Read Online Wicked Game: a Billionaire Stepbrother Romance by Bella Scully - Free Book Online Page B

in my bedroom.”  I paused at the weirdness of that.   My bedroom.  Like I actually belonged there.  A week at Blackwood Manor, and I was already going native.  Gross.  “You were going to say something, but you stopped.  You said we’d talk about it later, that it was nothing.”
    “Oh,” he said, shrugging.  “I guess I forgot.  It really must have been nothing.”
    I cut my eyes at him.  “There is no universe in which I am stupid enough to believe that.”
    “Really, wifey?  You think I would lie to you like that?”
    “I assume everything you say is a lie until proven otherwise.”
    Damien sighed and turned back to me.  “Do you always have to be so angry, Cleo?  I don’t know what I’ve done to make you hate me so much.”
    “Exist, for starters.”
    He rolled his eyes at me and sat at the edge of the couch.  My body braced itself against his presence.  Little sparks of electricity nipped at my skin where his body brushed against it.  I ached to reach out and touch him, and I hated myself for feeling that way.  
    “What are you reading?”
    “The Odyssey.  Homer.  It’s one of Dad’s old books.”
    “How can you even read these hieroglyphs?”
    “It’s Greek,” I said dryly.  “Hardly hieroglyphs.”
    “You always were smart,” he said, opening to a random page and tracing his fingertips along the print.  “I wasn’t lying in the interview, you know.  You’ve always been smart as hell.  I really did look up to you when we were kids.  Still do.”
    “You’re holding the book upside down,” I said, pulling it right side up for him.  
    “See?  Smart.”
    “Smart enough to know you’re avoiding the question about what you said earlier.”
    His mouth twitched.  I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a frown or smile.
    “I have a surprise planned for tomorrow,” he said, snapping the book shut and pushing it back into my clumsy hands.  “That’s all.  We’ll talk about it later.”
    That was definitely not all, and we both knew it.  I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms as I examined him.  Damien had turned from me, which is how I knew he was lying.  A week together, and I was already remembering all of his old tells.  Like the fact that he looked away from people when he knew they were on to one of his lies.
    “And what else?” I asked.  “Don’t lie to me, because you know I can tell.”
    “I may have a second surprise planned for right now.”
    “It better not involve running,” I grumbled, glancing at the horrendous stiletto heels sitting beside me on the couch.  Damien chuckled.
    “I think I’ll be the only one doing the running.  Unless you chase me.”
    Great.  More enigmatic clues.  I signed up to be a wife, not Scooby Doo.
    “That bad?” I asked.
    Damien licked his lips as he studied me, and I forced my eyes to stay fixed on his face.  The last thing I needed was to get distracted by his mouth again.  Or to start daydreaming about the things that mouth could do when it wasn’t lying to my face…
    Bad Cleo!  Stop it!
    “Maybe,” Damien said finally.  He strode to the corner of the room, where a black suitcase sat on the desk.  It clunked up as Damien lifted the latch and began searching it.  He pulled out a small, fat package wrapped in faded beige cloth and tied in twine.  “This is a gift.  For you.”
    “You already gave me a gift,” I said nervously, tugging at the diamond necklace.  I hated getting gifts.  It reminded me of how poor I was.  And besides, I knew that any gift Damien gave me was really an investment.  If he did something for me, it was because he wanted something in return.  And I knew whatever that something was, I wouldn’t like it.
    “Oh, calm down, Cleo,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “It’s a package, not a bomb.”
    He tossed me the package, and I dove to catch it.  It was instinctual; the thing looked old enough that it might burst into dust when it hit the floor, and I