Brothers at War [#Wattys2017]

eight

It was the sound of my phone which brought me crashing back to reality, and stunned me into the realisation of the position I had found myself on.

I was plain and simple Sophie Peterson. I was the woman who kept her daughter a secret from her father and I was the woman who slept with married men. I was the woman who, as Markus had told me himself, had no heart and was incapable of love.

He was Markus Barnes. He stuck-up and over cocky, and I was supposed to hate the man.

So, why the hell did I let him kiss me?

Worse than that, why the hell did I enjoy kissing Markus freakin' Barnes?

"Sorry. I have to get this." I pulled my hands away from his chest to remove my phone from my back pocket, and I was relieved when I saw my brother's name on the screen, rather than someone from work who expected me to solve a problem for them.

"Carry on, Soph," Markus smiled and took a seat on his bed. Though he continued to look at me with a satisfied grin before I turned my back on him and answered the call. It had been a while since I last spoke to him, and I did owe him some form of conversation.

"Did you forget that I existed? I am hurt." He complained down the phone, and I should have expected nothing less, especially since I had been ignoring his messages since I arrived in Arizona.

My younger sister, Isabelle, was living with her father, because apparently, my mother didn't want anything to do with her once she had given birth. Lincoln was her older half-brother so, even though we weren't related by blood and he wasn't technically my brother, he still treated me the same way he treated Isabelle and he loved me as though I was his younger sister.

Lincoln was married and had a daughter of his own, and he was the one who helped me through Callie's pregnancy when everyone else abandoned me. His wife is the one who was in the room with me when I gave birth because, even though the two of us weren't exactly friends, Lincoln had asked her to be there for me because he didn't want me to go through it alone.

He was no replacement for Andrew, but he was still a hell of an older brother, and he is how I imagined Andrew would have turned out if he hadn't had his life cut short.

"Sorry? You are?" I teased him. For the past three years, since I discovered Isabelle and gained Lincoln by default, our relationship had been based on constant teasing and me playing the role of the annoying younger sister to perfection. "I have missed you Link. But is there a reason you phoned me, because I was kind of in the middle of something?"

I turned my head over my shoulder to steal a quick glance at the person who was sitting on the bed, busying himself with something on his own phone. There was a small smile which had replaced the grimace that had previously been there, and I still wasn't entirely sure why I was feeling like this nor why he had such a heart-stopping effect on me, not when I knew that he was player.

For all I knew I was another piece in his game and I was an idiot to fall for all of that.

"I feel like I want to know what I interrupted. But, since you sounded a little breathless when you answered, I am going to assume I ruined your sexytime with a hot hunk." I could almost hear the smirk in Lincoln's voice and I made a mental note to punch him when I next saw him. Because, just as I enjoyed teasing him, he got a kick out of teasing me too. "I should probably allow you to enjoy the D."

"Lincoln," I whined.

"What's his name? Wait. Don't tell me. Is it that hottie who does business in the café you work at? I bet it is."

"Seriously, Lincoln. What did you want?"

"Fine. Fine. I wanted to talk to you about Belle," Lincoln signed, and I was almost certain that was running his hands through his hair, because it was the same thing he always did when he was frustrated or concerned about something. "Something's going on with her and she won't talk to me about it. And, I was hoping, that maybe you would speak to her for me?"