not going to the hospital,” I said.

  “You need to get your wrist looked at.”

  “I don’t have insurance.”

  “So?”

  “So some of us don’t have millions of dollars, Cole. Some of us can’t afford to go to the hospital.”

  “I’ll take care of the money.” The car was in reverse again, and as much as I wanted to get away from him, there was nothing I could do. My wrist was throbbing. Even if I could manage to get the door open, there was no way I was going to be able to get myself out.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked. He looked over at me and shook his head. “You shouldn’t be in a place like that, Avery.”

  “Oh, now you care about what happens to me? Fuck off, Cole, I’ve been doing fine without your advice for years, I’m pretty sure I have it under control.”

  “Obviously not, since you’re stripping.” He looked at me. “Does your mom know you’re doing that?”

  “What do you think?” I countered. My mother didn’t care what I did or where I went. She didn’t ask questions, she didn’t get involved. She lived her life in a constant haze of denial, cigarettes, and booze.

  “You’re still living at home?” Cole asked.

  “Yes, Cole,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m still living at home.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I knew he was thinking about his dad, my stepfather, Gordon. The way he would look at me, what he did when he would sneak into my room at night.

  “Motherfucker,” Cole mumbled under his breath.

  But it didn’t mean anything. If there was anything I’d learned, it was that words were just words. People made promises all the time – social workers promising they were going to get me out of my horrible situation, my ex-boyfriend Jacob promising he would protect me... none of it mattered. Words were nothing. It was action that mattered, and when it came down to it, no one had kept their promises to me.

  Cole had never promised me anything. But he’d left me. Five years ago, he’d up and moved out, packing up his things in the middle of the night and taking the bus to New York City with three of his friends. They’d created a social media messaging app, a dating app that was a cross between Facebook and Match.com. It had taken off, and now he was rich.

  I had tried to avoid hearing anything about him, but it was impossible. His picture was splashed all over the internet, his face all over the news. The media loved him because he was young and gorgeous.

  He was well-spoken and charming, giving perfect sound bites and making the women journalists swoon. I saw him once doing an interview on CNBC. We didn’t have cable, but I saw it at Jacob’s house one morning when I couldn’t sleep and was flipping through the channels. I had sat there, watching Cole on the screen saying all the right things in his beautiful designer suit. I wanted to scream at the journalist, tell her she had it wrong, that Cole wasn’t this brilliant great guy who came from nothing and made something for himself.

  There was more to him than that

  He was a complete bastard.

  He abandoned me.

  And I would hate him forever because of it.

  * * *

  C ole insisted on coming into the exam room with me, and I was too weak to protest. The nurse was a bubbly little blonde with big boobs and a gap between hr front teeth. She was practically drooling over Cole. I couldn’t blame her.

  Now that I’d calmed down a little, I was able to get my first real good look at him. He was wearing a pair of expensive-looking dark jeans that hung perfectly on his hips, a white t-shirt that looked equally expensive and hugged his broad chest and cut arms, and a black leather jacket with a soft-looking fleece lining. His hair was gelled but slightly messy, and his cheeks had just a trace of stubble. He looked like he was ready for a photo shoot.

  “The doctor will be right with you,” the nurse said. “If you could just take your sweatshirt off so he can get a look at your wrist, that would be great.”

  As soon as she left, I rolled my eyes. “You might have to fuck her, Cole,” I said. “Put her out of her misery.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  It was a lie. He knew perfectly well what I was talking about. “You can leave now,” I said. “Won’t your friends be worried about you?”

  “I texted them.”

  “And said what?”

  “That I had a family emergency.”

  I almost laughed out loud. Our whole life was a family emergency, a constant state of crisis that Cole had walked away from. And now he was worried about my stupid wrist, which honestly was the least of my problems.

  “I’ll help you get this off.” He reached up and unzipped my sweatshirt. He was close enough now that I could see the scar on his jaw, hidden beneath his stubble.

  My heart raced as I remembered how he got it. I reached out and touched it before I could stop myself. He grabbed my hand, pulled it away from his face.

  “Don’t,” he growled.

  It was the only thing that reminded me that he was part of our family, that he’d been there with me, that he’d lived through it. Now that he had fancy clothes and a fancy car and a fancy job he seemed so far away, almost like he’d never existed.

  He kept my hand in his, even though he’d told me not to touch him. Electricity crackled between us. He was just so goddamn beautiful. The kind of beautiful that would break your heart fifty million different ways. And he’d done it to me, over and over and over again.

  The doctor came in then, and Cole dropped my hand.

  “Avery,” he said, holding his hand out. “I’m Doctor Phillippi. I hear you may have broken your wrist?”

  “Yes,” I said, showing him. “I fell while I was, um… dancing.”

  The doctor looked at it. “It looks like maybe it’s just a sprain. But we’ll have to take some x-rays to make sure.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Um, is it…how much does it cost?”

  “It’s fine,” Cole said. “It doesn’t matter. Do the x-rays.”

  The doctor nodded and left.

  “I don’t like him,” Cole declared. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

  “The way he was looking at me?” I repeated, frowning. “He wasn’t looking at me any way.”

  “Yeah, he was. He was checking out your tits like he couldn’t wait to cop a feel.”

  “Cole, that’s ridiculous. Besides, it’s hard not to notice them. I’m wearing a bikini top.” I hunched down, trying to make my boobs a little less conspicuous. But it was impossible. I was a D cup, and I was wearing a white bikini that was designed to show off as much cleavage as possible.

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “I know.” His eyes raked up my body, lingering over my breasts. And not in the way of a brother wanting his sister to cover up because he felt protective, either. It was the way a man looked at a woman’s body when he found her attractive, when he was getting turned on. That’s the way Cole was looking at me.

  He was my stepbrother.

  I knew it was wrong for him to be looking at me that way.

  But I liked it.

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