Forbidden Three Read online

“Yes,” I say, and I can’t help the blush that creeps up my cheeks. “You didn’t know? I’ve been crushing on you since the day you hired me. When I got the invite, Holden, I hoped that you’d sent it. I saw you had one, too, or I’d never have come.”

  “You don’t need to explain that part to me,” he says, and he clenches his teeth together. “I understand why you’re here and how.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” I say. But I can’t look back on being with him with unhappiness. “I know this will complicate things.”

  “Yes, it will,” he says and sighs. “I don’t want you to leave the house, Danielle. I think you’re a fantastic nanny. Jessie’s gotten used to having you around, but I don’t see how we can continue what we’ve done here back in New York. It just wouldn’t work. It would upset my daughter.”

  I have to agree with him there. Jessie’s only just gotten used to going to see her mother on weekends. She’s easing into the life of having two parental groups instead of one. This would throw her off for sure.

  “I’m not selfish. I totally understand that,” I say.

  I’m not selfish? Ha, I’m the one who took the risk to come here. But I’ve been driven wild by desire for way too long. It built up, and I acted crazy.

  “But that might not always be the case.” He strokes my knuckles with his thumb. “One day, Jessie might be ready to have another family member to be introduced to our unit. I can’t, however, expect you to wait that long for me to be ready.”

  I gulp. “So, what are you saying?”

  “That’s just the thing, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He kisses my knuckles, then turns my hand over and does the same with the palm. “I don’t know about any of this, and that’s what fucking gets me. You know how I am.”

  He always knows everything. He’s a billionaire. He makes quick decisions and business deals under huge pressure.

  “I only know one thing,” he says.

  “And what’s that?” My breath catches. Tell me you love me. Say you want me to yourself. Say you’ll be mine.

  “That while I can’t expect you to wait, I won’t be comfortable with you fucking my brother. Ever.”

  Oh, god. My stomach sinks because of that. It actually sinks. Joey is… complicated.

  “What does it matter what I do with him?” It’s a dumbass question, but I don’t stop it from slipping free of my lips.

  “It matters to me,” he says, and his upper lip twitches, then curls back. “My brother should’ve been off-limits from the start.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I know you didn’t know.”

  There were no pictures of them together in the house. In the month I’d been there, Joey had never visited, and the brief conversations we’d had had revolved around Jessie and making sure that she had what Holden had never been privy to—a mother and a father, a real happy family, even if it was split in two.

  “But you do know now,” he says. “Let me explain something about him to you, Danielle. He’s not the same type of man I am. He’s—not into women the way you think.”

  “He’s gay?”

  “No,” Holden replies, with a shake of his head and a tight smile. “I fucking wish he was because then he’d never gone anywhere near you. Then again, he might’ve anyway just to spite me. We’ve always had a… healthy sense of competition.”

  I understand that. I have five sisters, after all, but I’ve never fucked one of their exes or potential boyfriends.

  “We’re fighters, and sometimes we fight each other,” Holden continues. “We’re opposites. I’m the family man. He’s the free spirit. If fucking a different woman each night means free.”

  My stomach twists around an invisible blade. “OK,” I say, because how the fuck else should I respond to that? I can’t judge him for it. I’m a firm believer in respecting others’ choices, but it still eats at me.

  He was so genuine in the shower with me. Would he turn around and fuck someone else?

  Oh, my god, who the hell am I to talk? I fucked both of them this afternoon.

  “He’s only into sex and nothing else,” Holden says. “He’ll never give you what you want, emotionally. I can give you what you want. I can fight for you. I can fuck you. I can be your man. Just not now.”

  Not now.

  Ugh, that blade twists again, equally as deep and as hard.

  “Not now,” I say.

  “But someday.” Holden’s gaze holds too much hope. He wants me to tell him that I’ll wait as long as it takes for him to be ready. And a part of me wants to. He’s so perfect.

  Joey’s face, his sincerity, our conversation today and the one on the beach after he gave me the shirt off his back, it all floats to the surface in my mind.

  I can’t make any promises I won’t keep.

  Telling Holden how I feel about him won’t make a difference either. He has to put his daughter and his family first, and I will always respect that about him. I don’t want Jessie hurt either.

  Holden drags me closer and presses his lips to mine.

  The kiss is sweet, soft, and it melts me through and through, brushes doubts across the surface of whatever meager certainty I’d gathered during our conversation.

  We part, and Holden brushes his nose against mine. “I admire everything about you. Especially the way you are with my daughter.”

  The words are there, unspoken. This afternoon was a mistake.

  I release the question I’ve been holding back since he entered my bedroom. “So, what happens now?”

  Chapter 18

  Holden

  “What happens?” I release her hand at last. It takes actual effort to do it. “I never have and I never will be a second option, particularly not when my brother is the first. You’ll have to choose between us.”

  “I—You just said I shouldn’t wait for you,” she replies, still holding the sheet to her chest though I’ve already seen what’s underneath. The outlines of her nipples poke at the cotton. “And you said I can’t be with your brother. So, that’s not much of a choice, is it?”

  “Exactly,” I say, and my tone is gruff again.

  “Then the choice will be you or just… leaving?”

  That’s exactly the opposite of what I want. It makes me heavy inside, drags my arms and legs down. Losing her will eat at me, but we can’t go on this way.

  “Take your time making the decision, Danielle,” I say. “I don’t want you to regret it.”

  “This isn’t fair.” Her eyes flame, and she folds her arms across her chest. The sheet slips a little, revealing more of that tan cleavage. I look away. “I’m the one who has to make the decision for all three of us?”

  “Well, I think you’ll find Joey and I are both biased toward one particular decision.” I slip off the edge of the bed and brush off my shirt. “Think about it.” I lean over and kiss her on the forehead, inhale her scent. Today it’s patchouli and something fruity. I walk for the door and head out across the living room, past the fucking sofa.

  The sofa where I finally filled Danielle, and the one where my brother did, too.

  This is a nightmare. It’s my worst nightmare for many reasons.

  For as long as I can remember, my brother and I have been in competition. Equally. We’ve been the only two there for each other. Inseparable. We fought against and with each other.

  It’s the reason we started the business together. It’s the reason he’s our “enforcer” and I’m the one with the home base in New York. The more we see of each other, the more we clash.

  There’s a fine line to walk here, and Danielle has totally corroded it.

  Not that it’s her fault.

  No, this is Joey’s dumbass fault.

  Trust him to try take my life into his hands. He’s always had the bullshit opinion that his carefree lifestyle, fucking chicks, partying, waking up with a hangover six days out of seven, is better than mine.

  In a way, this is sabotage.

  I open the front door and
trudge out across the sand. There’s hardly any light tonight except for the lamps along the boardwalk that leads up to the main buildings, and a few solitary torches out on the sand, their flames guttering in the wind.

  This is not the usual atmosphere. It’s not mellow or sexual. It’s tense.

  The world holds its breath.

  I shake my head at the stupidity—the world doesn’t give a fuck about our problems—and move down Danielle’s short path and out onto the beach. My villa isn’t far, but I need time alone tonight.

  The sun will likely rise soon. Already the sky’s color lightens in increments. My skin prickles, and I stop walking, frown, look around.

  A figure leans against a palm tree nearby, shrouded in darkness.

  “What?” I shrug at him. It’s obviously Joey. Who else would lurk under a tree outside Danielle’s place? “You got something to say to me?”

  “I heard what you said about me,” Joey replies, a little too loudly. His voice carries across the sand, and a gust of wind whips some of the fine powder across the beach. It stings the backs of my ankles.

  “From there?” I ask. “What do you think you heard?”

  “Not from here, cunt.” Joey pushes off from the tree and strides over.

  I draw myself up and glare at him. The closer he gets, the clearer the anger on his face becomes. His lips curl back in a rictus, every line is pronounced, contorted.

  “Oh, yeah? Then from where? You lurking outside Danielle’s window, waiting for scraps?”

  He growls low. “Doesn’t matter where I was standing. I heard what you said to Dani.”

  I hate it that he calls her that. It’s like he’s trivializing who she is. It’s a reminder that he doesn’t know her as well as I do, and that he shouldn’t. That he never will. “And what was that?”

  “That I’m only in it for the sex.”

  I snort. “So? That’s exactly true.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s different with her,” Joey says. “It’s more than sex. And I don’t appreciate you implying otherwise.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you don’t appreciate, Joseph,” I reply. “Now, get the fuck out of my way.”

  “Or what?” He cocks his head to one side. He’s a mirror image of me in some ways, in others, completely different. “You know I’m the fighter between the two of us. I’ll fucking kill you, Holden. I’ll destroy you. You stay away from her.”

  I laugh in his face.

  “That’s funny to you?” he asks.

  “It’s fucking hilarious.”

  Gray light spreads among the trees. Joey’s muscles are taut. He flexes them then slaps one of his cheeks. “Let’s see how funny you find this.” He swings up his other fist and pounds me in the stomach.

  I grunt a breath but don’t back down. Never back down.

  Adrenaline streaks through me. My muscles are steel, corded, pumped up. I charge at him, a wordless roar tearing from my throat, collide with him and tackle him onto the sand.

  “Motherfucker,” I growl. I’m on top of him, but we’re equally matched. Same height, same strength, same size knuckles.

  I punch down at his face, and he punches up at mine.

  We crack each other, and my head snaps back. Stars sparkle in front of my eyes, but I blink them away, sway, regain my hold on the slippery fuck.

  “Gerrof,” Joey roars and aims punches at my abdomen.

  I grab him by the throat, pin him in the sand, the veins on the back of my hand protruding.

  I’m zoomed in on him. Totally focused.

  “Stop it! Stop!” Danielle’s voice splits the fight in two. Her arms latch onto my neck, and she tugs. “Get off him. You’re hurting him.”

  “He deserves it.”

  “Fuck you,” Joey snaps, spit frothing from him lips. “You’d better fucking kill me, because if you don’t—” He thuds another punch into my stomach, and I wheeze. A trail of blood trickles from his nose.

  Hopefully I fucking broke it for him.

  “Holden, get off.”

  I shrug off Danielle’s arms and raise another fist.

  “Hey!” A male’s voice snaps through the sand, but I don’t stop. I aim a punch at Joey’s jaw.

  He tugs away, and it impacts the sand instead.

  Joey wraps his legs around my waist and flips us over. My back hits the sand, and the wind rushes from my lungs. I tighten my grip on his throat and he chokes, reddens.

  “Fuck-in—” He can’t get the words out properly.

  “Stop!” Another scream from Danielle.

  Thick arms wrap around Joey’s waist and his pressure is lifted, my hand is ripped free of his throat. A strong-armed motherfucker in a black T-shirt appears over me and yanks me to my feet. He twists my arm behind my back, and I cast a glance in his direction.

  “You’d better let me go,” I say, calmly.

  “Strict orders from the top, sir,” the guy says, just as serenely. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of tinted sunglasses. “You’re disturbing the peace. You signed a disclaimer at the beginning of your time with Mystique Island. You have one warning only before you’re asked to leave forever. Consider this your warning. The same goes for your brother over there.”

  Joey isn’t struggling. He stands beside his bouncer, dabbing at the blood beneath his nose, a shit-eating grin distorting his lips. He doesn’t look at me, just stares with a look of mania into the sky.

  I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one that’s almost seen him dead. It’s the one that scared me enough to pull us both out of the “family” before it was too late.

  Danielle hovers in the space between us, looking first at me, then at him and back again. She’s clothed in her robe again, and her cheeks are pale. We’ve upset her. This whole weekend has fucked with her head, and it’s all Joey’s fault.

  “It’s time for you to return to your villa, sir,” the bouncer says and clamps a hand down on my forearm.

  I shake him off. “I can walk on my own.”

  “As you wish.”

  I walk off across the sand but pause a few feet from Danielle. Joey stiffens, switching his maniacal gaze from the clouds to us.

  “All of this,” I say, watching her closely, taking in the line of her nose, the smooth slopes of her cheekbones. “All of this is because of you, Danielle. Because I love you.”

  She gasps but doesn’t reply.

  It’s the first time I’ve told her the truth.

  It’s been hiding out of sight for the past three weeks. I love her. I love everything about her. It’s too late to turn back now.

  Chapter 19

  Danielle

  He loves me.

  Holden loves me.

  What the hell am I supposed to do with that information?

  I pace back and forth in the kitchen—being in the living room brings back way too many memories—the gentle hum of the chromed-out refrigerator providing a backdrop to the mental noise pollution.

  There’s so much going on in my head I can’t latch on to a solid thought and run with it.

  Joey’s genuine intrigue. His hot desire for me. Claiming me.

  Holden cold but in love. Commanding me. Making me choose.

  I don’t want to have to make this decision, and it’s hardly a conventional one. It’s not like I can call up Dr. Phil and ask him how to choose between twin brothers. He’s probably heard worse, to be honest. Or maybe exactly the same, and that’s what’s truly disconcerting.

  Regardless, I need someone to talk to.

  “What would you do, Momma?” I lean against the granite countertops in the kitchen. I look up at the ceiling and count the downlights spotted within it. “What would you do if you were in this messed-up situation?”

  Of all the people I’d love to talk to about this, she’s the first. My mother wouldn’t judge me.

  I pick through my sisters, the ones who’ll be in awe, the ones who’ll gasp in shock and likely gossip about it, and land on the one sister, the only one, who
’s likely not to judge because she was a wild child in her youth.

  Evaline.

  We don’t speak much.

  After Momma’s passing, we lost touch. She’s the oldest, there’s the distance between New York and Ontario, and… well, those are excuses. Evaline was always a loner and a bit of a bitch.

  But she’s my bitch.

  She’s the sister who helped me sneak in drunk, where the others would’ve promptly outed me to Dad. In fact, Evaline is the one who took me to my first club at twenty-one. She gave me advice on when to dump my ex-boyfriend and encouraged me to leave my hometown years ago.

  Can I really speak to her about this?

  She’s probably asleep right now, but I can’t wait.

  It’s talk to her or chase my own tail for the next however many hours until Joey and Holden come back and demand an answer once and for all.

  I won’t work this through on my own. It’s too complicated.

  “Just do it.”

  I fetch my cell from the bedroom, then bring it back to the kitchen where a phone is attached to the wall. There’s a list of emergency numbers beside it and a little booklet of information provided by Mystique.

  I rifle through it and nod—calls to cellphones are permitted—then unlock the screen of my cell and swipe through to my contacts and find Eva’s number. I lift the receiver off the wall and dial the number.

  The phone’s wireless, thank god. I’ll have the opportunity to stride around the inside of this villa while we talk this through.

  I press the phone to my ear and listen to the ringing.

  One, two, three rings.

  “Come on, pick up. Please, Eva.”

  Finally, a click. “Hello?” my sister croaks. “Who the fuck are you, and do you want to die tonight?”

  “Eva, it’s me,” I say, butterflies thwacking into the sides of my belly.

  “Wait, what?” She draws the last one out. Shuffling ensues on the other end of the line, followed by the click of a lamp. “Is that you, Dani?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry for calling you so late. And, uh, for not calling you for months.”

  “OK.” She yawns. “What’s eating your ass?”

  “Huh?”