Tarnished Love by Bianca Borell

 

 

FILIP

 

In the VIP room, Nico dry humps a girl, while Micah and I shake our heads. This was supposed to be a guy’s night out, only the three of us. But here we are, a few drinks later, and I’ve never seen anyone so desperate for pussy. He’s been with Angelina for years, but he behaves as if he doesn’t get any.

I signal to the server. I need more drinks. This lifestyle gets boring. I’ve already done what most people don’t experience in an entire lifetime, what can I say? I am bored. Damien appears with a model on his left arm, followed by Chloe.

“Is that?” Micha’s jaw drops.

“Of course, it’s a damn supermodel.” The first time it was a shock. Now it’s the weekend and the fuck, sorry, flavor of Friday.

She babbles her name, but I ignore her and down a shot. Her lips pout, and even Damien’s nose scrunches.

Yes, no one is my sister’s equal.

Damien takes a seat and peruses his phone while his company dry humps his leg to emphasize her attempts to win his attention. They never learn. At the beginning, I was sure they would curse his name and never talk to him again. But he has fucked every one of the five, and they still return.

“How does he do it? Does he have a magic dick or something?” A good question. Must be the challenge. Unlucky for them, it’s not really a challenge. My sister burned him to his core. This guy will never allow a woman to even scrape at the remnants of his decimated heart. I lift my gaze and follow Chloe as she approaches me.

She leans in, her cleavage peeking at me, and she jerks my chin up with her forefinger, pointing at her eyes, and I chuckle. What is it about her? She grabs my glass and downs it.

“Why only a taste? I can offer you the real deal.”

“Who said I want anything from you?” Since I met her, she has done nothing but provoke me. I will snap, again, soon, and my gut tells me she’ll enjoy it. I grip her waist and prop her on my lap, and her mouth parts in surprise and whisper.

“One of these days, Chloe.”

“What will happen?”

“You know what will happen. So, in case you don’t want it, you better stop provoking me.” She bites my earlobe, my cock jerks under her, and she chuckles.

“Someone is eager.”

“Someone will get fucked.”

“I wonder if you’re any good.” This woman. I lean in, whispering, while she gulps.

“You can test it for yourself, honey, anytime.”

“I’ll pass,” she counters and shoots up. I can’t keep up with her mood swings. Chloe takes the seat next to Damien, and he lifts his head from his phone and the model at his side snarls.

“Who is that?” Micah asks.

“Damien’s.”

“What the fuck, man, does he have a harem?” Something unpleasant settles heavy in my chest. No, it can’t fucking be jealousy. I curl my finger at both a brunette and redhead. I don’t care, I let them decide who wants to come to me first. It’s the brunette. Fine by me. Heat pokes at my neck, and when I turn my head, Chloe’s eyes burn me. The intensity shoots adrenaline through my veins. Yes, she’s dangerous, because the way she makes me respond is addictive.

Turning away, I drag the brunette with me to the private bathroom and throw my head back when she drops to her knees and sucks me off. When she’s done, I owe her an orgasm. I push her to the wall, rip a condom open, roll it on, and slip inside her. When her pussy squeezes me and her palms slap on the wall as she comes, my job here is done.

“Will I see you again?”

“Probably not.” When we return, Chloe side-eyes me, and I smirk. I usually take my hookups home, but tonight, seeing Chloe with Damien messed with my head. Nico winks at me, and Micah hides his amusement.

I fill a glass and down it.

“If you continue like this, you’ll catch up with Damien.” Nico pats me on my back. He’s right. Over the last seven years, I’ve lost count.

I lean back on the couch and let my gaze trail over bodies humping, losing themselves to the music and alcohol. I peer at Damien, his eyes and fingers on his phone, and then slide my gaze to Chloe. My lips part into a broken smile. Her eyes don’t reflect disgust. It’s as if with our unique connection she sees me, the real me, and deems it not worthy of her attention.

 

***

 

I am in the middle of reviewing various presentations for the new campaign when my office phone rings.

“Mr. du Sky wants to see you.” I grit my teeth.

“I’ll be right there.” Why would Damien leave his ivory tower to talk to me when he can simply summon me with a phone call like all his other minions?

Five minutes later when I arrive at his office, Luisa chimes, “You can go in.” No shit, I want to say, but instead I smile. Always the charmer.

Stepping into his office, Monica is halfway bent over his desk as they go over some papers. My cousin is smitten with him. Is he blind or just ignoring her?

“Damien, Monica.” Their heads snap up at my voice, and she grabs the papers off the desk.

“I’ll come back later. Hi, Filip.” Her saccharine voice grates on my nerves. There’s something about her I can’t figure out. When we are alone, he points to a chair.

“You wanted to see me.”

“What was that yesterday?”

I ball my fists at my side.

“What I do in my free time is nothing of your concern.”

“It is if it involves Chloe.” That twinge of jealousy shoots through my system.

“Is she one of your toys too?” His jaw sets, and his steely eyes that make grown men piss in their pants find me. I have known him all my life, seen him at his weakest point. He may be strong, he might be a shark in the business world, and I might listen to him when it comes to our family empire, but with my personal life, he can go fuck himself. He has nothing over me. If I want Chloe, I will have her. He’s lucky I don’t want her.

“Stay away from her.”

I jerk my chin and challenge him.

“Or what?”

“I care about her.”

“Afraid she’ll cheat on you too?” His lips twitch into a deprecating smile, his forefingers glued together over his lips.

“Why do you hate me, Filip?”

“I hate you both.”

“Sorry for having loved your sister.”

“Sorry that my sister ruined you.”

Silence descends as we calm down.

“This is not a pissing contest. I care about her. Don’t hurt her to spite me, Filip.”

“Why not be with her then since everyone thinks you are?”

“Is the campaign done?” he asks, completely changing the subject. Typical maneuver on his part.

“By tomorrow it will be.”

“Good. Leave now.” He’s such an arrogant bastard. Back in my office, I’m sitting at my desk when my mom calls, and my heart rate spikes. Will I ever get over the fact that I associate my mother calling me with my sister breaking down in a hospital bed? Probably not.

“Mom?”

“Hi, sweetie. Filip, stop worrying.” She should take her own advice.

“How is she?”

“The same.”

“Are you coming home for the weekend?”

“I left because I had to.”

“Filip, don’t punish her. She—”

“She doesn’t even care.”

“One day she will, and she will be sorry, but again it’s not her fault she has this detachment.” The way she pronounces the word it’s as if she doesn’t want to acknowledge it. All they care about is that she’s alive. The fact that her mind has numbed her emotions, and she doesn’t want help doesn’t unsettle them as long as she stays.

“I’ll come home for the weekend.”

 

***

 

I peer outside my dad’s home office window, following the buzz of the catering staff.

“I might believe London has something Zürich doesn’t.” It’s in these moments, when Bria appears almost caring that both hurt and elation battle in my chest. Will I ever get my sister back? I tilt my head to her, her head up from her phone, always working.

“Where is Alexander?”

“On the phone.” Yes, never leaving her more than a few minutes.

“Sis, I’ve seen the yearly report, and we should celebrate. The company hit a new earning record. Congratulations.”

“We’re an excellent team, the four of us.”

I want to say just imagine what we could accomplish if we weren’t stunted, but I step away, gulp some wine, and keep my mouth closed. Yes, since she returned, we’ve celebrated their success, but will we ever celebrate them making peace?

I find Sophia outside at the wall of roses.

“These two know how to throw a party.” Sophia smiles from her glass as I take in the garden decorated for the party.

“To another awkward session between my sister and your brother.”

“It’s getting old.”

“At least they’re honest, everyone still thinks you’re into girls,” I tease.

“Shut up, you know better.”

“Yes, you’re just into dangerous guys.”

“Filip,” she hisses, and I zip my lips as Damien’s engine rumbles up the drive. Who did he bring this time? When she climbs out, all I see are legs for miles, and I gnash my teeth.

“It’s always worse when he brings her.” I nod because I might spit fire instead of words. They approach us, and I seek out my sister, craving that nanosecond of a reaction, because it gives me hope she’s still in there. But it’s pain she feels, and I am once again torn between too many contradictory feelings.

“Excuse me,” I semi snarl and storm toward the bench overlooking the lake.

“Filip.”

Her voice has always remained the same which makes me wonder how it is possible, when everything inside her has altered.

“Yes, Bria.”

“May I?” She never used to be like this. She’s a stranger with whom I share blood and a family name, the most personal type of strangers there is.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say you’re running from something too.”

She half smiles, broken as her entire being.

“When will it end?”

Her hollow hazel eyes land on mine, confessing so much, telling nothing at all.

We stare across the water and she says, “I never expected life to turn like this.”

“No one did, sis.”

“He hates me the most.”

“You ruined him.”

“Not only him.”

“Tell him that too.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I take his hate as a reminder of his love. If he knew the truth, he would stop trying.”

“Does it work?”

Her silence is my answer, and I will have to push him further so he will push her in turn. I already lost my sister, but if he can bring her back, whatever the new her will be I’ll take it.

“Here you are,” a deep voice says as someone approaches from behind us. Alexander. This guy irritates me. It’s as if an alarm chimes when she’s gone for more than two minutes, and he goes in search of her.

“Alex, let’s go home.”

“Bye, sis.”

“Bye, Filip.”

I watch them leave while Damien’s jaw clenches. It won’t resolve anything if he doesn’t confront her.

Glass clinking shakes me from my thoughts, and my gaze follows from the slit in her skirt up to her eyes.

“Chloe.”

“Misery goes best with gin.”

“I’m more of a whiskey fan.”

“But since I am offering, gin it is.” I smile at how easily she makes me forget everything.

“Shouldn’t you be with Damien?”

“Bria left.”

“I warned you, Chloe.”

“I can leave.”

The thought paralyses me, and I grab her waist and drag her closer to me.

“Stay.”

She sits next to me and pours two glasses.

“You can hold your drink.”

She giggles as I scan the half empty bottle.

“Has anyone told you it’s not nice to drink alone?” Soph questions when she walks up behind us and then takes the drink from my hand and gulps it down.

“We know why we’re drinking, do you?”

“To pretending everything is fine.” When we finish the bottle, Damien appears, scanning us.

“Are you drunk?”

“Come on, Damien, we’re having fun,” I offer, and he balls his hands at his sides. “We learned how to hide our secrets.”

“No one will ever find out about the bullshit I have done, because I did it alone, in private. You want to get shitfaced, go somewhere else. Because of who you are, you only have the privilege of breaking down when no one is around to see it. If you want to fucking believe you are just some regular twenty something, forget it, you are not.” He storms away after he mentally kicked us.

“He’s angry.”

“Damien’s angry at my sister.”

“I’m heading back to Genoa,” Soph says, then disappears, and I stumble to my feet. Chloe links her hand through my elbow, and together we somehow make it back to the house and to my quarters. I stare at her, she at me. I swing the door open and she enters. I gulp when she turns around. Her eyes liquefy my insides with lust. I yank her to me, and she drops to my chest.

“We shouldn’t.”

“The door is still open.” She shudders in my arms. Why does she feel different? And why can’t I get the answer?

“Chloe, make a decision to stay or go, knowing, if you stay, we will fuck.”

I shut the door behind me with the kick of my leg and smirk when her eyes widen.

“Afraid?”

She shakes her head, determination to prove something shines in her eyes. What can be proven other than the fact I have never wanted someone as much as I want her? I cup her face and slam my lips on hers. Honey, she tastes like honey and has bee-stung lips too. She moans in my mouth, and my tongue parts her lips as her body goes pliant in my arms. What is this woman doing to me? I undo her dress and slide it down her body peppering her skin with kisses. As I kneel in front of her, I lean back and take her in.

Her eyes filled with desire undo me, the way she challenges me with her shoulders held high. When I grab her ass with my hands, she buckles. My nose hits her pussy, and her hands fly to clasp my shoulders.

I push the material aside and trace the lines of her lips. It’s beautiful, rosy, puffy, and wet when I slide in one finger. The need to taste her overrides any rational thought, and I dive right in. Her head falls back and moans echo around us. I could get drunk on her moans rather than on any type of alcohol.

“I can’t believe this . . . I am coming.”

She is fucking coming. Her cries of pleasure vibrate from my tongue straight to my cock. When she stops bucking, I push her onto the bed. My eyes find hers, and what I see in their depths hits my chest so hard, it contracts.

I snatch my eyes away from hers and rip a condom package with my teeth. She wraps her hands around my neck, imprisoning me—literally and figuratively.

I trail kisses from her pulsing neck to her small, pointed nipples down to her belly.

“Filip, fuck me already.”

I chuckle over her skin and slam inside her. I shut my eyes at the pleasure rocking me, and I do as she asks. I fuck her as if at the end of it I will be granted the keys to paradise.

“It can’t be,” she moans and clamps around my cock, and I come, shuddering at how she milks me. I collapse next to her on the bed, both panting. We tilt our heads to the other and her perfectly arched eyebrows draw together as if I am something she can’t decipher.

“I have never come this quickly, or twice in a row,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“I can come on my own, it’s just I never had an orgasm with a man.”

“That’s sad.”

“Filip, shut up, don’t ruin the mood with all these endorphins making me high.” She slaps my chest, and I lock my hands over my head.

“We fucked.”

“Come now, don’t make it awkward.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“And now you’ve done it.”

She hops off the bed and puts her dress on, while I lean on the headboard and study her. She looks even better freshly fucked by me. I press my fingers to my eyes, trying to erase the image of her, or what we just did, how good it felt.

“Bye.” I chuckle as she waves at me.

“Now, no reason to be shy.” She pierces me with her eyes.

“You wish.”

I love her fire, her confidence. It’s usually me who walks out after sex. This is the first time a woman left me, still naked in bed but satisfied.

When the door closes behind her, Sophia’s words hit me, and I grunt, slamming my head against the headboard.

I should stay away. I don’t need more complications. And she is the epitome of complicated.