Heated: A Stepbrother Romance (Full Length Novel) Read online

  HEATED

  A Stepbrother Romance

  By

  Stephanie Brother

  © 2015 Stephanie Brother

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Heated: A Stepbrother Romance

  About This Book:

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  About Stephanie Brother

  Stepbrother: Alpha Billionaire (excerpt)

  Also By Stephanie Brother

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author's imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  About This Book:

  He was a jerk, but she loved him, that was the first problem. The second? He was her stepbrother.

  Dante Hix. An alpha male. A billionaire at 21. A God.

  Three years already and she still wasn't over him. What the hell was she thinking going back again now?

  If she had any sense she wouldn't have, but if she had any money she wouldn't have needed to either. Broke, with bills piling up, there was only one way left for her to turn.

  She had to see him.

  And then when she did, she knew immediately. It was going to happen again.

  He asked her to dance for him, but it could have been anything. Stupid Sash didn't realize exactly what that meant.

  All that time later and she was still doing the same. Her clothes on the floor, his body pressed up against hers, her hand on her belly.

  A wish.

  If she gave him what he wanted, he could never run away.

  This is the complete collection of the serialized novel - Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby.

  If scorching hot, taboo romance and head-strong, alpha male billionaires that will stop at nothing to get what they want aren't your thing, please look away now.

  ***

  Excerpt

  She's sat when he enters, waiting patiently, the door opening so silently she is unaware of it. Dante closes in on the glass. He stands there casually with his hands in his pockets, taking a moment to admire his stepsister, before he intends to make his presence known.

  It's been a long time since he's been able to do this, since he's been able to look at her without her knowing she's being looked at, and he wants to take advantage of it for as long as he can. On the raised stage, in hot pants and a tight white vest top that hugs the contours of her body, his stepsister looks like she's being exhibited. To him, she looks like the visual representation of a long held dream, better even then he remembers her. She uncrosses her legs and sits forward slightly, as though suddenly realizing she may no longer be alone.

  "Is there anyone there?" she asks. "hello?"

  HEATED:

  A Stepbrother Romance

  by

  Stephanie Brother

  Chapter 1

  Sash stands anxiously at the counter, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

  Behind her, a large line of people snakes towards the center of the supermarket, irritated customers happy to glare at her angrily.

  "Come on, please", she quietly whispers to herself.

  Every so often she cranes her neck to try and look at the register, before looking back to her left, horrified to see someone else join the enormous queue.

  The plump assistant clicks chewing gum against her teeth while she waits for the machine to tell her what to do next. Her skin is so fake-tanned and dented by acne, she looks like a gigantic orange. Next to her, Sash could be a completely different species. She's compact but perfectly proportioned, with delicate features and gorgeous eyes.

  The human orange looks from the computer up to Sash and blinks slowly, one eyelid slightly behind the other, like a treefrog waking up.

  "Denied", she says lazily.

  Clack goes the chewing gum against her teeth.

  "That can't be", Sash says. "I put money in there on Wednesday."

  "Today is Friday", the assistant says flatly, as though Sash may have overlooked a crucial piece of information. "Maybe it went somewhere else on the days in between?"

  "What's the hold up?"

  An irritated voice comes from the queue behind her.

  People tap their toes impatiently. Others drum their fingers on the long since stopped conveyor belt. A child folds his arms, mimicking his scruffily dressed father.

  "Let me try again", Sash says. "It must be a problem with the machine."

  Moving at a snail's pace, seemingly unaffected by the enormity of the queue that has begun to swell so much it's now impossible to see the end of it, the assistant rubs her fingers along the black stripe of the credit card and langorously re-swipes it. Any slower and her heart would stop.

  The till hums. The eyelids blink, out of synchronization. She pauses briefly, like a game show host at the moment before revealing the winner of a year long event.

  "De-nied", she says again, emphasizing the first syllable of the word.

  Someone's hands go up in the air.

  "Come on. That's four times now. It isn't going to work."

  "Do you have another card?"

  The assistant hands back her broken one.

  Sash looks down at her shopping. A bottle of wine, a pre-packaged salad, a beef steak, a punnet of strawberries, a health food bar to eat on the way home. She rifles through her purse, practically tipping the coins out in front of her to count them.

  "This is ridiculous."

  The voice belongs to the same man from the queue behind her, his arms still folded across his chest. Others nod their heads in agreement.

  One says, mostly to himself, "call the manager already."

  "I have three dollars, eighty six cents."

  Sash looks down pitifully at the coins.

  The assistant looks at the shopping. She looks at Sash and then she looks at the till. "That's not going to be enough."


  ***

  Outside, the sky has clouded over.

  Sash looks up into the black stormy swirls as though expecting to find a reasonable answer there. Instead, all she gets is a spot of light rain dampening her cheek. She feels like the world is spitting on her.

  "Looks like it's rolling in again."

  An old lady holds on to her hat while she passes, in case a sudden gust of wind might blow it off.

  Sash sighs.

  "What happened to the fucking sun?"

  At the entrance to the train station, a dark skinned man taps enthusiastically on upturned plastic buckets with a wooden kitchen spoon. Sash pauses for a moment to listen, losing herself pleasurably in the hollow, vibrant sounds.

  The man blinks at her kindly to say hello, lifting the corner of his mouth into a smile, and tilting the top of his head downwards, in a way in which Sash mistakes for an attempt to indicate the collection hat on the ground in front of him.

  She smiles sweetly at the old man, whose leather skin reminds her of her grandfather, immediately embarrassed she can't tip him. As if she's already outstayed her welcome, she heads into the station, rushing quickly towards the train that's already pulled up to her platform.

  Her three dollars eighty six cents were just enough to buy the health food bar and leave a sufficient amount for the train ticket home. Digging it out of her purse now, she realizes for the first time, in her haste to get out of the supermarket, she's bought the only flavor she doesn't like.

  "Fuck", she says, a little bit louder than she wants to.

  A wide-eyed child sat on the edge of the seat opposite, regards her with a mix of fear and excitement, as though he's heard something he's not supposed to, and because of that, he likes it. His feet dangle down, a good twenty centimeters from the floor.

  "Sorry", Sash says.

  The boy looks far too young to be traveling on his own. She looks at the health food bar and then hands it over to him.

  "Here, you like apricots right?"

  The city shoots by, framed through a toughened plastic window covered in scratches and graffiti.

  A fat attendant checks Sash's ticket, eyes the boy as though he were her own and then shuffles along the compartment, his company issue trousers frayed at the bottom and hanging off his ass, his belt doing nothing to keep them in place.

  There is a quarter mile walk uphill back to Sash's apartment over pitted pavement slabs not designed for high heels, and by the time she gets there, she's soaked through and absolutely exhausted.

  A stack of bills jam the progress of the door momentarily. Some of them have been there for months, as though now forming part of the apartment's design. She fights her way past them, kicks her shoes off in the hallway and swings the door shut behind her without bothering to look.

  Just before it hits the latch, a hand comes up to stop it.

  "Miss Cole?"

  The voice freezes the blood in Sash's body. She makes fists with her bare toes in the worn carpet. Her head hangs at the end of a long, deep sigh. Finally she turns.

  "Martin."

  Martin is a man of extreme proportions.

  His nose, his fingers, his belly and his ankles. He looks like he has been drawn by a caricature artist.

  "The rent?" He taps the part of his wrist where a watch would sit if he wore one. "It's late."

  "It's not a good time", Sash says.

  The door still isn't fully open. The effect is that only half of Martin's immenseness can be seen, as he hovers on the periphery. For all his bulk and presence, he's reserved, and a little bit timid. To be polite, and because she knows he won't do it himself, Sash takes the three steps back to the door to open it fully.

  "I'm sorry, Martin. It's just been a bad day, that's all."

  "It's been over two months. I can't wait any longer."

  "Just give me until the end of the month", Sash pleads.

  "The end of the month is twenty eight days away."

  "The end of the week?"

  "I've got to eat too, you know. I have people queuing up for this apartment. It's a good apartment. I'm a good landlord. Not everyone is like me. When you were late with the money I said, 'sure no problems, you take as long as you like', but enough is enough. Two months is too long. I've got a little girl to feed."

  Sharing the proportions of her father, Sash would call her anything but little, but she knows what he means. She sighs again. She was in a fix and she knew it.

  "Can you give me until the end of the week, please, Martin?"

  "Are you going to get a job by the end of the week?"

  Martin eyes her suspiciously.

  "I sincerely hope so."

  "Final deadline, no extensions. The end of the week or you've got to leave."

  "Thank you, Martin. I won't let you down, I promise."

  He's still stood there, looking suspicious, while Sash closes the door, kicks off her shoes and slumps down into the sofa.

  That morning's interview had been a complete and utter waste of her time. She was sick of spending hours filling out application forms, weeks waiting to hear back from companies she had no interest in working for, and whole mornings trying to sell herself for roles she knew were beneath her.

  They hadn't told her either way, of course, but she knew from the moment she walked into the room, based on the atmosphere alone, that it was going to be a no. It was the same old story, day in day out.

  Either she wasn't qualified, or she was too qualified, or she was qualified in the wrong way, or she was too pretty, or not pretty enough or pretty but just not in the way they were looking for right now. She went to one interview last week where they told her she was too young. Too young to work in a college library putting books back on shelves. She looked the interviewer in the eye, shook her head in disbelief, stood up and walked straight out.

  Everything that Sash chose to do of late seemed to be a waste of time and money. University debts, bills stacking up, behind on rent and nothing but a jar of cents to her name was seriously beginning to bum her out. There wasn't even anything decent in the fridge to eat.

  She knew what she had to do, but she just didn't want to admit to it. Seeing him was such a last resort, she'd have to be so desperate there was no other way.

  The trouble was, she knew she'd already exhausted every other option.

  Chapter 2

  "That's a Siamese fighting fish", Alex says, "They tend to be rather aggressive. Your brother is quite keen on them."

  "He's not my brother."

  Sash straightens back up to face her.

  "Oh."

  Alex raises her eyebrows and forms an O shape with her thick, perfectly painted lips. "My mistake. It's just in the appointment book it says 'little sister.'"

  "Our parents are married, that's all. I think he thinks it's cute calling me it. We've never really been all that close."

  Alex is a remarkable woman. She has wrinkle-free skin like recently pumped oil, and stands over six foot tall, towering above Sash when they find themselves side by side.

  "I didn't even know he had a sister."

  "Step", Sash says, reminding her of the distinction.

  "Of course."

  Alex curls her face up into a well practiced smile, while Sash breaks eye contact to look again at the fish tank. "Maybe there's a lot about your boss that you haven't realized yet."

  Time passes agonizingly slowly.

  Alex returns to her desk and Sash listens to her answering a telephone that seems to never stop ringing, her voice clipped, polite and expedient. There are huge paintings that fill the vast wall space around them, a floor to ceiling window of glass that frames the ever changing city below, carpets of oriental design and lampshades that look like they've been lifted from a movie set of the latest futuristic blockbuster.

  Sash sinks into the hug of a gargantuan leather arm chair, the depth of the seat enough to lift her legs completely off the ground.

  Like a child dominated by the size of the world
they have only just realized they are inhabiting, she sits there in awe of her surroundings. She turns expensive fashion magazines over in her hands, unable to concentrate for long enough to read any of the articles, and then stands again to look at the city below, the workers running from place to place like ants in an industrial garden.

  Back at the fish tank, she walks with them as they swim about in their world, one side of the tank to the other, trapped in a never ending circuit of unhappiness, broken only by the inability to remember it for more than fifteen seconds at a time.

  Clown fish, butterfly betta, loaches and swordtails, every single one of them beautiful and unique.

  After another thirty minutes has ambled by, at which point Sash is about to give up completely and leave, Alex finally tells her he's ready.

  Suddenly, after all that time waiting, Sash realizes that even though he might be, she's not ready at all. She wants to back out, but now, obviously, she can't. He's expecting her and she's here. The time to leave has already gone. The decision has already been made.

  Approaching the huge wooden doors that stand in the way of her and her past, she feels her heart beating frenetically in her chest. Alex nods encouragingly. Sash swallows hard. Finally, with little other choice left, she pushes her way through, ready to face her destiny.

  He's stood to greet her, arms out passively, the offer of an embrace. His tousled hair a little bit longer than she remembers it, his chest even more robust, his eyes magnetic and debilitating, a universe and more inside each one.

  "Sash", he says.

  The word familiar on his lips, but rusty, as though too much time has passed since he's had reason to say it out loud.

  Sash lets herself be taken, pressing herself close to her stepbrother for as long as she feels is acceptable, long enough anyway to breath in his familiar scent.

  "You've got bigger", she says coyly, pulling herself away from him to stand a foot away, her arms by her side now, but his still around her protectively.

  "I've got older", he says modestly.

  "It doesn't look like it."

  Sash steals a look into his eyes that lasts longer than she knows it should.

  Dante smiles his contagious smile, and Sash can't help but smile too. She looks to her feet and then back up to her gorgeous stepbrother. Three years and the feelings still haven't gone away. She knew it too. She knew they wouldn't.