Mail Order Stepbrother

by Ward, Kira

  He would make such a good father someday. A man with a heart like his…how could he not?

  She looked at herself in the mirror, the soft blue dress hanging from impossibly thin straps to drape just perfectly over her many curves. Nash had said she would break hearts the moment she walked into the room. She knew he was teasing, but the memory still made her blush.

  She wished he was there with her.

  “You okay, Melanie?”

  She turned and smiled at Lisa who had just come in wearing a soft pink dress that contrasted nicely with her auburn hair. “You look beautiful.”

  She blushed, self-consciously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Not as beautiful as you.”

  Melanie crossed to her and gave her a quick hug. “Well, we should go downstairs and break a few hearts, then.”

  Lisa giggled. “Uncle Burt says that all the time.”

  They walked downstairs hand in hand. They could hear the noise of the party long before they could see it. The huge sitting room that had seemed so expansive earlier now seemed small as they turned the corner. There were wall to wall people, all dressed in fancy dresses and expensive suits. Melanie had been to a lot of cocktail parties in the course of her medical career, but none of those had been anything like this. She was pretty sure she recognized multiple celebrities, including that guy she lusted after as a teenager after she saw him in a movie about international spies.

  “Is it always like this?” she asked Lisa.

  “Always.”

  Melanie grabbed a glass of champagne off a passing tray and gulped half of it down in one swallow. She was going to need the fortification of alcohol if she was going to get through this night.

  “There you are,” her mother said, coming up behind her. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

  Someone turned out to be dozens of people, most of whom Melanie already knew from the media or people whose names and professions she could hardly keep straight. She met a CEO of an international conglomerate, an actress she had watched on television weekly all through college, a movie producer responsible for one of the most controversial movies of the decade—who happened to be really nice and retrieved her a third glass of champagne—and the star of Burton’s newest film, the same one that was due to come out in a month or so. There was a lot of conversation about that film. People were expecting big things from it.

  After an hour, Melanie’s head was spinning, and they had yet to make their way halfway across the room, let alone out on the veranda where more of Burton’s guests were being entertained by a string quartet. She hadn’t seen Burton yet or the mysterious son everyone was constantly talking about. She did see Alyssa several times, coming close enough to wave from across the room.

  “This is insane,” she said close to her mother’s ear.

  “Burton’s a popular guy.”

  “What’s a casual get together like? Only a few hundred of his closest friends?”

  Her mother laughed, but she didn’t deny it.

  Melanie was shaking hands with another of Burton’s friends—the head of some Wall Street financial firm—when she thought she saw the back of a familiar head out on the veranda. By the time she was able to look again, the head was gone, but she could have sworn it was…no, it couldn’t have been.

  She’s just been thinking about him too much.

  But then there was this laugh that sounded so familiar.

  The first chance she got, Melanie grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her outside.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  Melanie shook her head even as she scanned the faces that were packed ten deep on the open stone floor. And then she heard his voice, the funny way he had of saying business—a combination of his east coast upbringing and a slight Texas twang. She spun on her heels and there, not three yards away, stood Nash.

  “What is he—“

  “That’s Burt,” her mother said. “I’ll introduce you.”

  Her mother dragged Melanie across the veranda, practically mowing people down as she went. Halfway there, Burton moved up behind Nash and laid his hand on his shoulder. Nash glanced back at him, the tension that came into his shoulders and that tick in his jaw made it pretty obvious there was bad blood between them. With them next to each other like that, however, Melanie could see…

  Her heart jumped into her throat, and she pulled her hand from her mother’s.

  “Melanie—“

  She turned and ran as quickly as she could in a formal dress through what felt like a million people between her and escape. She slipped across the yard to the porch outside the kitchen and through the side door.

  “This isn’t happening,” she whispered. “It’s not happening.”

  She paced, pressing her fingers into her hair, dislodging the careful pins the hairdresser had placed. Tears burned her eyes as the image of Nash standing beside Burton played out in her head over and over again. Why didn’t she see it before? They had the same nose, the same blue eyes. Even their mannerisms, now that she thought about it. She remembered how Burton had moved his hands while telling a story at dinner the night before, the way he was constantly spreading his fingers to put emphases on the things he was saying. Nash did that. And Nash had this way of smiling with half his mouth when he wasn’t sure he agreed with something she said. Burton did the same thing last night.

  It didn’t make sense.

  How could Nash be Burton’s son?

  “Melanie?”

  She didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to look him in the eye and see the truth there, to see all the lies he had told her. She shook her head as tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks.

  “I was going to tell you.”

  She pressed her fingers into her hair again, wishing she wasn’t standing here in a formal dress meant to turn a man’s head. She wished she was in jeans and a t-shirt, that she was wearing something that she felt confident in so that it didn’t feel like the whole world was falling apart and that she felt like she deserved it for trying to pretend to be something she wasn’t.

  “This weekend, I was going to tell you everything.”

  “Going to?” She shook her head. “That’s kind of like saying an affair is an accident, that it didn’t mean anything. It really doesn’t have the ring of truth, you know?”

  He came up behind her. She could see his shadow grow longer and thinner. But he didn’t touch her, which was good because she wasn’t sure she could handle that just then. She scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks, her hands coming away with little smears of makeup that reminded her of the expensive spa day that was now going to waste.

  “If I had known you were Amanda’s daughter—“

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Melanie—“

  “Why did you lie?” She turned around, the hurt in his eyes like little daggers stabbing her over and over again. “All this time and you didn’t even tell me your real name.”

  “Nash is my name. It’s my middle name.”

  “Your middle name?”

  “Yeah. Burton Nash Collins, Jr.”

  “And Watkins? Where does that come from?”

  “My mother.” His eyes dropped slightly. “It was her maiden name.”

  Melanie shook her head. “What else do I not know about you? How many other lies did you tell me?”

  “This one was big enough, don’t you think?”

  That quirky smile he always offered when he thought he was in trouble slipped over his lips. He reached for her, but Melanie stepped out of his reach. The smile died.

  “When I signed up for that dating site, it was to find an honest relationship”—to which Melanie snorted—“because every woman I’ve dated since college knew who I was and was only after the name, the fame, and the money. I wanted to find someone who saw me for me.” He shoved a finger into his own chest. “I wanted someone who wanted me, not because of who my father is, but because of who I am.”

 
; “But we’ve been together for weeks. Did you really distrust me that much?”

  “I…I don’t know what it was.”

  “You said you loved me.” Melanie’s voice shook a little, and she hated it, hated that he could see the pain he was causing her like it was some sort of badge she was wearing on her chest. But she needed to know. “Was that a lie, too?”

  Nash stepped back and dragged his fingers through his hair. To Melanie, that felt like an answer.

  She brushed past him and rushed up the back stairs.

  ***

  The party lasted until late in the night.

  Melanie undressed and showered, scrubbing at her flesh as though it would take away the dirty, used-up feeling that lingered. Afterward, she curled up on the bed and tried to concentrate on some mindless television. Her mother came and checked on her once. She didn’t seem to believe her when Melanie said she was feeling ill, but she didn’t push her on the topic. That was the thing about her mom. She knew Melanie well enough to know when she needed a little space.

  She didn’t sleep. All she could think about was Nash. He was somewhere in this same house, laying his head on a pillow somewhere nearby. Was he thinking about her? Or was he sleeping like a baby?

  A little before dawn, she dressed and slipped out of the house. She thought a long walk on the beach might settle her thoughts. Or, at the very least, run off some of the energy that only added to her sense of discord. She saw the sun come up, watched birds hunting for their morning meal. She passed homes that were just as, if not more so, impressive than Burton’s, and she saw bluffs that were awe-inspiring. But her thoughts were so full of Nash that it might as well been a movie set for all that she paid attention to it.

  It all felt like a lie. All those nights at her apartment, when they in bed talking about all the things they had in common—and the few things they didn’t—when he touched her and the world just fell away no matter what had happened that day…it was all just a lie.

  How did she know that anything he said to her was the truth?

  That was a thing. Maybe it was just because her heart was so desperate to be loved. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to believe that the only way a man could whisper those three little words was if he was lying. But that moment—those whispered words—were the only thing that felt genuine.

  She should go. She should go back to Dallas and forget about all of this. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much when Thanksgiving came around or whatever the next occasion would be that would require the entire family to get together again. Maybe there would come a day when it wouldn’t hurt to sit across the family dinner table from him.

  Her stepbrother.

  The thought made her cringe.

  She turned a corner and Burton’s house came into view. She paused in her step, however, when she saw Nash standing by the gate that led onto the pool deck.

  “We need to talk, Melanie.”

  She shook her head as she attempted to move around him. But he wasn’t going to let her off that easily this time.

  “It wasn’t a lie.”

  She froze, her heart the only thing moving. Even her lungs had frozen, refusing to take in the next breath.

  “I do love you, Melanie. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but I do. And I don’t want it to end.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “It was stupid. I should have told you the truth the night we met. But I was afraid it would change the way you looked at me and I so loved the way you looked at me that night…”

  She looked up at him, and something inside of her melted. She stepped forward, placed a tentative hand on his stomach. He touched her cheek, his thumb wiping away a tear as he lifted her chin. He moved into her, drawing her closer to him, and it felt more perfect than anything she had ever known before. She could already taste his kiss, could already feel his hands touching her in ways that only he had ever done. It healed some of the pain, that touch. But it didn’t make it disappear.

  She moved around him and shoved through the gate.

  ***

  She was nearly finished packing when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

  “Come in.”

  Her mother stepped gingerly through the door as though she didn’t want to expose the room to something out in the hallway. Melanie dropped a sweater into her suitcase and turned to grab a t-shirt when her mother came up beside her and took her hand.

  “I think we need to talk.”

  Melanie started to tell the lie she’d been practicing as she packed, but she could see in her mother’s face that it wasn’t necessary. She let her mother draw her over to the low lounge that stood in a corner of the room.

  “Lisa saw you and Burt together on the beach. She was all excited, came running into the dining room to ask her mother if the two of you could get married.”

  Melanie closed her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”

  “I kind of thought so.”

  Her mother held her hand as Melanie told the story, starting with the dating site, skimming over a few of the details but ending with their conversation in the kitchen the night before. When Melanie was done, her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

  “It probably didn’t help that you and I have different last names. He never would have known even if he had bothered to meet me before last night.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Melanie sighed. “The hardest thing is… I understand why he did what he did. I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell me later. We’ve been together for a month, not counting the time we spent talking over email and text messages. Surely he could have told me in that time.”

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  Melanie reached up and rubbed the tears from her cheeks. “I don’t suppose any of this is going to make things easier between him and Burton.”

  “I don’t know. Burton was very quiet when he sent Alyssa to find Burt.”

  “Maybe we should…”

  “Yeah.”

  Melanie followed her mother downstairs. They could hear voices before they even reached the sitting room. Burton and Nash were facing off on the veranda, Alyssa between them in a role Melanie got the impression she’s played quite often.

  “Are you trying to ruin us?” Burton demanded. “Are you trying to drag the family name through the mud?”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? Or are you worried about your own reputation?”

  “My reputation reflects on all of us, Burt. Do you really think the production company that Robert runs for me would exist if not for my reputation? Do you think Merchand would do as well with you at the helm if not for my reputation? Do you think any of us would have what we do if not for my reputation?”

  “Yeah, you’re the god who built everything. It’s not like we could ever forget. You wouldn’t let us.”

  “I built this so that my children would have a better life than I had when I was a child. And I will not let you screw it up.”

  “Daddy,” Alyssa said as Nash turned away, dragging his fingers through his hair as he walked toward the back of the veranda. “No one is trying to create a scandal.”

  Burton snorted, his mouth opening to say something, but then he caught sight of Melanie and her mother standing in the doorway and stopped. His eyes softened when they fell on his wife’s face, but narrowed again when he looked at Melanie.

  “He says you didn’t know.”

  Nash spun, marching back across the veranda and placing himself between Burton and Melanie.

  “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Oh, I think she had quite a bit to do with it,” Burton said. “She is, after all, the source of the problem.”

  “Your problem is with me. She didn’t know who I was.”

  “But she knows now. This needs to be contained, and she needs to understand that.”

  Melanie watched the tension sing in the muscles acros
s Nash’s back. She could see him biting his tongue, fighting not to say things that he couldn’t take back. It hurt to watch him. She wanted to go to him, to soothe away some of the pain he was in. But she didn’t move, she didn’t go to him. She just stood there in the doorway holding her mother’s hand.

  “This is not a business problem that can simply be swept under the rug. This is my life, my problem,” Nash said. “It’s really none of your business.”

  “She’s your sister, Burt.”

  Nash shook his head even as the color drained from Alyssa’s face. Melanie looked at her mother, the reality of what Burton had just said sinking in. She had been so focused on the fact that Nash lied to her that she hadn’t fully considered the legal aspects of their relationship.

  “She’s not—“

  “I’m married to her mother. She is your stepsister.” Burton touched his son’s shoulder, but Nash quickly shook him off. “Can’t you see how the press would run with that knowledge?” He spread his hands as he suggested several potential headlines, “’Collins Son Involved with Stepsister’, ‘All in the family in the Collins Family’. The press would have a field day with all this.”

  Nash shook his head, but he didn’t argue. There really was no argument.

  Melanie’s cellphone began to ring as they all stood there in silence. It was on vibrate, but it was her habit to check it no matter what was happening around her. It could be a patient. And as it turned out, it was.

  “Tess?”

  “Dr. Spence, something’s wrong. Something’s horribly wrong. Eli—“

  “Slow down, Tess,” Melanie said, turning away from the scene unfolding in front of her and stepped back into the house. “Tell me his symptoms.”

  “Fever. He’s been running a fever since like two in the morning. And now he won’t stop crying.”

  “Check his incision. Is it red? Is there anything coming out of it?”

  Melanie could hear Tess moving close to the baby, could hear his tortured cries. She instinctively knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Babies don’t cry like that when there’s nothing wrong.