I was truly stumped. I mean, usually girls hang on way too long, hoping to wheedle something from me, sticking around when they should have beat feet long ago. But I’d been focused on Sterling Pharmaceuticals for so long that I’d forgotten what a real woman could be like. I stumbled back into the party like a dazed man, the noise and crowded sea of bodies disorienting after the mind-blowing sex I’d just had.
There was no trace of the curvy brunette in the room but someone else clearly had her radar on high. That blonde from before, the one shimmying seductively with her friends in the living room came up and “accidentally” brushed against me, grazing me with her tits. I want to say they were soft and jiggly, but that bitch had a boob job and it wasn’t the expensive kind. Her implants were like fucking rocks.
“Heya stranger,” she cooed, flipping that blonde hair over her shoulder. “Care to dance?”
I knew it was all a ruse. The blonde knew exactly who I was and how much I was worth. Plus, it was disgusting and profane to dance with another woman when I’d just been deep in the brunette’s body, but the blonde pulled me to the center and wound her arms around my neck, nuzzling me, cooing with saccharine, dove-like noises. Ugh. Fuck me. At the end of the night, I growled some vague promises to “see her again” and “keep in touch,” my mind still on the amazing fuck session with the brunette.
But lo and behold, early Monday morning there was a message.
“Mr. Sterling, Jenna called,” chirped my secretary.
“Who?” I shook my head mystified. It’d been a long weekend.
“Jenna Walsh, from the party?” parroted Mary Beth. “She said to tell you that she’ll meet you at L’Osseria tonight as planned,” added MB.
Oh fuck. I hazily remembered saying something about getting together but it was a brush-off, the usual thing that you say at the end of the night. How the fuck did this become a concrete dinner date?
But reader, I went to the restaurant that night. I had more free time than I’d had in years and figured I had to eat anyways. Hey, maybe a dinner out would take my mind off the mystery brunette.
But one date with Jenna became two, then three, and pretty soon she was staying over nights, commuting down to her law classes or whatnot in the Valley. On paper, she was perfect. A great student, an environmental activist, sharp as a whip and beautiful to boot. I was roundly slapped on the back after my friends met her, congratulating me on snagging this up and coming beauty with brains.
But it just felt fake you know? For one, I’d been asking around under the table for the brunette, trying to locate her. I’d thought about hiring a private investigator but it seemed too desperate and I was sure that our circle of friends would bring us together again. San Francisco is a small city, we were bound to bump into each other.
But my discreet efforts yielded nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. It was like Tina had disappeared into thin air. I even tried asking Jenna in a roundabout way once, only to be met with a stone wall.
“Hey, you remember the night we met?” I began off-handedly, trying to appear casual.
“Oh yeah baby, I remember,” she cooed, toeing my bulge with her feet. Jenna has a bad habit of putting her legs in my lap which I hate because her feet are disgusting-looking, bent and withered like an old crone despite her weekly pedicures. It’s odd how someone so beautiful up above has such ugly appendages down below.
But I charged ahead.
“Did you see a brunette there? Maybe 5’5”, curly hair, plaid shirt, and those eyeglasses that hipsters wear? She looked like she could be a law student.”
“Why?” the blonde asked curiously. “She someone to you?” Jenna queried.
“Nah,” I laughed nonchalantly. “It’s just that Cade met her and thought she was cute, he wanted to get her number,” I lied through my teeth.
“Oh,” said Jenna. “Well, I have no idea who that was,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Sounds like no one. Why would your brother be interested in someone like that, anyways?” she asked. “He’s got mega-bucks to his name, can’t he do better?”
I shrugged, unwilling to say more. “Just thought you might know. I mean, you knew a lot of folks at that party, you and your law school friends. How did you even hear about the event?” I asked casually. There had been a lot of randoms that night.
“Oh you know, word gets out,” said Jenna. “We’re just poor students and when one person gets invited to a rockin’ party in the city, it’s kind of like an invitation to all of us. We drive up en masse and see what we can crash. Worst comes to worst, we’ll just drive back down or find a bar in the City to party at,” she added.
Yeah, these “poor” students. I’d been on campus once to give a guest lecture at the law school, and that place was a palace for rich kids. There was wi-fi in every room, every student had a laptop, and the campus was gorgeous – like a giant country club, if you ask me. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t people on scholarship but at the same time, I could tell a lot of these kids were headed to lucrative careers as lawyers to companies that can pay … like Sterling Pharma.
I dropped the issue. Jenna could be a jealous bitch and I didn’t want to pique her suspicions with more probing into the whereabouts of my missing brunette. It was sad, but sometimes I lay awake nights thinking back to our explosive coupling, the curvy body, the feel of Tina cushioning me between her virgin flesh. I shouldn’t have left her alone after fucking that delectable body. Damnit, what had I been thinking?
But it was too late to cry over spilled milk. After several more fruitless attempts to identify the brunette, I gave up and now here I was, months later, engaged to be married. The sparkler on Jenna’s finger was a total shocker, for one. I’d seen a charge on my credit card statement from Harry Winston and thought what the fuck? Jenna bought herself a piece of jewelry costing a cool hundred thou? I was going to speak with her about it, but she beat me to the punch. At a dinner party that night, she pulled it out during appetizers, the females oohing and ahhing like a fucking Greek chorus. I’d practically choked when I saw what it was.
“See?” she said proudly, letting the lights bounce off a five-carat diamond, blinding almost everyone in the room. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Jake picked it out, I knew he’d been eyeing it,” she cooed, winking at me.
And I didn’t say a word because it just wasn’t the place or time. The guests fawned over our hostess some more before turning back to the food. I was steaming under the collar but what was I going to do? We were in the middle of a fancy dinner party, and I could hardly stand up and stalk out, leaving a gaggle of gossip in my wake.
Instead, I was an automaton going through the motions, bidding goodnight to my friends as they left, Jenna at my side playing the gracious hostess. I knew it looked right on the outside, the handsome couple with their beautiful San Francisco penthouse, perfectly matched, my dark complementing her light, everything in sync. But I felt oddly hollow. It was just a ruse, I wanted to roar. Everything you see is fake. Look at her tits! This chick has the fakest fake tits, rubbery and heavy, and if you punched her in the face I bet your hand would come glancing back at you, her cheeks and lips are so full of filler.
But I was silent, miserable with no clue how to dig myself out of this hole. It sounds perverse, I know. The CEO, with multitudes of employees at his command, an empire to run, and I couldn’t shake this blonde who dogged me like bad hand.
“Brother,” said Matt, “If you’re not feeling it, just call off the wedding, fuck the deposits, fuck the flowers, who the fuck cares? If it ain’t right, it ain’t right.”
Matt is the marketing whiz of our group, closest to me in age, older brother to Caleb and Cade. After our parents divorced, Matt stayed in the Midwest with Mom and Caleb while Dad moved Cade and I to San Francisco. But the distance was nothing. The four of us were close and worked as a team now, guiding Sterling through the choppy waters of the pharma industry.
“Brother,” repeated Matt. “A bitch is a bitch is a bitch,” h
e concluded, downing a shot of whisky in a gulp. “Better to lose your money to the markets than to some fucking ho,” he drawled. Growing up in Wyoming, Matt has a country accent and farm boy persona, but buyer beware – Matt’s sharp as a whip, graduating summa from the University of Wyoming and getting a Ph.D. shortly thereafter. Sterling product is popular in the drug industry in part due to his efforts pushing our brand and the money lining my pocket proved it.
“Fuck I know,” I growled, “but the thing is I don’t have a reason to break it off, you know, something concrete.”
“You ain’t gotta have no reason,” drawled Matt. “The bitch ain’t kosher, you don’t buy,” he said with finality. I guess he was right and I needed the kick in the ass. Fuck me. Fuck my life.
“I’m gonna find a way out of this, this is so fucking unbelievable and has gone far beyond what I ever imagined. Fuck me,” I repeated again.
“You do you, brother,” said Matt, downing another shot. “I’ll see you at the family dinner tonight, yeah?” he said. “Dad says he’s bringing his new fiancée, and you’re bringing yours right? Or should I say … your soon to be ex?” he queried, an eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. “The fucking doll needs to be kicked to the curb, I’m just gonna do it after this dinner is over. I mean, why the fuck should I throw a shadow on Dad’s announcement? He’s been single for so long, it’s a miracle he finally found someone to put up with his ornery ass,” I said.
“Whatevs,” shrugged Matt. “Do it on your own time but that blonde has a way of testing your limits like I’ve never seen,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, you were the one who was never going to get married, and now some chick’s got your ring on her finger? Damn man, and it’s not even someone you like.”
I didn’t bother to reply, pushing back roughly from the bar.
“Listen, I’ll see you there tonight,” I grunted. “Don’t be late.”
And now here I was, dressed in a suit with Jenna on my arm, looking around for my family. It should be a substantial party. Supposedly Dad was going to introduce us four boys to his fiancée, and then meet her four daughters at a separate dinner. Only at a later date would the two families combine. What a happy Brady Bunch ending, my ass.
“Sir, please follow me,” said the hostess, beckoning us in her wake. Jenna strode forward only to stop short when she reached the designated table. I, too, froze when I saw who was there, turned to stone by the turn of events.
“Mom?” said Jenna. “Tina?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Tina
I must have looked like a startled rabbit. I couldn’t speak for a moment, my throat going dry, my vision oddly hazy. My twin had been oddly evasive lately, barely spending time at home, dodging my questions and looking shifty whenever I asked what was going on.
“Look Tina, butt out okay?” she sniffed haughtily. “I’m doing fine in class and you’re just jealous I have a boyfriend whereas you’re still … you,” she said, shrugging. “Can’t you do something with your hair? It’s such … I dunno, curls are out, can’t you get a blow out or something?”
I brushed my hair back self-consciously but it was no use. The curls sprang back into place like springs, a halo around my face. But I was sick of my sister’s nasty attitude and revealed some claws of my own.
“You tell me what’s going or find another driver,” I hissed. “I’m through chauffeuring you around.”
That sparked some fear in Jenna’s heart given that Ubers don’t exactly come on campus. “Oh Teen, you know, I have a boyfriend up in the City now. In fact,” she confided, her voice hushed, “he proposed two days ago. He gave me a massive diamond ring but I can’t wear it around campus because other girls would be jealous.”
I immediately sniffed something amiss. Jenna would never hold back on bling, especially if it’d make her the envy of other women. Either the diamond was flawed or she was making this all up.
“Fine, do whatever you want,” I said stiffly. “But don’t come to me if you need my notes before exams.”
“Oh Teen,” Jenna wheedled, cocking her head sassily. “It’s just Contracts this time,” she said. “I only missed two classes and I need your help.”
“No way,” I said firmly. “There’s still three weeks before the final, do your own reading. Besides, why don’t you study at your boyfriend’s? Does he not have a desk or something?”
“Because he wants me to be his hostess,” she whined. “We go out almost every night, I swear it’s a job unto itself. But Teen,” she confided. “Tonight I’m meeting his dad and brothers,” she said with a dramatic air. “For someone who’s engaged, it’s about time I met his family,” she added, pouting.
I sighed again. Jenna was onto another adventure, complete with fancy dinners and beautiful clothes. Meanwhile, I was just having dinner with our Mom … again. Okay, fine. A date with Mom. I had an hour to get ready before driving up to the City.
“Listen Jenna,” I said. “Just be careful okay? You’ve told me nothing about this guy, you’ve missed a ton of class, and it’s weird, okay? Everyone at school is wondering what’s going on since you disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“I just have a private life, okay?” she snapped. “Butt out Tina, I’m fine.”
I sighed again and headed up the stairs. What could I do? I started changing and bracing myself for a tête-à-tête with Mother.
CHAPTER SIX
Jake
The brunette was like a startled deer, her caramel eyes wide, almost quivering at the sight of me. He curls were riotous, streaming about her shoulders, and she was wearing a flannel dress. It was definitely her. The girl from the party, the one who I’d had the amazing sex with, was at this family dinner.
“Mom?” asked Jenna again, staring at an older woman sitting next to my dad. “What are you doing here?” she demanded in a rush, her eyebrows beetled as her face turned an unflattering shade of red.
The older woman was gracious and elegant, a genteel, older version of Jenna. Her blonde hair was swept back and she wore an expensive suit, laying one hand gently over my father’s.
“Jenna, I should ask the same thing,” she purred smoothly. “Harold was going to introduce me to his sons tonight … but evidently you already know one of them,” she said, nodding at me.
Before I could react, a familiar deep drawl interrupted from behind us. “Heya fam,” grinned Matt from behind us, his black hair damp, his smile disarmingly friendly though sharp as a razor. He stared blankly at Jenna before turning to the older woman.
“You must be Mary,” he growled before leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek.
I was fucking stunned. This woman was my dad’s fiancée and also Jenna’s mother? Even more unreal, Tina was here for some reason … the brunette of my wet dreams making an appearance in the most unlikely of places. What the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck?
Jenna stuttered like a stuck lawn sprinkler before my father stood up, taking the reins. Harold wore an expensive suit, but fancy clothes can’t hide that he’s a bear of a man, a man who works with his hands as a successful general contractor. “Mary, Tina, Jenna,” he said courteously, nodding at the women. “Meet my rascal sons, Jake and Matt. Although it seems there’s some intra-family dating going on here,” he said with a deep chuckle.
Holy fucking shit. Tina was Jenna’s sister? The woman I’d fucked senseless at the party was going to be my sister-in-law? What the fuck was happening?
The brunette looked just as mystified, her eyes wide but observant, her lips trembling oh so slightly. Those luscious pink lips … their pale curve and slight glisten made me tremble, my body hardening immediately. How it felt to see those lips envelop my stiff cock …
But I was shaken out of my trance by Jenna, pouting and rattling at my arm. “Jakey,” she said. “My mom is evidently getting married to your dad … so we’ll be step-siblings,” she said with a sneer of disgust. “But whatever, it’s not like we’re rela
ted or anything. In fact, we’re all adults so no one can tell us what to do,” she tossed off breezily, shaking her blonde hair over a shoulder. “Jakey’s already bought me a five-carat stunner, you know … check it out,” she said, waving the ring beneath her mother’s nose.
Tina went completely still at the sight of the massive rock on my fiancee’s hand. Her expression betrayed nothing but a hot flush crept up her cheeks and her breathing quickened. Before I could interrupt, Mary murmured her approval.
“Well Jenna honey, it looks like you’ve done well for yourself. Jake and Matt, please take a seat,” she said graciously. “Harold, where are your younger sons? I’d love to get a look at them too … and see if they have my other daughters in tow,” she added mischievously. “The world is so small maybe Karina and Callie have flown out from New York, who knows? It’s already been a day of surprises,” the blonde said with a wry smile for the group.
“I’d say,” Harold growled in return, turning to the older woman with adoring eyes. “With social media and everyone traveling in such small circles, who knows what’ll happen next?” he shrugged.
“Hear, hear,” chimed Matt, raising a glass. “Here’s to coincidences … and new beginnings,” he said with a pointed glance at me.
What the fuck? What was my brother getting at? Obviously he knew I felt nothing for my so-called fiancée, but did he have any idea of who Tina was to me? Had he guessed? Suddenly, Matt’s intentions become clear. My fucking brother was gazing with silent appreciation at the brunette’s curves, letting his eyes trail over her ample cleavage, savoring the slim white hand that held a wine glass aloft. I was filled with a murderous, red-haze rage. “Mary, Harold, to you,” I said through gritted teeth. “And to the Sterlings,” I managed, shooting my brother a fuck-you look.
But Matt was oblivious. He’d sidled into the seat next to the curvy brunette and was already making small talk, chit-chatting about some bullshit, probably some touching story of growing up on a ranch, playing with lambs, girls love that shit. But I realized I knew almost nothing about my mystery brunette, my frustration and powerlessness overwhelming. I needed to stop this fucking farce from going any further.
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