PULSE: A Stepbrother Romance

by Sarah Sparrows

  It didn’t take long to reach the place, and I was already starting to relax as I led Maddy in through the front door. Without saying a word, the hostess had noted our arrival and ushered us in to my regular booth.

  “I thought you said this place was a café?”

  I looked around. I’d been to this place dozens of times, but somehow it seemed as if I’d never really looked at it before now. The walls were paneled in dark cherry wood with accents of crimson damask paper that looked like it had been imported from Europe. I’d have bet that if I’d touched it, it would’ve felt just like silk. The gold highlighting the pattern was probably genuine too, and looking at them now, I had no doubt that the amber crystals adorning the chandeliers were Swarovski-made, or similar.

  I shrugged, handing one of the menus our server had provided over to Maddy. “It is. Just a ritzy one.”

  She looked around at the tables surrounding us and fingered the neckline of her blouse. “I feel like I’m underdressed…”

  “You’ll be fine,” I assured her. “You look fine. I mean, beautiful. You look…” I ground my teeth, trying to regain my composure. “You’ll fit right in.” Then I opened the menu and buried my nose in it, inwardly kicking myself for how utterly stupid everything I’d said today had thus far been.

  “What should I order?” Maddy said, and I realized she probably had no idea what half the things on the menus were. I set mine down and began to unbutton my blazer to drape it over the back of my chair.

  “If you like lighter fare, anything with chicken is a good bet.” I finally freed myself of the constraining jacket and sighed in relief. Finally I could feel my biceps again. “If you’re more in a dinner mood, there’s always the beef bourguignon.”

  “I think I had the TV dinner version of that once,” she laughed, her eyes flitting over the myriad of items listed for her. “Um… I’ll go with that, I think. Yeah, that sounds good.”

  I smiled. It felt good to see her without tears in her eyes. “And some wine?”

  “You pick,” she said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” She slid her menu over to me and I took it, stacking it on top of mine.

  “You can start by telling me what happened with your job,” I offered. Even though it was mid-day outside the mood lighting inside cast shadows over Maddy’s face, shadows that seemed even darker when I mentioned the dreaded j-word. “I mean, if you want to, of course.”

  “I do,” she said. “I’m just so embarrassed…” She took a sip of her ice water. When she pulled the glass away, I marveled at the tiny beads that had formed on them.

  She licked them away, and I watched the progress of her tongue, hoping she mistook the intensity of my stare for interest in her story.

  “It wasn’t a good job,” she said, meeting my gaze. “But it was all I had. It paid the bills and the rent… and frankly, not much else.” She laughed again. This time, it sounded bitter. “That was enough for me, though. At least until I found something better.”

  I nodded, parroting what I’d heard others say. “It’s hard out there right now.” I had no real idea about any of that, of course, and Maddy called me on it.

  “Yeah. Not all of us can have an in with the CEO of one of the world’s most profitable companies.” But then she swallowed her anger, even though it lit up her face in a very sexy way. “Well, anyway, I’d been putting up with a lot of shit over there. More so recently, though the past few years hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, either.” She looked at me. “Do you know that the first day I was there, the receptionist who was supposed to train me left for lunch and never came back? I had four hours’ worth of training before they threw me to the wolves.” She shook her head in amazement. “It’s a wonder I survived my first six months, let alone four years…”

  “Sounds like they don’t have a clue what they’re doing,” I said, and that much was a genuine commentary on the matter. I had learned enough from my father, not to mention Harvard, to know an incompetently-run business when I saw one. Or, in this case, heard of one. “You were probably lucky to get out.”

  Maddy snorted. “Yeah, in one way, but what about the other? I’m broke, Preston. Or I will be once I handle my bills and rent this month. My lease isn’t up for another eight months, and if I break it early, I’ll owe my landlord thousands.” She continued to fret until the waiter came over to take her order. As she struggled with remembering the name, I interrupted.

  “She’ll have the beef bourguignon with your Chateau Musar 2011 Jeune Rouge. Bring the bottle.”

  Maddy finally seemed to relax some at the promise of wine. Or at least, she did until the waiter turned to me and asked, “And for the lady’s date?”

  I laughed. It wasn’t meant to offend Maddy, but I could see her cheeks flush. I waved my hand. “No, no. We’re not… she’s my sister. Well, she will be, anyway.”

  “I see,” the waiter said. “My apologies. What can I get for you, Mr. Harvey?”

  “The twelve-ounce Wagyu A5 Kobe, served New York strip-style,” I said. It was one of my favorites. Most people were told to order a day in advance, but I wasn’t most people. “With the regular sides.”

  “Very good, Mr. Harvey,” he said. It seemed strange that he knew my name but I couldn’t remember his face, let alone anything else about him. The hostess probably tipped him off. That’s just good service. The waiter took our menus and hurried off in the direction of the kitchen while I turned my gaze back on Madison.

  “Where were we?”

  She blinked. “You were ordering five hundred dollars in beef, and I was telling you about how broke I am.”

  I winced. “Right. Uh. Go on.”

  She sighed, slumping back in her chair and tucking a strand of her chocolate brown hair behind her ear. I liked the way her nose twitched when she brushed the lock away from her face. It made the light dusting of freckles over the bridge of it dance.

  “It wasn’t just stuff like that, though. There were other things that happened there. A lot of harassment, sexual and otherwise.” She didn’t look at me when she said the words, like she was ashamed of something that had been done to her by people outside of her control. “What kind of place lets their managers call their administrative assistant a cunt right to her face, just because she disagrees with him about a decision?”

  I almost choked on my water. I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard my stepsister utter the dreaded c-word. “Christ. Didn’t you tell HR?”

  “Of course I did,” she answered. “But what do you expect them to do about it? It’s my word against a supervisor’s, and as I understand it, that supervisor and the HR director are very good friends.”

  “So… I don’t know, go over her head. Write the CEO, if you have to.”

  She laughed. “Right. The CEO who doesn’t know my name, who makes more money in a day than I do in a year. He’s going to come fight my battles? I’d ask if you’d been drinking, but they haven’t even brought the wine yet.”

  “There has to be something,” I insisted. I could feel my blood rushing now, boiling, burning in my chest. I didn’t get worked up about a lot of things, but for some reason the idea of someone hurting Maddy had me seeing red. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that, Madison. Not by anyone. Ever.”

  She looked at me for a long time, silent and wide-eyed. There was something scrutinizing about her gaze, like she was searching my eyes for some kind of answer. By the time her lips parted, the waiter had returned and set the bottle of wine on the table between us.

  “Shall I pour?” he asked me.

  I tore my gaze away from Maddy. “No. I think we’ve got it.”

  Although he let us be, the moment—whatever it was—was now gone. Maddy was now more interested in the wine than whatever she’d been on the cusp of saying, and I didn’t know how to ask her what exactly had been on her mind. I didn’t want to push things with her. After all, this was the first real conversation we’d ever had, and I worried
that prying too hard would be a recipe for disaster.

  But the more I thought about her predicament—her job, her finances, the cold-hearted bitch her mother was—the more I realized that I did, in fact, have an answer. It was the answer to the question she hadn’t asked, the question that maybe she was too proud to. But I had it all the same, and now that I understood what her silence had meant, I knew what I had to do.

  I was going to change Madison Hearst’s life forever. She just didn’t know it yet.

  And maybe, just maybe, I could kill two birds with one stone.

  MADISON

  To my utter shock, lunch with my brother-to-be wasn’t the disaster I’d imagined.

  Preston was a spoiled brat. I’d gleaned that much on the first day I’d met him. He’d rolled up late to a family dinner in a shiny new Tesla with a devil-may-care grin and lipstick stains on his collar. I immediately knew everything I needed to know about him from that point on—or so I’d thought.

  The man sitting in front of me in the restaurant was a completely different guy. He was genuinely concerned about me, my job, and my future. He made me laugh and didn’t make me feel ashamed for crying. I was starting to think maybe I hadn’t given him a fair chance. Sure, he’d always be the rich kid and I’d always be the poor one, but there was no reason we couldn’t be civil.

  By the time we left the restaurant, I was feeling better. I still didn’t have a game plan, but at least it felt like someone was on my side in spirit. That meant a lot, not feeling alone.

  “Do you have a car?” he asked me.

  Slowly, I shook my head. The daylight was a little disorienting after spending over an hour in the dimly-lit café. “No. I take the bus wherever I need to go.”

  Preston wrinkled his nose at me. “Seriously? What about when you need groceries?”

  I shrugged. “Not all of us can afford eighty-five thousand dollar cars, Preston.” And then, in an effort to be less defensive, I added: “It’s only me, so I try to only get a little at a time. Lightweight stuff. Then I carry it back on the bus with me. It’s better if you use those reusable bags. They don’t break like the plastic ones do.”

  He stared at me like I was from some other world. Maybe to him, I was. All he’d ever known were luxury vehicles, grand manses and summer homes, penthouse suites and personal chefs. He’d never wanted for anything a day in his life, and I sincerely doubted that Preston Harvey ever took the bus—even to school.

  But he didn’t say anything. He kept his face a slate as he offered, “Well, you can’t walk home in those.” He nodded to my shoes. “I’ll drive you.”

  I raised my brows. “Really? You want to spend more time with your stepsister?”

  He smiled and shrugged, his buff shoulders rippling underneath his button-down. He had the blazer draped over his arm, and I didn’t blame him. It was warm out.

  “You’re not all that bad,” he informed me. When I pursed my lips, he chuckled again. “Hopefully you can say the same for me.”

  “Maybe,” I relented. “I’ll say this for you: you’re definitely not who I’d expected you’d be.”

  Now it was Preston’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “And who were you expecting?”

  “The guy who showed up late to dinner,” I said. “The one who looked like he’d just rolled out of bed with a woman. You know. A playboy. An elitist fuck.”

  Preston grinned from ear to ear, one of those shit-eating grins that would have looked infuriating on anyone else. And it did look infuriating on him, too. Just not in the way I had anticipated. Beneath my annoyance was amusement, though I was loath to let it show. There was something about him, something I couldn’t quite place, but the more I was in his company, the less irritating he seemed.

  I studied his face for a moment. The sun made his short, tawny hair glitter like gold, and his impossibly blue eyes sparkled like the clearest diamonds I’d ever seen. No, that wasn’t right. They were more like the bottom of a glacier: a deep, frigid hue locked away beneath a layer of ice that somehow seemed to be melting the more I stared at him.

  I turned away, my heart beating in my ears and my cheeks heating up. Preston was very handsome. Maybe if we’d met under different circumstances… Maybe if our lives weren’t quite so different…

  “All right,” I said, trying to clear the awkward silence between us. “I’ll go with you. I’m really not all that far from here, so you shouldn’t waste too much time.”

  Preston shot me a look meant to remind me that time wasn’t something he particularly worried about. Then he ushered me down the sidewalk to his car, that beautiful Tesla I’d seen parked in the driveway of his father’s estate the first day I’d met him.

  I supposed billionaires and their sons could do as they pleased, but I had to admit that I’d expected Preston to have some sort of driver. Then again, from his suit, it looked like he might have just come from a business meeting. I thought about asking him what it was about, but I didn’t know a thing about his father’s company and in all likelihood, knowing the details would only bore me.

  I slid into the seat next to him, letting the cream-colored leather cradle my body. It was supple and buttery, smooth and warm, just the right temperature from having sat out in the sun half the afternoon. I had to admit that I loved the car’s design. The angles and planes were just so masculine, so clean, and the digital dashboard display was just plain nifty.

  I watched him plug in my address to the built-in GPS system between the air vents. When he pulled out of the spot he’d parallel parked it, it was like we’d hardly moved until he pressed the accelerator and forced me hard into the back of my seat. The display of manly car-grunt complete, we settled into the little trip.

  “I have to admit, this is a really nice ride,” I told him, admiring the contrast between the beige bottom half of the dashboard and the charcoal-colored top. “Smooth, too. Feels like we’re floating.”

  “And it’s eco-friendly,” Preston said, putting on a pair of sunglasses as he merged into heavier traffic. “That’s sort of a pet interest of mine. My father owns enough factories to personally be responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer, but just because he doesn’t see how harmful it is doesn’t mean I don’t. One day, when he’s gone, I’ll change things.”

  I blinked, impressed. “You’re going to save the planet? Duly noted. Any other hobbies I should know about?”

  Preston smiled. “Well, I like sailing. I like the vastness of the ocean, how you can just ride out into the center of it and there’s no one for miles around. It’s kind of like meditating, only I don’t have to clear my mind—the sea does it for me.” Though I couldn’t see his eyes, I thought Preston looked a little wistful. “I haven’t been out there in a while, though. Not since our parents got engaged.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked him.

  He sighed, turning down one of the side streets the GPS had ordered him onto. “Ever since my father decided to remarry, he’s been gung-ho about inducting me into the family business—more so than usual. My best guess is that he’s considering an early retirement, but that he wants to keep the money flowing in without having to worry about what a board of directors might do with it in his absence. That falls on my shoulders. Hell, the honeymoon they’re planning means he’ll be gone over a month, and I guess that’s when he intends to hand over all of the control and responsibilities to me.”

  “Jeez,” I muttered, looking out the window at the city passing us by. “What the hell are they going to do for over a month, anyway?” I winced once I heard the words come out of my mouth. “Ugh, no. Don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know.”

  Preston laughed. I was beginning to like the sound of it. “Neither do I. So let’s talk about something else…” He eyed me over his shades at an intersection. “Since we’re on the subject of love lives, how’s yours?”

  I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help but smile as well. “Nonexistent. You don’t have to worry about me flying
off for over a month any time soon.”

  “Not even a boyfriend?”

  “No. Not for a while.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  I looked back over at him and sighed, shaking my head. “What about you?”

  He hesitated long enough for me to get the idea that if there was someone, it wasn’t an official someone—or at least, nobody that he wanted to admit to. I briefly wondered if Preston was the sort of man who used his wealth to rent out escorts, but then I considered how attractive he was. With those muscles and that face, there was no way he had any trouble picking up women for free, or as “free” as a billionaire could get away with, I supposed.

  “Not really,” he settled on at last. “No one I would bring home, anyway. There’s this girl, but…” He trailed off as he moved through the light. “We’re not in love, or anything. She doesn’t respect my boundaries. I called it off a few weeks ago, but she still got her claws in me. I have a feeling it’s going to get messy.”