The Wrong Brother's Temptation novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Connor

I should have left the moment I saw her walk past me towards that overgrown gym rat.

Should have turned around, walked out, and let her make whatever catastrophically stupid decision she was hell–bent on making tonight.

But I didn’t.

Because apparently, some masochistic part of me needed to watch Sienna Miller throw herself at the first muscle–bound idiot she could find, all to prove some ridiculous point to me.

The same Sienna who used to cry over melted ice cream, who wore those ridiculous oversized glasses that kept sliding down her nose.

She was the same freckled girl with glasses I spent most of my childhood tormenting because even at ten years old, I knew she was dangerous.

I just hadn’t known how dangerous until it was too late.

I was seven the first time I realized I was screwed.

Seven years old, and already nursing a crush that would become a lifelong obsession with a girl who looked at my half–brother like he’d hung the fucking moon.

I still remembered the day she had been crying in the schoolyard over some trivial bullshit- a broken crayon, maybe, or a scraped knee. Aaron had run over like the hero he always needed to be, and I watched from across the playground as she smiled at him through her tears.

Even then, that smile did something to me, something I was too young to name but old enough to resent.

By the time I was ten, I perfected the art of being cruel to her. Not because I hated her though I tried to convince myself I did but because cruelty was easier than admitting that every time she laughed at one of Aaron jokes, something in my chest twisted.

I hoped if she hated me and if somehow her anger could turn my crush into hate as well, watching her trail after him like a lovesick puppy wouldn’t make me want to shake her until she looked at me instead.

So I called her Speckles, I hid behind bushes and told her Aaron would find her, knowing damn well he’d forget. I made her cry, and I told myself it was because she annoyed me

But the truth was that she terrified me.

Because even as a kid, I knew she’d never look at me the way she looked at Aaron And I knew that no matter how much I wanted her to. I’d never be able to make her

When I left for boarding school at fifteen. I’d convinced myself that distance would fix it and that a few years away from her would kill whatever this was. I almost believed I’d come back and she’d just be some random girl, Aaron’s annoying friend with the glasses and freckles at most.

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9:08 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 15

But I was catastrophically, infuriatingly wrong.

Because the moment I saw her in that dining suite yesterday, chin up, eyes blazing, and looking like she wanted to stab me and kiss me in equal measure it all came roaring back.

And it was worse than before.

She wasn’t supposed to look so fucking gorgeous and innocent. She was supposed to still be the awkward kid with braces and too–big glasses who made my life difficult just by existing.

Instead, she walked in looking like a dove, and I forgot how to breathe.

And then she opened her mouth, and I remembered exactly why I spent years trying to forget her.

Because Sienna Miller was still infuriatingly, maddeningly fixated on Aaron.

I kissed her to shut her up.That was what I told myself, anyway.

I kissed her because she was standing there with a knife at my throat, and Ineeded to wipe that self–righteous anger off her face and replace it with something else.

And it had worked.

For about five seconds, she melted against me, her stupid knife clattering to the floor, her hands fisting in my shirt like she couldn’t decide whether to push me away or pull me closer.

And then shed run straight into my fucking half brother’s arms like always.

Watching her cling to him in that hallway had been worse than anything I endured in the years we’d been apart.

It was much worse than the girls I fucked, trying to find someone who would replace her. And when I got wind of her being paraded in front of alphas like some prize to be won, I hastily found myself calling for a meeting.

She looked at Aaron like he was the only person in the world, and I wanted to put my fist through a wall.

Or better yet, through Aaron’s smug face.

To him, she was just the girl who helped him with homework and made him look good in front of whatever flavor–of–the–week he was chasing.

He didn’t notice the way her voice softened when she said his name, or the way her eyes followed him acTOSI a room or maybe he did see but didn’t care that she’d spent years pining for him while be treated her like a convenient accessory.

And the worst part? She let him.

She stood there, watching Sandra lead him into a room to fuck his brains out, and she smiled like it didn’t gut her, like she hadn’t just spent the last ten minutes wrapped around me, kissing me like her life depended on it.

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9:08 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 15

She was an idiot.

A beautiful, stubborn, self–destructive idiot who couldn’t see what was right in front of her.

And I was an even bigger idiot for caring.

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