“You think you’re a fucking expert now that you’ve been dating the same woman for a few months?” I scoff.
“The truth hurts but you can’t run from it,” he says. “It’s Zoe’s choice if she wants to take her clothes off for the cameras. If you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with her when she’s back next weekend and not on your MC brothers. Got it?”
“Yeah, got it,” I grumble. “Just, keep your mouth shut about this.”
“When you say this, are you referring to the fact that you want your stepsister?”
“Go to hell, prez!” I growl before I stomp out of the chapel, with Roman’s chuckle hanging in the air. I head straight outside to the parking lot before I commit murder. Standing next to my bike is where I finally pull out my phone and call my mom.
“Hi, honey!” she answers sweetly, like the angel she is.
“Why didn’t you tell me Zoe’s coming home next weekend?”
There’s a long, drawn-out silence before she responds. “I didn’t have any idea she was. If Martin knew, I’m sure he would’ve told me. We’re leaving Saturday for our trip to Cabo. It’s our fifteen-year anniversary!”
“So, she hasn’t called you?” I say in surprise.
“No,” she answers. “If we had known, we wouldn’t have planned our vacation for that week. How exactly did you find out before us? Have you talked to her?”
“No, and it’s a long story,” I mutter, not wanting to go into the details. “Just let me know if you hear from her, okay?”
“Sure, honey.”
After ending the call, I’m left with a million unanswered questions.
Why is Zoe coming home now after all this time? How long is she going to stay for? And the most important one of all—does she still hate me?
Chapter Five
Zoe
* * *
With my AirPods jammed in my ears, enormous black sunglasses covering my eyes, and my head resting on the window in the cramped quarters of coach seating, you would think people would get the message I want to be left the hell alone.
Men don’t, however, because they are always thinking with their dicks.
“Excuse me,” the guy sitting in the seat next to me on the plane says while simultaneously placing his hand on my bare knee since I’m wearing cotton shorts and a comfortable tee to try and stay cool in the summer heat.
I pull one of the AirPods free and glare down at his fingers that I want to break, not that he can see that, thanks to the glasses covering my eyes. “Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you, but I just had to ask…are you Zoe Donahue?”
“Nope. Never heard of her,” I say before jamming the pod back into my ear.
“Really? Because you look just like her,” he says over the sound of my music. Without removing his hand from my knee, he turns to the man sitting in the aisle seat. “Hey, man. Doesn’t she look like Zoe Donahue?”
Aisle Guy leans forward to look over at me, staring at my chest more than my face. “Oh yeah, she does. It’s not her?”
“Nope.”
“Could you please get your fucking hand off me?” I ask as nicely as I can possibly be nowadays.
“Oh, sorry,” he says as he finally pulls it away.
After ten years of enduring a rocky career that made me into a sex symbol and not much more, I’ve had it with grabby men who think they can get away with touching women however and whenever they want.
By the time I was twenty-five, I started getting the whole, “You’re too old for us,” spiel from designers, which meant posing for less tasteful opportunities. One second, I would be in a sexy dress and the next, the photographer is saying, “Lose the dress and let’s do a few more…natural poses. You’ll love them, I promise.”
I did love to eat and keep a roof over my head, so I took my clothes off a few times. Soon enough, the sexy shoots were the only ones I was getting called for. And thanks to the nature of the images, it led photographers and editors to attach “special” conditions to their offers that had to be met in order to seal the deal to land the front cover or center spread.
When it comes down to it, I’m practically a whore—earning cash for sleeping with men who agree to put my naked photos in magazines or on websites for other men to use to masturbate.
Once, when I was eighteen and naïve, I was jealous of the curvy women in Winston’s dirty magazines. Now that I am one, I hate myself.
The self-loathing is why I haven’t been to visit my dad in years and always come up with reasons I’m too busy to have him and Deb come to New York. What must he and my stepmother think of me, their only daughter, now, when probably half of their male friends have seen me naked?
And then there’s Winston—my stepbrother who was the first to prove his own theory that sex is all men want from me. He was right and I hate him for it.
I have no idea if he’s married or not by now. Maybe he even has a few kids. I refuse to ask my dad about him to find out and make up an excuse to hang up whenever he tries to mention my stepbrother. I do continue to send Winston porno mags featuring me in the mail, hoping his wife or girlfriend gives him shit for them, and hoping he still thinks about the night he fucked me. I know Winston, or at least, I used to know him. And while he probably felt guilty the entire time, he still screwed me. He took what he wanted and threw me away the next morning, like I was nothing more than one of his trashy, meaningless tourist hookups.
A few hours later, when my Uber ride pulls up in front of my teenage home and drops me off with my suitcase, I stand in the gravel driveway for several minutes, just looking up at the one-story yellow beach house on stilts that hasn’t changed much over the years.
When I was eighteen, I thought that the next time I walked through the doors, I would be a star. The truth is, I’m the furthest thing from it. Job opportunities are even more infrequent now that I’m twenty-eight, coming up on the big three-oh. It’s one of the main reasons I’m in town, for a job interview with a company in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina, just an hour north of here.
Finally, gathering up my nerve, I drag my suitcase up the winding wooden stairs to the side door that’s always unlocked. It doesn’t feel right to go on in, so I knock first before pushing the door open.
“Hello? Anyone home?” I call out.
“Who’s there? Martin, is that you? I’m almost ready!” Debra, my stepmother, yells from the hallway before she appears. Her ear-length, dark hair is much grayer than I remember, but she’s still a beautiful woman who passed on her good looks to her son. Then I notice she’s also carrying a suitcase of her own. Oh shit.
“Zoe? Is that really you?” she gasps. Dropping her rolling suitcase, she rushes over with her arms wide to wrap me in a hug. “Oh! It’s so good to see you!”
“You too,” I say as I hug her back.
“I’m afraid your dad is at the office finishing up a few things, but he should be home soon.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Well, come in and make yourself at home.” She leads me by the elbow over to the sofa. “It’s been so long. What finally brought you back home?”