Saint (A Nolan Bastards Novel) Read online

  Saint

  A Nolan Bastards Novel

  Amy Olle

  SAINT

  Copyright © 2019 by Amy Olle

  Editing: Hot Tree Editing

  Cover Design: Michele Catalano Creative

  Cover Photography: Wander Aguiar

  Cover Model: Andrew Biernat

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  HER WICKED STEPBROTHER

  Don’t miss the beginning of the story!

  My stepbrother hates me.

  That’s fine, because I hate him too.

  I hate his crooked smile and the way he looks at me, like he’s a sugar addict and I’m the last cupcake on earth. I hate that he makes me feel like I’m more than that lost little girl whose mom didn’t want her, then leaves and doesn’t come home again for days.

  And I really, really hate that he flirts with other girls.

  A lot of other girls.

  But it’s fine. Really, it is. Soon, he’ll be leaving to attend university on the other side of the world, and I’ll only have to see him on holidays and at the rare family get-together. It’ll all be just fine.

  As long as I don’t fall in love with him.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Also by Amy Olle

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  They say time heals all wounds, but what the hell do they know?

  Twelve years was a long time. A long time for Brynn Hathaway’s heart to heal.

  But it hadn’t.

  The old wound throbbed. The pain was relentless.

  Time hadn’t healed Brynn’s hurts but had merely allowed space for the pain to expand and rot.

  They’d know that if they’d ever fallen in love with somebody incapable of loving them back.

  Or if they’d been a source of misery for everyone they cared about in the world.

  Or if they’d been so stupid as to sleep with their stepbrother, a known manwhore and womanizer, only to watch the whole scandalous affair blow up in their face.

  And they’d be painfully, horrifyingly, aware of that fact if they’d ever sat at the dinner table in their parents’ home, smack in the middle of making a sales pitch to the one client they couldn’t afford to lose, with their (sort of) boyfriend sitting beside them, when that same stepbrother showed up unannounced for the first time in years.

  Midsentence, Brynn’s words trailed off, and she stared open-mouthed at the man suddenly filling the doorway. Through the windows behind him, the fiery glow of the setting sun torched the late summer sky.

  The fire reached his eyes. Gold and amber embers blazed in his dark irises. Dark eyes that’d once been the center of her world.

  Dark eyes now locked on her and brimming with hatred.

  The wound in her chest gave an agonizing wrench, and with it, a gasp slipped between her lips.

  “Aiden?” Brynn’s stepmother, Siobhan, sounded as shocked and dazed as Brynn felt. “What are you doing here?”

  Twelve years.

  Twelve years since her dad had caught Aiden in Brynn’s bed and thrown him out of the house.

  Out of the family.

  Twelve years since she’d been in the same room with him longer than mere minutes.

  Twelve years, and then suddenly, he was here.

  Her memory hadn’t sufficiently held onto the details of his appearance. Like layers of dross buffed from silver, his features appeared brighter, sharper than she remembered. His dark hair and intense eyes more vibrant.

  He was leaner and taller.

  Harder and darker.

  She gulped.

  A lot darker.

  Her heart thrashed, and with every wild beat, shock pumped into her.

  “This is my oldest son, Aiden,” Siobhan explained to Brynn’s potential client, Mrs. Everly. “He’s been… traveling and hasn’t been home for… for a very long time.”

  Aiden didn’t blink or appear even to breathe while he stared daggers at Brynn.

  With every aching second that passed, those eyes, that look, jabbed and pecked, puncturing her composure.

  A ripple of nervous unease curled through the room.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Siobhan’s voice sounded unusually buoyant. “We have so much to talk about.”

  “No.” Aiden dragged his gaze away from Brynn to glance around the table. “I’ll come back.”

  “We’re almost done here.” Brynn’s dad, Alan, studied Aiden with an intense frown. He’d been so distracted and erratic of late that Brynn might’ve been relieved to see the return of his sharp focus if it weren’t fixated on Aiden. He pointed to the empty chair. “Sit.”

  Fury swept across Aiden’s striking face. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  He turned to leave, but just then, a chair leg scraped across the wood floor, and their half-sister, Brie, sprang up from her seat.

  Aiden glanced back over his shoulder.

  Brie shifted her body as if to hide her slight frame behind the chair’s high back, but at twelve years old, she no longer disappeared behind the velvet-upholstered wingback. Uncertainty crowded her small features.

  Aiden tipped his head and caught her shy gaze. His dark eyes gleamed like burnished jewels.

  A heartbeat of hesitation passed, then Brie’s smile erupted, and she bounded across the room. When her little body crashed into his, a morsel of laughter knocked from him.

  Pain knifed Brynn.

  The twelve-year-old pain.

  The same pain they said should have healed by now.

  In twelve years, this was only the fourth time she’d laid eyes on him. The first time was at Christmas three years after he left. Neither had spoken, but they’d shared a long, heated look that had fried every brain cell Brynn still possessed in his presence before he’d stalked out.

  She didn’t see him again until Brie’s eighth birthday party, when he’d brought his girlfriend of the moment, and Brynn had feigned a sudden illness to flee. Though honestly, the sight of Aiden with another woman had made her physically ill.

  After that, he stayed away until last year, when she’d caught a glimpse of his retreating back at the hospital where she’d arrived to be with Cian for his first treatment.

  And now. Only the fourth time he’d come home.

  In. Twelve. Years.

  But while he hadn’t cared enough to reach out to Brynn in all that time, he’d obviously nurtured a bond with Brie. And given Siobhan’s puzzled expression, he’d done so without their mother’s knowledge.

  Brynn struggled to breathe. He’d taken care with Brie’s soft heart, despite believing that he needed to hide the relationship from their mother.

  “You can sit by me.” Brie tucked her hand inside Aiden’s large palm and tugged him toward t
he table.

  “What a surprise,” Siobhan said with a stiff smile for Mrs. Everly. “When you run a family business, sometimes business dinner becomes family dinner.”

  Panic clawed its way up Brynn’s throat.

  “Have you met Jared?” her dad asked.

  Queasiness rippled through Brynn as Jared pushed to his feet and reached across the table. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  Aiden looked down at Jared’s outstretched hand for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, without accepting it, his dark eyes swung to Brynn.

  Her heart leaped with wild recklessness, even as his beautifully formed features twisted into a fierce scowl. His gaze fixed on her face, he slowly lowered his body into the empty chair between Brie and Mrs. Everly.

  Brynn could only stare back at the man seated across from her who resembled the Aiden she remembered but possessed no hint of the boy she’d once loved. He was a stranger to her now.

  An enemy.

  Suddenly, she doubted her memories. Had there ever been a time when he hadn’t despised her? Had it all been a dream? A figment of her imagination? Maybe Aiden had never looked at her with love in his eyes. Perhaps he’d never touched her naked body with gently questing hands.

  Maybe she’d never spread her legs for him and thrown away all her silly schoolgirl dreams about true love right along with her virginity.

  Words piled in her throat, but an invisible hand squeezed the narrow passageway and prevented their escape.

  Awkwardly, Jared withdrew his hand and eased back down beside her. “So, Aiden, what do you do?”

  Aiden’s lips curled into a vicious sneer. “We’re not really going to do this, are we?”

  “Yes, please, let’s finish dinner—” Brynn swallowed the rest of her shaky plea when Jared trampled over it.

  “Why not? You’re my girlfriend’s brother. Tell me something about yourself.”

  “I am not her brother.” The lick of fire in Aiden’s voice singed.

  Brynn flinched. A trickle of sweat that had nothing to do with the late September heatwave slid between her breasts.

  “So stepbrothers aren’t siblings now?” Leaning back, Jared balanced an ankle on his knee and slid his arm across the top of Brynn’s chair. “Wait until my stepfamily hears about this.”

  “Jared, please don’t—”

  Jared cut her off once more. “Tell me, what do you do for a living?”

  “Freelance,” Aiden bit out.

  “Freelance?” Scorn infected Jared’s tone. “What are you? A drug dealer?”

  The strangled sound came from Brynn. “Mrs. Everly, did you receive the packet of information we sent?”

  The fading sunlight illuminated Mrs. Everly’s immaculately styled white hair when she nodded. “Your portfolio is stunning.”

  “She’s the best in the whole city,” Brie stated. Her little arms opened wide. “The whole world.”

  “No, but seriously,” Jared interjected. “What is the actual work that you do?”

  Aiden’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I flip failing businesses.”

  “How’s that?” Brynn’s dad hunched forward. “Like flipping houses?”

  Aiden’s scowl darkened. “No.”

  The room took a dizzying swoop, and Brynn gripped the edge of the table.

  “Brynn designed every room in this house,” Siobhan said to Mrs. Everly. “I still can’t believe I live in a home so beautiful as this one.”

  Brynn forced the corners of her mouth upward. While the home’s over-the-top décor was not to her taste, she’d designed the spaces for Siobhan—who was dazzled by vivid colors and ornate stylings—when she and Brynn’s dad had moved into the opulent mansion two years ago.

  “It’s a lovely home.” Mrs. Everly reached for her wineglass. “I adore the plans you’ve come up with for my house.”

  The panic continued its steady creep up Brynn’s spine. Soon, it would consume her. “We can make any changes you’d like to the color schemes or the layout.”

  “There is one thing—”

  Mrs. Everly’s next words were drowned out by Brynn’s dad. “What kind of businesses?”

  Irritation simmered in Aiden’s dark scowl. “Bars and restaurants, mostly. Some retail.”

  Her dad plucked up his wineglass. “How do you turn them around?”

  “It depends why they aren’t successful. Look, I didn’t come here for the mindless chitchat.” Aiden twisted toward Siobhan. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  Beneath the table, Brynn’s fingers twitched, unconsciously grasping for the string of beads.

  When the first panic attack had gripped her, she’d fumbled through the shoebox tucked away in the back of her closet and found the old rosary hidden there. Somehow, rolling the smooth beads between her fingers had helped her survive those earliest episodes. Maybe because they reminded her of a time when she’d felt safe and loved.

  Now, whenever the panic tore at her, she fumbled for them.

  “You can’t make any money doing that,” Jared said, a nasty smirk making his handsome face ugly to her.

  “You’d be surprised what someone will pay to save their livelihood.” Every one of Aiden’s words dripped with disdain. “I’m sure you know all about hard work and the desperate struggle to provide for yourself and your family.”

  “His dad bought him a boat,” Brie said, swinging her legs under the table. “You should see it. It has a living room and, like, four bedrooms.”

  “Is that so?” Aiden’s spiteful smirk rivaled Jared’s.

  Besieged by the gathering storm of panic inside her, Brynn hadn’t noticed Jared’s movements until his hand touched her shoulder. The contact sent a jolt of terror flying through her and she jerked so hard that she knocked over a glass of water beside her plate.

  Frozen in panic, she sat paralyzed while a burst of exclamations flew across the table and ice-cold liquid seeped through her lightweight cotton sundress.

  In slow increments, she came to realize the room had fallen silent.

  And all eyes were fixed on her.

  Because the shawl she’d draped around her bare shoulders had slipped down her arm, and Jared had only moved to tug the delicate fabric back into place.

  Heat seared her cheeks when she closed her fist tight around the shawl and hauled it up under her chin.

  Jared hated the thick, pink scar that ran from the base of her collarbone to her shoulder, once telling her it disgusted him and that she should keep it covered so that no one had to look at it.

  While it was true the scar was repulsive, she hadn’t completely forgiven him for his careless words. She’d rather he lie to her and say the imperfection didn’t bother him.

  Instead, he’d blurted out the truth, and then he wondered why she still hadn’t slept with him after nearly a year of dating.

  Because if the scar on her shoulder disgusted him, what would he think of her other wounds? The ones concealed beneath her clothing?

  Jared’s mouth pinched into a thin line when he withdrew his hand from her shoulder. Dimly, she understood he was angry at what he perceived to be her enduring aversion to his touch.

  But his frosty reaction wasn’t what set off the trembling inside her.

  Across the table, Aiden’s curious golden-brown eyes had observed the entire fiasco as it played out before him.

  She bent her head to hide her face. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “If you’ll excuse me….”

  Her soaked dress clung to her body when she darted from the room.

  At the end of the hall, she ducked inside the bathroom and barred the door.

  But the barbs of fear and panic followed her into the small space. They stabbed and pierced until she sagged against the wall in defeat.

  Her heart slammed against her breastbone, and she pressed her palm over the painful thuds as if to halt the agonizing wallops. Never once had she been able to stop the pain or the fear from taking over.

  Helpless to the storm raging ins
ide her, she could only hunker down and wait for the chaos to pass. Eventually, it would.

  In time.

  She needed only to wait it out.

  What was he doing here?

  With greedy gulps, she dragged air into her aching lungs and prayed for the minutes to tick by. A sob filled her throat, and she clasped a hand over her mouth to cage it inside her.

  Why had he returned now?

  Her knees buckled, and she sank to the cold tile flooring.

  How had seeing him again after so long reduced her to a trembling, sobbing mess on the floor of their parents’ bathroom?

  She didn’t know how much time had passed before the first tiny break in the storm appeared, arriving as a bright spot of sunshine to chase away the black clouds of her despair.

  It didn’t matter why he was here. He wouldn’t stay long. He never stayed.

  She needed only to wait him out.

  Relief poured over her. Wiping tears from her cheeks, she climbed inelegantly to her feet and shuffled over to the sink.

  By the time her dress had dried, he’d be gone again.

  He never stayed.

  Chapter 2

  Aiden Nolan stared hard at the empty doorway where she’d fled, his muscles bunched with the need to go after her. In his bones, the yearning ached.

  It was a fool’s longing.

  He should leave instead.

  He never should’ve come back to Chicago.

  From the first moment he saw her all the way up until now, he’d only ever caused her misery.