TEASE ( A Stepbrother Romance ) By Caitlin Daire

13

Chapter 13

Jace

Shit. That wasn't what I'd intended to happen at all. I thought Rayna would find my little prank funny, but now that I was actually thinking about it, it wasn't that funny. She probably thought I'd been faking the friendship with her just so I could tell her to 'blow me' in an elaborate way, but that hadn't been it at all. My true intention had been to make her feel better about living in the manor. Judging by the questions she'd been asking my Dad at breakfast the other morning, she obviously still thought there was something creepy about the place, so I'd figured that if I could show her just how silly all the supposedly 'supernatural' stuff in the world was, she'd realize there were no ghosts or anything in the manor, and she'd feel more capable of settling in properly.

Well, it had majorly backfired on me, and now I looked like a fucking asshole.

I headed up the stairs, desperate to make it better before she decided to go another few weeks of zero contact with me. We'd only just gotten over the hideous awkwardness of our second failed hookup, so the last thing I'd needed to do was fuck things up again...and yet I had. In all of my excitement to have fun with Rayna and stop her from being afraid of the house, I hadn't noticed just how afraid she truly was.

I burst into Rayna's bedroom, quickly spotting her lying flat on her bed. Her face was a little scrunched up but her eyes were closed, so I wasn't sure whether she was crying or not, and the idea that she might be made me feel about a million times worse.

"Rayna, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to upset you."

"Don't worry about it. It's okay," she muttered, almost under her breath.

Her tone was flat, showing me just how upset she really was. At least she was a little calmer, though. Downstairs a moment ago, she'd been like a hurricane of rage.

"No, no it isn't." I sat down next to her on the bed. "I just wanted to make light of a crappy situation. I thought you might still be a bit freaked out about the house and I wanted to make you laugh. I shouldn't have done that. I'm fucking terrible at making jokes. I think I proved that with the panty incident when you first arrived."

She looked up at me, her expression starting to soften. "No, really, Jace. It's fine. I overreacted."

A slow smile spread across my face as the surprise sank in. I couldn't believe it; she was actually conceding to me. On the other hand, while I was glad that she was happier, it somehow didn't feel quite right. There was a heavy feeling in my stomach, as if my subconscious had detected that there was something more to the story than whatever Rayna was letting on.

"It was pretty funny," she added.

She laughed a little, but it was still halfhearted, so I knew I definitely wasn't one hundred percent forgiven.

"Would a hug make you feel better?" I asked. "I'll even throw in a free foot massage to make up for being a dumbass."

She smiled. "Sure."

I embraced her, knowing full well that there was nothing even remotely sexual about this hug, and she leaned into me. Her body was tense and stiff, so I knew that her heart wasn't in it, and I thought for a few seconds, wondering what else I could do to make her feel better.

An idea suddenly struck me.

"Hey, you said you saw your ghost near the main third floor stairwell, right?" I asked, pulling away.

She looked at me curiously. "Jace, there was never a ghost. Everyone else is right; I was just sleepwalking. I'm just an idiot for being freaked out."