HUGE HOUSE HATES: AN ENEMIES TO LOVERS REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE (HUGE Series)

The excitement of the past few days has been contagious.

After a ridiculous afternoon making pots – I’ll admit that ceramics turned out not to be my strength – Alden managed to get Cora her first introduction to a buyer. She’s been flapping ever since, trying to get samples ready to take to the big meeting. Alden’s been doing what he can to keep her calm and get her prepared, but the excitement has been contagious.

My agent has secured a shoot for a major magazine for me, so I’ve been busy working out. I’m in good shape, but I have three weeks to polish myself so that the images make the biggest impact they can. The exposure is going to be awesome, and I want to make the most of it.

I’m in the gym after a particularly grueling weights session when Cora calls.

“Danny.” She doesn’t say hello, and her voice sounds breathless as though she’s been running or she’s panicking about something. Probably something to do with the department store buyer, I think. “Are you around? My car’s broken down, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Where are you?”

Cora describes her location, and it’s only around fifteen minutes from the gym.

“Send me your exact location, and I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I don’t wait for her message but instead head to my locker, grab my bag, and stride to the car. When I’m ready to go, I find her message, add the location to the GPS, and set off. On the way, I call my friend Damien who has a repair shop about an hour outside of town.

We met when I was doing a shoot for a fashion magazine that was looking to showcase a new designer whose casual collection resembled a mechanic’s overalls. The location scout found this cool, old-school repair shop, and I spent two days there among the mechanics, who continued to do their jobs around me.

Damien’s a big bear of a guy with a thick beard, and arms that look thick enough to tear out trees by the roots. He was the one who was most interested in the modeling process and asked the most questions. If I need something fixed on my car, he’s the one I trust to get it done. I don’t mind driving the distance because I know him and the other mechanics at Deep Repairs, and I’m confident they will do a good job and not rip me off.

When I get to Cora’s vehicle, she’s managed to pull it over and out of the stream of traffic.

When she sees me, her expression is panicked. “Thank you so much for coming. I didn’t know what to do. Mom told me to get roadside assistance, but money’s been tight, and I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, touching Cora’s upper arm to give her some reassurance. “I’m not the best when it comes to cars, but I’m going to call a friend of mine and see what we can figure out.”

“Okay.” Her lids drop slowly over the crystalline blue of her eyes, her relief obvious.

“Pop the hood….do you know how?”

“Sure.”

Cora gets back into the car, searching for the lever to unlock the hood. Her car is way older than anything I’ve ever driven, and it doesn’t surprise me that it’s been giving her problems. Dad always told me that cars over seven years old are money pits. My current car is only six months old and drives like a dream. This old Nissan has seen better days.

“Is it turning over?”

Cora turns the key in the ignition, and it makes a juddering sound, then nothing. “That doesn’t sound good,” I say, dipping my head to take a closer look. There are no obvious issues. The radiator’s intact, and there’s no oil leaking as far as I can see. Pulling out my phone, I bring up Damien’s number.

“D,” he says in greeting.

“D,” I answer, and we both dissolve into childish laughter.

“What can I do for you?”

“I have a car that’s broken down. It makes a choking noise when I turn the ignition. I can’t see anything else going on.”

“Your car?” he asks, surprised. Since I got the new one, it hasn’t needed any servicing or repairs, so I haven’t traveled his way in a while.

“No…it’s my…” I pause for a moment, wondering how to describe Cora. My father’s fiancée’s daughter is long. Stepsister isn’t accurate yet. A friend isn’t quite true. Ugh. Why do things have to be so complicated? I opt for the inaccurate “Stepsister” because somehow, a friend doesn’t feel like enough.

“I didn’t know you had one of those,” Damien says. “Is she hot?”

“Why is that the first place that men go to?” I laugh, glad Cora’s out of earshot.

“Because we all have filthy minds,” he says with a smile in his voice. I’m certain he has a filthy mind. He’s in a relationship with a woman he shares with his five best friends. When he told me their arrangement, I choked; I was so shocked. None of the guys at Deep Repairs seem like the type who’d be willing to share a woman.

“Yeah, she is,” I admit. Since the night of the party, when Cora was distressed, everything changed. It became impossible for me to see her as the enemy anymore. My brothers seem to have found it easy to transition from thinking of her as a problem to thinking of her as a friend. Now Damien’s asking if I think of her in a sexual way. Admitting to that feels just as hard, but I’d have to be dead not to notice all the attributes that make Cora one of the cutest girls I’ve ever met. She’d hate to be called cute. Girls want to be attractive, pretty, sexy, not cute. She’s all those things, but her cuteness is what makes me want to take care of her. It’s a strange transition from desiring revenge to wanting to protect her. A transition I haven’t gotten used to yet.

“I’m not busy today. If you send me your location, I’ll drive over and pick up the car.”

“Are you sure? We’re not exactly local.”

“No problem. Anything for a friend,” Damien says.

“Great. Okay. I’m sending it now. And when it comes to it, can you forward me the repair bill? She’s low on cash, and I don’t want her getting stressed if it’s expensive.”

“Sure…” I can hear a smile in his voice.

“What the fuck are you smiling about?” I snap.

“Paying for your stepsister’s car repairs,” he says. “This definitely sounds like a porn movie.”

“Hanging up,” I say before the conversation becomes more ridiculous.

I tell Cora that we’re going to wait a while, and then I invite her to sit in my car, where the radio still works. I have healthy snacks in a cool bag, which I offer to share.

“You seriously carry this around with you?” she asks, staring at the pot of nuts, dried fruit, the bag of carrot batons, sugar-snap peas, and the protein bars.

“Sure. If I don’t have good food on hand, I’ll be tempted to snack on junk. It’s way too easy to slip, and then all my hard work is down the toilet. I get paid to look good. I have to take that seriously, or I’ll get dropped by my agency.”

“It must be hard to stay that disciplined.”

“Sometimes,” I say. “But the way I see it, I’ve been given this gift, and it’ll last a certain number of years, and then I’ll have to find something else to do. If I have to sacrifice right now, I will. It’s worth it.”

“That’s a very disciplined way of looking at it,” she says, taking a bite of a protein bar.

“Well, you’re disciplined about your job. You’ve been plugging away at it without knowing what will come of all that work. That takes discipline.”

“Discipline or stupidity,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Discipline,” I say. “And passion.”

“I do love what I do,” she says. “I know it’s not your thing, but I can’t imagine a time when I won’t be making things with my hands.”

“I can’t imagine a time when I won’t be doing what I’m doing,” I say. “I have no idea what I’ll do when the bookings dry up, and no one wants me.”

Cora stops chewing, her eyes exploring my face as though she’s seeking some truth that has remained unspoken. “That must be tough,” she says. “Knowing your passion has a time limit…knowing something as natural as aging has the capacity to change everything.”

“It is what it is,” I say, waving my hand as though none of it matters to me, but it does. It always has. When I think about the day my agent begins to hint that I need to find something else to do, my throat tightens.

“Some models work into their silver-fox years,” she says. I can tell she’s trying to find a way to make me feel better, which is more than I deserve from her. We haven’t spoken about the pranks. After the party, when Tobias provided his broad shoulder for her to cry on, an unofficial truce was formed. My brothers don’t seem bothered that nothing’s been discussed, but it’s niggling me. Maybe that’s why they all seem to be forming friendships with Cora, and I’ve been feeling left behind.

“You know, things between us at the beginning were…” I trail off, not really knowing how to put it.

“…difficult,” she finishes for me.

“We started off on the wrong foot.”

“We did,” she says. “I hold my hands up for my part in it.”

“I do too. I guess I want to say sorry for not being the kind of person who can just let things go. I have never been. It’s a flaw.”

“A flaw we share,” she says softly. “It hasn’t been easy for me, accepting that Mom is with someone I grew up…” she pauses, but I know what she will say.

“Hating?”

“I know he’s your dad, so I’m trying to moderate what I say.”

“My brothers have filled me in on what they know. I guess it’s hard for us to be sure what happened. We haven’t asked Dad because we don’t want to cause any issues between him and your mom or between you and him. There’s already been too much of that.”

“There has,” she says softly. “It’s hard for me to look around at the life you all live and not resent the fact that some of that should have been for my family and me.”

“I get that,” I say. “But me and my brothers were kids when that happened. So were you. I guess I’m saying that we don’t need to carry on the bad blood, and I’m sorry for my part.”

She smiles, but I can sense something still lingers behind it. Maybe it always will. But at least we’ve made peace. I feel better about that.

It takes Damien forty minutes to arrive with his big truck. He shakes my hand, pumping my arm like he’s trying to work out if it’s loose. Dressed in bright blue overalls with the arms tied at the waist and a gray shirt, he’s got enough grease up his fingernails to lubricate an entire engine. His beard seems thicker and longer too. “You interviewing for a lumberjack position?” I ask him.

He snorts. “There’s been too much going on to find time for manscaping.”

Cora laughs in a cheeky way that makes me wonder if she’s thinking about where else he might need to trim.

“What do you think?”

Bent over the engine, he tinkers with a few things. “Try now,” he says.

Cora dashes to get in the driver’s seat and turns the key. The car sputters to life. “Oh my God, you did it,” she gasps through the window.

“What can I say?” Damien says with a lopsided grin. “I have magic hands.” He holds them up with palms facing Cora and waves them like jazz hands.

“You do,” she grins.

I clap him on the shoulder in appreciation. “Is there anything that the car needs?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Damien nods. “A good service and an engine clean.” He starts circling the vehicle. “A couple of the tires look worn too.”

Cora’s already sliding out of the seat, her face dropping with concern.

“Let’s take it in now,” I say. “I don’t want Cora driving around in something unsafe.”

“But…” she starts.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Damien will sort it out. I can take you where you need to go, and then we’ll collect your car later.”

“But I don’t have the money…” she says, and this time I put up my hand.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I say. “I’m going to sort everything out with Damien, and when you get your first big order from that department store, you can take me out for a fancy dinner.”

“I can’t…”

“You can,” I say. “Just think of it as an apology if that makes it easier to digest.”

“What am I going to need to do for my side of the apology?” Cora says.

I can think of a few things I’d love her to do. Some involving her mouth. Some involving the tight wet place between her legs, but I keep my thoughts to myself. We’re just about on speaking terms. I’m not going to risk messing that up, no matter how much I might want more.

“Bake Damien a chocolate cake. He has a thing for sweet baked goods.”

“I like that idea,” Damien says, wiping his hands on a rag he has hanging from his pocket.

“Seriously?” Cora asks. As amusement passes over her expression, her eyes linger on mine. Her tongue moistens the middle of her lip as though she’s thinking about tasting something delicious. I think the chocolate cake is on her mind, but could she be thinking along the same lines as me? I’ve always prided myself on having an excellent sense of when a woman is interested in me, but Cora’s signals aren’t obvious. Maybe I’m reading too much into this because it’s what I want. Just because I’ve jumped five paces ahead doesn’t mean Cora has to.

“I’m never more serious than when I’m talking about cake,” Damien laughs, jolting me back to the present.

And that’s how we end up driving to a car repair shop with Cora’s first attempt at baking clutched proudly in her hands. And how I end up realizing wanting more with Cora is not just about sex.