The Fight In Us: A Brother's Best Friend College Romance (The Four Book 4) by Becca Steele (read me a book txt) 📗

her mistaken belief that Jessa was Caiden’s girlfriend, and she blackmailed Caiden to release Allan and Joseph in order to set Jessa free.

It was time for the showdown at Alstone Docks. Christine went full-on villain, and revealed that she’d not only had Winter’s dad killed, but she’d been behind Caiden and Weston’s mother’s suicide. She was planning to take over Alstone Holdings, and get rid of the rest of the Cavendish family.

She shot at Winter, and Caiden pushed her out of the way to save her, getting himself shot in the process. His lifeless body fell to the floor, and it broke Winter. In the ensuing chaos she stabbed Christine, Arlo turned up and shot Christine, and Allan was killed.

Later in the hospital, Caiden woke.

They gradually managed to start rebuilding their lives, and Winter became a permanent member of the Four, and her relationship with Caiden went from strength to strength.

As for the true cause of Caiden and Weston’s mother’s death? Caiden and Arlo had planned to tell Weston, together.

The time never seemed right.

Soon, it would be too late…

For Claudia (again)

Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

ONE

AGE EIGHT

He was here again. The boy with the dark hair and the bright smile.

Weston Cavendish.

I sat back against the wall of the playroom, hugging my knees, the unfinished LEGO next to me forgotten. My older brother, Cassius, and Weston’s brother, Caiden, slumped down on the beanbags in front of the TV, ready to play a racing game.

Weston’s gaze travelled around the room and landed on me, and that smile appeared on his face. It gave me a funny fluttery feeling in my tummy, and I had to look away from him.

“What ya making?” He came to a stop in front of me, crouching down and staring at my unfinished piece with his head cocked.

“A-a house.” My voice came out all scratchy, and my cheeks felt hot as he turned from the LEGO to look at me with his colour-changing eyes. They were like magic. Kind of a deep blue, but with greys and greens swirled in. Like the sea that I saw from the windows of my house every single day.

“Cool. Can I play?” Not waiting for a reply, he took a spare board from the open box next to me and started laying out pieces. We built in silence for a while, just us two in our corner of the room, our brothers occupied by their game.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

His voice made me jump, and the piece of LEGO I’d been holding fell from my hand. “What do you wanna be?” I asked him, while I tried to think of an answer that would impress him.

“I want to be like Tony Stark.”

I bit my lip. “Who’s that?”

He rolled his eyes and huffed. “Iron Man. He has all this cool computer stuff, and he invents robots and things like that. And he defeats villains like Galactus.”

My cheeks were getting redder as I looked at him, unsure. “Y-you want to be a superhero?”

“Kind of, yeah.” He puffed out his chest, grinning. “A computer superhero.”

“Me too.” The words slipped out before I could think about them.

His eyes widened. “You want to be a computer superhero?”

“Yep.” I nodded, trying to sound confident even though I felt sick with nerves. I didn’t even have a computer of my own. “I love computers.”

His whole face lit up, like I’d never seen before, and my breath caught in my throat as his eyes focused on mine. “Me too.” He repeated the words I’d just said, smiling shyly at me from under his lashes.

That was the moment I knew I’d do whatever it took to keep that boy smiling at me, the way he was right then.

That was the moment I knew I loved Weston Cavendish.

TWO

AGE EIGHTEEN - LAST YEAR

We hadn’t even been at the party long, and I was already bored out of my mind. My dad, Arlo Cavendish, and stepmother, Christine Clifford, had forced us all to attend. The primary objective was to keep up the charade that we were a happy family, now that my stepsister, Winter Huntington, had moved to the area and was attending Alstone College with us.

My brother, Caiden, and I barely got along with our dad, and with Christine on the scene, being around them was almost intolerable. There was no love lost between Winter and her mother, either. They’d been estranged until recently. Winter had grown up with her dad, John Huntington, who had passed away almost a year ago. Now, she was living here in Alstone.

So here we were—me, Caiden, and Winter, all of us uncomfortable and wishing we could be anywhere else but here in my dad’s mansion, surrounded by members of the Alstone elite and whoever else was currently trying to suck up to my dad and stepmother.

“Hello, beautiful.”

Turning from the bar, I watched James Granville, a guy that none of us particularly liked given that he was related to our business rivals (a rivalry that dated back years), greet Winter. She returned his greeting with genuine happiness, throwing her arms around him. Caiden’s eyes darkened, and his mouth set in a hard line. As one, we moved to stand on either side of Winter, reminding James of his place.

Although, I was certain that Caiden’s hostility towards James had little to do with our family rivalry, and everything to do with our new stepsister. I could pretty much guarantee how this would go down. Cade would get jealous, probably do something like flirt with, or worse, fuck Portia or Jessa or another one of the vapid girls who hung around us at these events, in an attempt to make himself forget, and then get wasted and hate himself.

Yeah, my brother was all kinds of fucked up right now.

“Granville,” Caiden growled, and James replied in the same