Forbidden Mate: My Brother's Obsession

Chapter One: The New House

Lily Hart pressed her forehead against the cold window of the car and watched the city blur into wide, tree lined streets she didn't recognize. Somewhere behind her, the small apartment she and her mother used to call home was already being packed into someone else's memory. Ahead of her was a life she never asked for.

"You're going to love it here," her mother said, glancing at her through the rearview mirror with that hopeful smile she always wore when she wanted Lily to feel something she didn't actually feel. "Richard has a beautiful home. And you'll have your own room, twice the size of your old one."

Lily forced a smile back. "I'm sure it's great, Mom."

What she didn't say was that she didn't care about the size of the room. She cared about the fact that in exactly one week, she would be starting her senior year at a brand new school, in a brand new town, as the daughter of a woman who had fallen in love fast and married even faster. She cared about the fact that she would be living under the same roof as a stepfather she'd met only three times, and a stepbrother she hadn't met at all.

"What's he like?" Lily asked. "Ethan, I mean."

Her mother's smile faltered for just a second before she recovered it. "Richard says he's... busy. Popular. You know how boys his age are."

That wasn't much of an answer, but Lily let it go. The car turned up a long driveway lined with manicured hedges, and the house came into view not a house, really, but a mansion, all glass and pale stone, with a fountain out front that looked like it belonged in a magazine.

"Oh," Lily said, because she didn't know what else to say.

Her mother laughed, delighted. "I know. Come on, let's get you settled before dinner."

Richard met them at the door, warm and welcoming in the way stepfathers try too hard to be. He hugged Lily like they were already family, showed her around the ground floor with pride, pointed out the kitchen, the library, the pool out back. Lily nodded along, smiling when it seemed appropriate, feeling more and more like a guest who had wandered into the wrong house.

"Ethan should be back soon," Richard said as he led them up the wide staircase. "He had... practice. Or a thing. He's always got something going on. That boy is the most popular kid at Ridgemont Prep, I swear."

Lily's stomach tightened at the mention of the school she would be attending in a week. "Popular how?"

Richard chuckled. "You'll see."

Her room was, as promised, twice the size of her old one, done in soft grays and white with a window seat overlooking the backyard. Lily set her suitcase down and sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the drive.

She heard the front door open downstairs, then voices. Richard's, low and warm, and another voice, deeper, clipped, uninterested. Lily's heartbeat picked up without her permission. She told herself it was just nerves. New house, new family, new life. Of course her body was reacting.

"Lily," her mother called up the stairs. "Come down and meet Ethan!"

Lily smoothed down her shirt, took a breath, and walked down the staircase like she was walking onto a stage she hadn't rehearsed for.

He was standing in the foyer with his back half turned, tall, broad shouldered, dressed like he'd just come from somewhere important even though it was barely six in the evening. When he turned to face her, Lily's breath caught in a way she immediately hated herself for.

He was beautiful in the way people warn you about, sharp jaw, dark hair falling carelessly over his forehead, eyes so dark they looked almost black in the hallway light. But it wasn't just his face. It was the way he looked at her, like he was assessing a threat, cataloguing her, deciding something about her in the span of two seconds.

"This is Lily," Richard said, beaming, oblivious to the tension crackling in the air. "Your new sister."

Ethan's jaw tightened. For one long, uncomfortable moment, he said nothing at all. Then his eyes flicked over her, quick and dismissive, before he looked back at his father.

"I have somewhere to be," he said flatly, and walked past her toward the stairs without so much as a hello.

Lily stood frozen in the foyer, humiliation crawling up the back of her neck. Her mother laughed nervously, smoothing over the silence the way she always did. "He's just tired from practice, sweetheart. Give him time."

But Lily didn't miss the way Ethan had paused, just for a second, halfway up the stairs. Didn't miss the way his shoulders had gone rigid, like he was holding his breath. Didn't miss the way he'd inhaled sharply through his nose, almost like he was smelling the air around her.

It was strange. Unsettling. And it left a knot in her stomach that had nothing to do with nerves about her new school.

That night, long after the house had gone quiet, Lily lay awake in her new bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying that brief, charged moment in the foyer. She told herself it meant nothing. He was probably just rude. Probably just annoyed that his father had remarried and brought strangers into his home.

But then she heard it, a low, rough sound from somewhere down the hall, almost like a growl, followed by heavy, deliberate footsteps pacing back and forth behind a closed door.

Lily sat up in bed, heart hammering, and stared at her own bedroom door, suddenly certain of one thing.

Whatever Ethan Cole was, he was not just an ordinary boy.