Mine - A Stepbrother Romance

by Daire, Caitlin

  Christ, I was digging myself deeper and deeper. ‘You’re not a bitch but you kind of are’, what the hell was that? Someone needed to slap me right about now.

  “Can we talk about it later?” she asked. “I sort of just need to vent about my Dad right now. Crap. I mean Tom. I still keep thinking of him as ‘Dad’.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I’m holding you to that. By the end of the night, you’re gonna tell me exactly what I did to get on your bad side. Anyway, back to Tom…why did you go to see him?”

  She filled me in on the whole story, and I listened intently, not even taking a bite of my food for five minutes after it arrived.

  “Jesus,” I said when she finished talking. “That’s pretty heavy. Wanna know what I think?”

  She took a quick nibble of her chicken and then peered at me. “Sure.”

  “I know you’re hurting, but I think Roy was right. It might not feel like it now, but it was a good idea for you to see Tom. Since you found out about this, you haven’t been sure whether your Mom actually knew about it, right? The kidnapping thing, that is.”

  “Uh-huh. I mean, he told the cops she didn’t know, but I was never sure if that was true.”

  “Exactly. You needed to hear him say it to your face, otherwise it would have been hanging over your head for the rest of your life with you wondering whether or not your Mom was complicit in your kidnapping. And now you know she wasn’t, and all the good memories you have of her won’t be tarnished anymore.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re right. But I just…it was so hard sitting there and hearing him insinuate that he didn’t ever love me. We were never exactly close, but I didn’t realize how much that could hurt.”

  I took a sip of wine before replying. “I think he did love you in his own way, but he just can’t say it. I’m not defending the man or condoning what he did in any way, but he must have felt fucking awful for what he did. That guilt probably ate him up and made it hard for him to express any emotions towards you.”

  “He didn’t feel bad enough to not do it in the first place,” she said before gulping down her entire glass of wine in a few mouthfuls. “Hey, this really does have a candy floss aftertaste.”

  “Easy there, alco,” I said. “And yeah, I know. He still did it, and I doubt anyone’s ever going to forgive him for that. But just think about it…well, you know what Roy said to you earlier about he was at least partially grateful to Tom for taking care of you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I kinda get what he means. If he really didn’t give a shit about you, he could’ve just chucked you out on the street the minute your Mom died. You wouldn’t believe how many terrible people there are out there who would actually do that to a kid. But he didn’t. He kept you and looked after you.”

  “I guess.”

  Her lips tightened and she began to look morose again, and I sighed. If I was really going to make her feel better, then it was time to start sharing.

  “You aren’t the only one who has a bad history with Dads,” I said. “Believe me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “My Dad doesn’t give a fuck about me. He’s some movie producer my mother met and married for about five seconds when she was shooting some drama thing. He gave her money and everything to support me after they split when I was a baby, not that she really needed more money, but he never bothered to get to know me.”

  “Oh, wow. I had no idea,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t talk about it much. I went to visit him once when I was thirteen. I had this whole stupid idea in my head that he’d see me and suddenly feel something and want to bond with me. Go fishing, kick a ball around, that kinda crap.”

  “And?”

  “He gave me a hundred bucks and told me to go get some lunch, and then promptly forgot I was even there. I just flew back home to my mother and never spoke to him again, which he didn’t even seem to notice. Seven years since then and not a single call or letter.”

  “That’s terrible.” She downed her second glass of wine and then rubbed her temples. “I’m already starting to feel a bit tipsy.”

  “Cheap date, huh?” I said with a grin. “It’s all right. After the day you’ve had, you need to unwind and have a drink or two.”

  “Or ten.”

  She concentrated on her food for a while, and we sat in silence.

  “It’s not just this whole Tom thing bothering me,” she said quietly a moment later, putting her fork down.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s everything. This all happened so suddenly. One minute I’m making just above minimum wage and the next I have all of this along with a brand new family.”

  She gestured towards the Balenciaga handbag the personal stylist had picked out for her and then continued. “It feels so weird to me. Roy’s given me all these credit cards, and there’s even some bank account he set up for me years ago in case I was ever returned to him. Like a trust fund sort of thing. I’m too scared to even look at it, because I know it’ll be some massive number I can barely comprehend. I feel guilty over it all for some reason. Don’t you ever feel strange just having all this stuff?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I was born into it. It just seems normal to me. But I do get where you’re coming from. It must be fucking weird going from one extreme to the other.”

  “And not even just that,” she said. “Everyone treats me so differently now. I have friggin’ maids taking care of my washing and everything else at home, and they just speak to me so…so deferentially. Like I’m royalty or something.”

  I chuckled. “Tell me about it. I’ve never really done anything worth mentioning, yet people are always falling over themselves to get a piece of me, all because I fell out of some famous actress’s vagina twenty years ago.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I doubt you fell out.”

  “Fine. Squeezed out.”

  I shuddered, and she grinned. “Not a fan of thinking about babies?” she asked.

  “Nah, I love kids. Just the thought of being pregnant and giving birth freaks me out. I don’t know how you women do it.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You like kids?” she asked, the skepticism in her voice clear.

  “Yeah, of course I do. They’re awesome.”

  “Huh. Okay, I just figured most guys your age get all freaked out about that kinda stuff,” she replied.

  “Nah. I mean, I’m not saying I want a bunch of them right now, but I do like them. They’re cool to hang around. Speaking of kids, did I tell you what my mother did once?”

  “No?”

  I told her the story about the African kid she’d adopted and then sent back home when she got sick of him, and her jaw practically dropped to the floor.

  “Layla…she did that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh my god. She’s always seemed so…”

  “So amazing? Yeah, I know. She’s full of it. She knows exactly how to play the media. But trust me, that Malawi story is just the icing on the cake.”

  “Well, I guess I know why you have a problem with her now.”

  She sipped on her wine, still looking utterly gobsmacked at my revelation.

  “Sorry to change the subject, but back to what I was saying earlier about all the money…you don’t think I’m using Roy, do you?”

  I furrowed my brows. “No. What do you mean?”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “Yet another entry on the list of my issues at the moment. I’m worried people will think I only came back to meet Roy so I could get my hands on his money. You should’ve heard what Victoria said the other day. She pretty much implied that I don’t deserve anything just because I haven’t been around for the last nineteen years and acted like the only reason I’m even here is for the cash bonus.”

  “Don’t listen to that bitch,” I said. “She’s fucking crazy. You know many times she’s tried to sleep with me? Doesn’t matter how many times I knock her back, she just keeps trying to latch on. She wants
money and power, and she’ll do anything to get it.”

  A waiter brought us dessert; a selection of gelatos, and Arizona tucked into a white chocolate and coconut flavored one with gusto.

  “Sorry,” she said between mouthfuls. “I must look like such a pig.”

  I chuckled and shook my head. It was refreshing to see a girl who would actually eat something. These days every second chick was on some gluten-free, vegan raw food diet and addicted to Pilates and Crossfit. Either that or they subsisted on coffee and cigarettes. I’d always hated that bone-thin look on women. Give me a nice curvy body any day, thanks.

  “I forgot to ask,” she said. “What exactly were you doing in L.A. the other week? You were there for a while. Just more charity events, right?”

  “Yeah, my mother had some charity stuff she was meant to do, but she was busy on some yoga retreat with Emile, her life partner or whatever the fuck he is.”

  “Life coach, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” I snorted. “He’s such a tosser. Anyway, she sent me in her place. I do it all the time, as you’ve probably noticed. I work for your Dad sometimes as well.”

  “What do you actually want to do, though? Like, with your life in general.”

  I shrugged. Wasn’t that the eternal question? People had been asking me what I wanted to do with my life since I was in my early teens. I was supposed to have it all figured out, but honestly, who knew what they wanted to spend the rest of their life doing when they were only fourteen? I doubted most people ever really figured it out, no matter what age they got to.

  “I dunno. I like the charity stuff, and I wouldn’t mind working for one, but it’s just really shitty sometimes. So many of them don’t even do all that much, and something like ninety percent of the donations actually go towards paying for campaigns and staff salaries. So not much ends up going towards the people or causes that need it. I wish there were more that didn’t exist purely for profit like that.”

  She shot me a look that suggested she’d just been handed a doctor’s report stating that I had the IQ of a gnat. “You know things like that do exist, right? They’re called nonprofit organizations.”

  I snorted. “Okay, I know what a nonprofit is. I’m not that dumb. But they have their own problems. Low incentive for staff to keep working at them because of the smaller pay packages. That kinda stuff.”

  “I still think it’s a worthy thing to pursue if that’s what you want to do. I mean, a person like you would be perfect to work at one or run one. You’ve already got your own money to live off, so it doesn’t matter if the job benefits aren’t great.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Like I was saying before, I like kids, and there’s a few nonprofit kids charities around here that do pretty good stuff. Roy actually donates to some of them.”

  “Is there anything about my real Dad that isn’t awesome?” she asked, resting her chin on her hands.

  “Yeah, well he somehow managed to father you, so that’s definitely a problem.”

  She balled up a napkin and threw it at me. “Oh, shut up.”

  “Seriously, though…he’s like any other person. Everyone has issues. He went through a lot when you disappeared and then later when your Mom died. I wasn’t around back then to see it all, obviously, but even up until he found you he was seeing a psych to deal with it all. I know because my mother was complaining about it to her friend once, saying that if that information got out to the public, then his stock price might plummet because shareholders don’t want to invest in a company run by a ‘crazy person’.”

  “Jesus. Layla said that?”

  She looked genuinely shocked all over again, and I grinned. “See? Told you she’s not the amazing person everyone makes her out to be. I wasn’t exaggerating before.”

  “Wow. Talk about shattering the illusion. You know, she actually has made a few comments to me recently, but I figured I was overreacting.”

  “Comments?” I asked.

  “About my weight. Implying I’m chubby or something.”

  I frowned. “Oh yeah, she has. Like at that media lunch thing. It’s pretty typical of her. In my senior year of high school, I was stressed about exams and stopped exercising as much. Gained about five pounds. She made me get a personal trainer and tried to put me on some bullshit diet.”

  “Five pounds? You’re six foot two. An extra five pounds wouldn’t even show up on you!”

  I smiled ruefully. “I know. That’s Layla for you.”

  We chatted for a while longer, and before I knew it, five glasses of wine had disappeared down Arizona’s throat. Glancing at my watch, I realized we’d been at the restaurant for three hours already. Her eyes were beginning to look bleary, and I paid the check and then patted her hand across the table.

  “Come on. I think we need to get you home before you pass out.”

  She nodded and rubbed her eyes, and as she stood up she almost fell straight over.

  “Oh crap,” she moaned. “I really did drink too much. It’s all going to my head now.”

  “I did tell you to slow down,” I teased before linking my arm in hers and helping her out onto the sidewalk so she didn’t stumble over her own feet.

  It had just started to rain outside, and I frowned. My car was all the way down the street in an uncovered spot.

  “I don’t have an umbrella on me. You wait here, and I’ll run down to where I parked my car and bring it back around so you don’t have to get wet,” I said.

  “What? No, it’s fine! You don’t like rain?” she replied, running out from under cover and twirling around with her hands in the air.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, watching her with a bemused expression.

  She grinned at me. “Didn’t you ever dance in the rain when you were a kid? I used to love it. Everything smells so clean and fresh.”

  She began to hum to music only she could hear in her drunken mind, and the rain poured down over her, soaking her hair and thin cardigan. Droplets ran down her face in rivulets, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. A chill wind picked up in the night sky, and under the street lights I could see the faint outline of her nipples as they hardened under her blouse.

  As she giggled, spun and twirled, I watched her with fascination. She looked so happy, so innocent, and I couldn’t help but grin as she continued to dance like she didn’t have a care in the world. This was good for her. She’d had a shitty day, and if she wanted to act like a crazy person and dance in the pouring rain, then all the more power to her. Seeing her without tears clouding her eyes like they had earlier made something deep inside me feel all warm and fuzzy despite the chill in the air.

  “Come on!” she said, waving her hands at me. “It’s fun!”

  Suddenly something hit me like a ton of bricks. The reason I hadn’t been able to think about fucking another chick in weeks. The reason I let her speak to me however she wanted without even getting all that mad. The reason I cared about whether she was happy or not.

  I had it bad for Arizona. I was falling for my stepsister.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MASON

  “Come on,” I said, stepping out into the rain and sweeping her up in my arms. She’d been having a lot of fun, but she was starting to look like she might pass out.

  She nestled her head against my chest as I carried her down the street towards my car, and I inhaled deeply as the vanilla scent of her hair drifted upwards.

  “Where are we going?” she murmured.

  “Home,” I said. “You’ll catch a cold if you keep standing in the rain, as much fun as it looks like.”

  “Colds are a virus. You can’t catch them from rain,” she replied, and I grinned.

  “Drunk off your skull and yet you’re still a smartass.”

  I reached the car, turning to the side so I could open the passenger door with the same hand I was using to hold up her ass. Her pencil skirt had ridden up in my arms, and I tried to ignore the fact that her smooth, bare skin was in direct c
ontact with my palms. I deposited her into the car and made sure her seatbelt was done up, and her head lolled forward slightly.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be home soon, and you can go straight to bed,” I said.

  The rain cleared up after half an hour, and Arizona leaned back against the headrest and tilted her head to the side, staring out the window. We’d just arrived back in Newport, and soon we were passing the marina. It was lit up by lights from yachts and other small watercraft.

  “D’you have a boat?” she asked, slightly slurring her words as she looked out over the water.

  “Nah.”

  She widened her eyes and poked me. “What? I thought all rich people had boats. At least that’s what I learned from 90210. Or was it Gossip Girl?”

  “Well, I don’t,” I said, not really wanting to get into it. There was a reason I stayed the hell away from sailing and large bodies of water in general, but she didn’t need to hear my entire life history. It wasn’t like my life was some lame college-aged romance novel where she’d fall in love with me and miraculously cure all my issues.

  “Well, you’re not good at being rich, then,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. “Here I was thinking you were all preppy and stuck-up.”

  I snorted. “Me, preppy? You serious?”

  She folded her arms and stared at me. “Didn’t you go to that boarding school for a while? Exeter?”

  “Andover.”

  She stuck her tongue out again. “See? Prep.”

  “I got expelled in my sophomore year,” I said.

  “Oh, whatever,” she replied. “Still counts.”

  We arrived back at the house, and I held onto her once again as we walked through the front door. Our house manager Jan was just leaving for the night.

  “Hey, Jan,” I said. “Where’s Roy?”

  “Late business meeting,” she said. “He told me to leave some food in the fridge for you two. I made saltimbocca.”

  “We already ate, but thanks,” I said. “I’ll have some for lunch tomorrow. What about my mother?”

  She shrugged. “I think she’s at a personal training session with that Emile character.”