Bewitched by Bella's Brother Read Free

it—and he’s not vain about anything .”
    “No vanity? How is that even possible?” Sebastian was
    beautiful; he was aware of it. He didn’t think it made him more or less than anyone else… but that didn’t mean he
    didn’t enjoy appreciative looks, male and female. He was vain about his academic work; he worked hard on it, he thought it was comparable to anyone else’s in the country. He was even vain about his friendship with Bella, because he’d been raised an only child and the temptation to be a spoiled, self-centered diva-bitch could have been overwhelming. But Bella had once nursed him through the flu and then typed up his next paper from notes while he was still curled over the commode, just so he could make his publishing deadline. He Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lan e
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    wasn’t sure where a girl learned that kind of loyalty, but he was going to clutch it to him with selfish, bony fingers.
    How could a man who could build this house with his
    bare hands—and have it decorated with a bare heart,
    apparently—not have any damned vanity?
    “I didn’t say he didn’t have pride,” she said softly, and then flopped down on the bed next to him, rolling into his arms for an easy, sexless hug. “I just said he doesn’t really flaunt the shit he does well. And”—she sounded
    uncomfortable here, as though she was repeating gossip—“I think his pride has taken some hits lately. If you listen to Mom, his ex-wife really fucked him over.”
    Sebastian pulled back and looked at her, truly curious.
    “Care to explain?” he asked impatiently when she didn’t go into details.
    Bella rolled over to her stomach and rested her chin in
    her hands, tracing her finger moodily on the burgundy
    comforter.
    “I don’t know, Sebastian. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t
    faithful, but beyond that?” She shook her head. “All I know is that Asa got full custody of Jordan, and whether she gave it to him or the courts did, that’s full-blown fucked-up bitch in my book.”
    Sebastian nodded. She didn’t show it often, but Bella
    had the same values as the rest of her close-knit family. The children were important—and treasured.
    “So he’s here, doing the single father bit—and you get
    free room and board for helping?”
    For the first time in the past two days, Bella’s lush
    mouth curved upwards. “Yeah—Jordan was just a little
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    squish on the carpet last time I saw him. I can’t wait to meet him.”
    But it didn’t seem as though it would be that night.
    They ate pizza on the back deck by the pool, watching the sunrise over Lincoln (or thereabouts—not always easy to tell in the foothills), and split a six-pack of microbrew beer between them in celebration of free room and board in such a spiffy place.
    Afterward, they went up to Sebastian’s room and
    watched television on the little set they’d brought with them from their old apartment. Bella fell asleep on the bed next to him in the middle of an NCIS rerun, and Sebastian wasn’t far behind.
    He wasn’t sure what woke him up a few hours later, but
    he was starving for leftovers.
    Bella had gone back to her bed; she insisted he snored
    and he insisted she was full of it, and the lure of a room to herself must have been irresistible. In the quiet dark of the vast, strange house, his stomach rumbled, and he thought rather greedily that there was more pizza left for him. He kept his sleep shorts and his T-shirt on and padded rather diffidently through the vast house. When he was on top of the landing, he paused and looked out into that magnificent living room, violet in the starlight, and wondered what sort of vision it would take to dream that sort of art up in three dimensions. Then he quit his moment of open hero-worship and padded down the curved staircase in search of pizza.
    And pudding. And a glass of milk. And some fruit. Ah,
    gods, this guy had the best stocked refrigerator in the