Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 3 Page 6

  Dante rolls his eyes, he points an accusatory finger at Tess and calls after his stepsister. When she doesn’t respond, he gives chase, but Sash is quicker than he is. Before he can get to her, he loses her in the crowd.

  “Fuck”, Dante shouts, spinning around to look in all directions and unable to locate her.

  Back at the entrance to the hotel, Tess is waiting.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Dante shouts.

  Oliver is crying. He has no idea what’s going on, but he doesn’t like it. Tess moves him from arm to arm, trying to calm him down. Before she can answer, Dante’s phone begins to ring.

  They stand there for a while scowling at each other. The phone rings insistently. Oliver wails. Dante shakes his head.

  “Are you going to answer that?” Tess says finally.

  “You’ll regret this, Tess”, Dante says.

  Out of his pocket comes the cell phone.

  “This is not a good time”, he barks into the receiver.

  In his office headquarters, Alex stands at her desk, a letter out on the surface in front of her.

  “I’ve got bad news”, she says. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

  “I don’t need any more bad news”, Dante says, his eyes on Tess.

  “Someone is blackmailing you, and they want a lot of money.”

  “How is this news, Alex? Someone tries to blackmail me every other week. Burn it like we do all of the other ones.”

  Tess smirks and shakes her head.

  “Not this one”, Alex says. “This one is for real. It’s about you and Sash.”

  Dante’s heart skips a beat. The skin on the back of his neck goes cold and the hairs on his arm stand up on end.

  “You have twenty four hours to deposit a hundred million dollars into my account”, Tess reads, “or these photos will be sent to all of the national newspapers”, Alex holds up a photo to get a better look at it. “My oh my. What on earth have you been doing, Dante?”

  “Fuck”, Dante says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  There are a number of photos taken from long distance, some innocuous, others incriminatory. Alex’s eyes goes wide as she looks through them, Dante’s body flush with desire, Sash bent over the table in front of him in one, in bed with him in the next. They are grainy, but clear enough to see who they involve and what’s going on.

  “I’ll send them to you”, Alex says.

  Dante cuts the call.

  “Bad news?” Tess takes great pleasure in asking him. In his pocket, Dante can feel his phone vibrate.

  “This is not the right time, Tess”, Dante says sharply.

  “Clearly”, Tess says. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Why the fuck did you?” Dante says. He sits down on the steps to the hotel, desperate to try and think clearly. Tess watches him. “What do you want?” he asks her eventually.

  “Who is that?”

  “No-one”, Dante says.

  “She didn’t look like no-one to me.”

  “Tess, you and I are over, you need to realize that. I’ve moved on. Get over it.”

  Dante takes his cell phone out of his pocket. Scrolling through the images, he can’t work out how they would have been taken. Who the fuck knew?

  “Fuck”, Dante says again. “I need to find her.”

  Tess watches him get up, go to the edge of the sidewalk and hail a taxi.

  “This is it, Dante”, Tess warns.

  When the taxi pulls away, she’s shaking her head and passing their crying child from one shoulder to the next, framed perfectly by the rear window.

  ***

  In the restroom of a department store half a block away, Sash sits on the toilet seat, crying softly. In her hands is a recently purchased pregnancy test, the yes/no indicator patch covered by the tip of her thumb.

  ###

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 1

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 2

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 3

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 4

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 5

  About Stephanie Brother

  Stephanie Brother writes scintillating stories with step-siblings as their main romantic focus. She’s always been curious about the forbidden, and this is her way of exploring such complex relationships that threaten to keep her couples apart. As she writes her way to her dream job, Ms. Brother hopes that her readers will enjoy the full emotional and romantic experience as much as she’s enjoyed writing them.

  Sneak Peek!

  Giving My Billionaire Stepbrother A Baby 4

  He finally finds her several hours later, sat on a park bench with her knees pulled up to her chest. When he sits down next to her, she doesn’t scream or try to run away, she just sits there silently, staring ahead at the very same point she’s had her eyes fixed on for the last thirty minutes, trying to work out what the hell has just happened. Although she’s not crying anymore, her eyes are red and puffy, and it’s clear she’s still shocked and very upset. Dante doesn’t speak for a moment either, deciding how best to approach the subject. He should have told her, but there never seemed like the right moment. Eventually, he reaches out to her, hoping in his touch she’ll soften. Sash pulls away as soon as he’s moved, crushing herself into the wooden arm rest of the bench.

  Dante regards his stepsister. Still she won’t look at him. Still she’s shaking her head, focusing on the mud by her feet. In its brown edges, she sees much more clarity than she does in the man sat next to her.

  “Was that it? My surprise? Is that why you brought me here, to humiliate me?” she says finally. “I want an explanation, Dante. When you’ve given me that, we’re finished.”

  Dante lets out a long sigh. “Look, Sash”, he says. “Tess is part of a history that has nothing to do with us.”

  Sash shakes her head. She’s absolutely furious with him. More so than at any point before. This is one lie too many for her.

  “Nothing to do with us?” she says. “If you’re fucking her, that has everything to do with us. Are you fucking her?”

  Now she looks at him. In her eyes he sees a catalog of hurt. “No”, he says.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, Dante”, Sash says. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Sash, listen to me, I’m not fucking her.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came to see Oliver, not Tess”, Dante says. “I should have told you.”

  “Oliver?” Sash begins, but she can’t finish what she’s about to say. Instead she says, “you asked me to trust you. How can I trust you if you lie to me?”

  Dante hangs his head. He’s been rumbled and there is no way out of it for him but to try and get Sash to forgive him. To try and get her to understand.

  “You have a son, Dante. A fucking son.”

  Just saying the words brings tears to Sash’s eyes. It makes her feel empty inside. It makes her feel like she’s no longer special for him. That what she believe to be growing inside her isn’t unique anymore, that it’s not enough.

  “Please Sash”, Dante says, trying to reach for her again.

  “Don’t touch me”, Sash says firmly, and Dante retracts his hand.

  “I was going to tell you”, Dante says. “I was going to tell you before we went back to New York. I didn’t have a chance before Tess turned up. I want to be with you Sash, I thought that was clear.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Sash says.

  “Because it’s true”, Dante says. “Please, Sash, look at me.”

  Sash can’t bring herself to turn in her seat. All she can do is stare blindly at the ground and hope it swallows her up.

  “I brought you here to give you a present. To give us both a present. Something we could never do the first time around. I need you Sash, no one else makes me feel like you do.”

  “Yeah, right.” Sash says, tears clouding her eyes again.

  For the third time, D
ante tries to get near her. As he edges a little closer on the bench, this time Sash doesn’t warn him away.

  “I promise you I’m not fucking her”, Dante says. “Tess and I weren’t even in a proper relationship together. Whatever we had ended almost three years ago. There is only one person I want to be with in this world, and that’s you. It’s only ever been you. Please Sash, you’ve got to believe me.”

  The cruel thing is, Sash knows she’s got no choice. Whether she believes him or not, or he’s lying to her or not, she’s never going to be able to tear herself away from him. Dante is almost alongside her now. Slowly, he reaches out to put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Please come back to the hotel”, he says.

  Sash shakes her head.

  “If you like, I can contact Tess, tell her to explain to you that there is nothing going on between us.”

  “You have a child together”, Sash says, still unable to process it. “A child, Dante.”

  “I know”, Dante says. “I was just as shocked as you are now when she told me about it.”

  “What happened?” Sash asks.

  “I don’t know”, Dante says. “Tess was one of the dancers in the club. We had a thing together for a while, and the next thing I know she’s pregnant with my child. After that, when I told her we couldn’t be together, she moved away. I’ve been coming to see Oliver regularly since then.”

  Sash shifts a little in her seat. She takes Dante’s arm from around her shoulder and places it back in his lap.

  “Why did you tell me you were coming here to work? Why did you lie to me?”

  Dante sighs again. This is difficult for him. Tess and Oliver are a secret he’s worked hard to keep. If only she hadn’t turned up at the hotel like that, they’d be in the clinic now getting Sash’s virginity back.

  “Honestly?” Dante asks, and the ridiculousness of it almost makes Sash laugh.

  “Don’t lie to me Dante”, Sash says, “I was this close to flying straight back to New York. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to do it or not. As far as I was concerned this morning, we were over. Now you have to prove to me I can trust you again. Don’t fucking lie to me ever again, I mean it.”

  “I didn’t think you’d understand if I told you about Oliver”, Dante says. “I thought you’d react like this.”

  “How did you expect me to react if not like this?” Sash says. “Do you think I should be over the moon for you?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t tell you because I was scared of losing you”, Dante says.

  “Scared of losing me? Since when have you been scared of losing me? I was always there for you, Dante, always”, Sash says. “I wasn’t the one who disappeared into the ether three years ago.”

  Now it’s Dante’s turn to look at the mud on the ground.

  “I made a mistake”, Dante says. “I’ve thought about it everyday.”

  “It’s not the only one either”, Sash says.

  “Sash, please, I’m trying to make it up to you. I’m trying to do the right thing for us both. I’m trying to show you how much you mean to me. I want to make this work.”

  “When are you going to stop being such an ass-hole?” Sash says, shaking her head again in disbelief at the idiocy of her stepbrother.

  “I’m working on it”, he says. “The hotel, the credit card, the presents.”

  “It means nothing if I don’t have you.”

  “You have me, Sash, when are you going to realize that? You have me.”

  “When are you going to show me?”

  “I thought I was.”

  “Rules, Dante”, Sash says, reaching out for him this time. “No secrets, especially something this big.”

  “No secrets”, Dante repeats. “I promise.”

  Sash sighs. In his lap she grips his hand, interlocking her fingers with his.

  “No running away.”

  “No running away”, Dante repeats.

  “No fucking other girls”, Sash says.

  “Sash, seriously.”

  Dante lifts her chin with his index finger. It takes her a while to look at him directly, embarrassed by the floods of tears that don’t seem to want to stop coming.

  “When you came back to me, it was something I thought would never happen. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life. The first time I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about you, but when you came back, it was like everything fell into place. I didn’t come to you in that time because I needed to know you had forgiven me. I needed to know that you wanted me. Sash, when I saw you again, I knew we had to be together. I mean that. You are the most incredible person I have ever met and I need you. There is no one else. No one even close. I love you, Sash.”

  “Do you mean it?” Sash says, butterflies returning to her belly.

  “Of course I mean it. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t mean it. I’m here Sash, I’ve just spent two hundred dollars in taxi fares and walked over the city for the last two hours. I called you like a hundred times.”

  “Thirteen”, Sash says, her eyes lighting up just a little.

  “The point is, I’m not with Tess, I’m not with any other girls, I’m with you. I love you, Sash. I always have, I just didn’t realize it quick enough the first time around.”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “I know I am”, Dante says, “I should have told you.”

  “About Oliver, or that you love me?”

  “Both.”

  Sash can’t help but feel a hollow in her stomach when she thinks about his boy. She can’t help but feel some divine right has been taken away from her. That what she believes she’s carrying will pale in comparison to what he already has.

  “I wish you’d told me”, she says.

  She moves her eyes across Dante’s face. The fullness of his lips, the definition of his cheekbones, the perfect way his hair falls at the side of his head. Even when she’s furious with him, she can’t help but find him attractive.

  “I love you too”, Sash says. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

  “Will you come back with me?” Dante asks.

  Now Sash lets out a sigh.

  “Are you going to hurt me again?” she says.

  “I hope not”, Dante says.

  “You are the only one who can decide that”, Sash says. “If I come back with you, you need to promise me you’ll take responsibility. I’m serious, Dante, if we are going to be together, you need to act like it.”

  Sash pauses a while to prepare herself. She takes Dante’s hands and looks him in the eye.

  “I don’t want us to be secret anymore”, she says.

  “Sash”, Dante reasons. “You know we-”

  “I mean it”, Sash says. “You need to prove to me that I’m the most important thing in your life. More than your work, or your reputation.”

  “Look, if anyone found out about us, I’d be ruined.”

  “I don’t care, and nor should you.”

  “Sash, be reasonable, there’s a lot at stake here. We’re stepbrother and stepsister, they hang people like us in Texas.”

  “I can’t do this, Dante, not unless I know for sure. I’ve been hurt too much already.”

  “I’m telling you, Sash, isn’t that enough?”

  “No”, Sash says, shaking her head. “Not any more it isn’t.”

  Dante sighs. His business or his stepsister? “Lets go back to the hotel and talk about it”, he says eventually.

  “Uh-uh”, Sash says. “I’m not going anywhere until you promise me.”

  “You really want to do this, Sash? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Oliver, but I was going to do it eventually, when our relationship was stable enough for you to understand. Don’t punish us both for a mistake I’ve made. If the press know about us, every single aspect of our life will be under scrutiny. They will not leave us alone and we’ll have no privacy. You want us to have a relationship, the kind of relationship you have always dreamed about? We can onl
y do that if we don’t tell anyone we are together. This isn’t a question of me not demonstrating how important you are to me by keeping you secret, it’s a question of me keeping our relationship private so I can demonstrate to you exactly how important you are to me. We tell anyone, we are as good as over. They’ll tear us apart. After that, forget about having any freedom. You’ll be lucky if your friends still talk to you, let alone your own family. You want to make a new life somewhere nobody knows us? Fine. I for one don’t want to lose that unnecessarily.”

  Dante stands up. “Where are you going?” Sash asks, suddenly worried he’s going to leave her again.

  “I love you, Sash, but nobody else needs to know that except you. Don’t ruin what we have, please.”

  Sash doesn’t know what to say. She feels like the balance of power has just titled in Dante’s favor, and she isn’t quite sure how.

  “They won’t care”, Sash insists, but even she’s doubting herself now.

  “Call Tess”, Dante says. “She’ll tell you what I told her last week. Believe me, I don’t want to be with anybody else. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  Dante holds out his hand. “Please come back to the hotel, Sash.”

  She looks at him for a moment. What choice does she have? Maybe he’s right, and if they let the world know then they’d shut her out. But then if they shut her out, at least she’d still have him. Is the rest worth the risk, just to be sure?

  “Come on”, Dante says. “Let me show you how much you mean to me.”

  Eventually, without another word, Sash reaches up and takes her stepbrother’s hand.

  Stepbrother: Alpha Billionaire (excerpt)

  Stepbrother Alpha Billionaire

  I have dreamt of this moment for most of my adult life. I was never the prettiest or the most popular, or even the cleverest girl at school, I was always just Cass, the one on the outside looking in. Never the Prom Queen or the Fairy Princess, just the one that slipped by without being noticed. I never thought I’d be here doing this.