Romance: Stepbrother On Top

by A. Valentine

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to the seller and purchase a copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Warning

  This book contains graphic content intended for readers 18+ years old.

  If you are under 18 years old, or are not comfortable with adult content, please close this book now.

  Chapter One

  “May I refill that for you?”

  Leila eyes the man who stood in front of her and coolly shook her head. Like all the men who approached her in parties, he was married and worse, had a pouch that strained against his shirt. Leila hated nothing more than excess body fat and the man had plenty of it. His eyes met her cold grey ones and he fled.

  She sighed and returned her attention to the lawn outside, the floodlights making it appear as a green sea. She felt melancholy as she nearly always did these days. Her friends and everyone around assumed it was caused by the death of Horace. They had only been married for two years when he died in a car crash.

  As usual, he was driving too fast and with too much alcohol in his system. He did not see the sharp corner that loomed ahead and he crashed right into a tree. He died instantly. It had been a year now and Leila thought she would go mad with what her life had become. If the stud farm had not been sold off to cover Horace’s debts, she would be fine, happy even.

  She missed her beloved horses. She missed life on the farm, waking up at the crack of dawn to exercise the horses, showing potential buyers around and best of all, riding her mare at breathtaking speed over the grassy plains. Now, her life had become what she had always despised. A lady of leisure, with money at her disposal to ensure a comfortable life.

  The only good thing that Horace ever did for her was ensuring that she would never lack. Unlike Horace to plan so far into the future, he had provided a trust fund to ensure that his wife would never lack. But something told Leila that he had done so to protect himself. He had gambling debts from every casino in California.

  Still, she was grateful that despite losing her home and husband, she had managed to buy a small bungalow on Whitmore Street and that she could afford to keep up with the latest fashions. Except that she had zero interest in all of that. Leila felt as though she was living someone else’s life.

  She was a farm girl at heart and was happiest keeping busy tending to ranch business. She stifled a giggle when she remembered Horace’s horror when he had found her mucking out the horse stalls, her feet covered in muddy boots.

  “What the devil are you doing?” he had said.

  She had smiled sweetly in reply. In disgust, he had turned and stormed off and in that moment Leila had realized how incompatible she and Horace were. He was a spoilt child, left with too many toys by his parents, in the form of the stud farm and plenty of cash. Horace had worked through all that and by the time of his death and amassed a lot of debt in the process.

  Leila was so immersed in her thoughts that she did not hear anyone approaching her until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned in a mixture of irritation and resignation. She was in a party after all and people were bound to speak to her.

  “Sorry, did I disturb you?” her friend Susan teased.

  Leila smiled with relief. She was in no mood to make small talk with another married man whose sole interest was getting into her knickers.

  “I know I’m not the life of the party, forgive me,” Leila said.

  “I should be the one apologizing for insisting you come, but I don’t feel sorry. You spend too much time at the animal shelter as it is,” Susan said.

  Leila contemplated her friend, taller than her by almost a foot so that she had to look up when speaking to Susan. Her hair was held in a simple ponytail, with strands of her brown hair falling over her face. Leila swallowed hard as her eyes scanned further down to the protrusion that was Susan’s belly. She and her husband James were expecting their first child in less than two months.

  “How’s the baby doing in there?” Leila asked.

  Susan groaned. “It’s like a warzone inside my tummy, who would think that such a tiny thing had so much strength. With the kicks he unleashes, he ought to be in a boxing ring.”

  Leila laughed. Susan, who had been her friend for almost five years, heard the catch in her friend’s voice. She touched Leila’s hand.

  “It’ll happen to you too,” she said gently.

  “Only if I do something about it,” Leila said. “I can’t stand these married men looking for a fling. I want permanence, my own man.”

  “Did you meet Alan Boyd? He’s a bachelor.”

  “A playboy. He reminds me too much of Horace with his talk of racing cars and other immature pursuits.” Leila said with a shudder.

  Susan laughed, her tummy shaking along with her shoulders.

  “Does that mean that you’re still determined to go with that mail order bride thing?”

  Leila nodded. “I am though I haven’t found someone yet.”

  “I don’t know Leila, you’re young and beautiful and if your patient, you’ll find someone. Mail order bride is such an outdated thing.”

  “It maybe but it worked back in the day and I’m sure it will work now. Besides, both of us will go into the relationship knowing what we want. No games. Besides if it works out, that means that I’ll not be alone for Christmas.”

  “You’re obsessed with the holidays. Loads of people are alone, and they manage. Plus, you have a running invitation here.”

  Leila could just imagine spending the holidays with Susan and her hubby. They were both wonderful people but she hated to be a third wheel and their baby was due around that time and the last thing they needed was a guest. Leila sighed.

  “Do you mind terribly if I run off?” Leila asked.

  “Before dinner?” Susan said aghast.

  “Yes, pretty please. I feel lousy and I’m not the greatest company,” Leila pleaded.

  “Just this once but I insist that you carry something to eat. I’ll have cook pack something for you,” Susan said.

  Left alone, Leila’s thoughts strayed to Christmas. Theirs had always been a magical day, with her waking up at the crack of dawn to raid her stockings. The holidays were filled with good memories mixed with painful ones. Barely a year into university, Leila had lost her parents in quick succession.

  Her mother had passed on first from kidney problems while her father had lasted two months after that. Leila had known immediately that her dad had died of a broken heart. He parents had loved each other with a passion and devotion which Leila herself had hoped to find with Horace. It had not taken her to know that she had made a terrible mistake. With the death of her father, Leila had jumped into a relationship with Horace and was dazzled by the night life and good times that he had offered.

  Naively, she had thought that once they got married, they would both settle down into growing their own family. Horace had continued partying on as though he was a bachelor. Many nights, she slept alone, curled up into a tight ball of loneliness. Not that when he was home they spoke much. She had realized to late how little in common they had. The only thing that had kept her going in those days was the thought of the children that they would have.

  She remembered the night that Horace had told her that he had no intention of having children.

  “Please, just one,” Leila had pleaded, tears rolling down her cheeks at the thought of never holding her own child.

  “This is not up for discussion. Let’s just enjoy our lives. You on
ly live once you know.”

  Days later he had finally admitted to her that he could not sire children and the knowledge had broken her heart into pieces. He had contracted mumps as a child and it had affected his fertility. She had thrown herself into life on the ranch and just when she thought she had come to terms with it, Horace had gone off and gotten himself killed.

  This would be her second holiday since his death. Christmas reminded her of just how alone she was. Leila had no intention of spending another holiday alone, even if it took getting a husband through the mail order agency.

  Chapter Two

  Jack Farley scanned the profiles of available women on the mail order bridal agency website with detachment. He had only one reason for wanting a wife and that was to give him children. After Clarissa, he had no wish for emotional entanglements with any woman. The thought of Clarissa filled him with a dull ache.

  Thankfully, his heart seemed to be healing now. When she first left, tossing her red hair to the side, the pain had almost killed him. He had vowed to never love a woman again. He turned back to the website. None of the women on the first page caught his eye. Most of them looked like tarts with too much make up on.

  Why was he doing this, Jack asked himself with annoyance? It had been his sister Helen’s idea. He had told her everything about Clarissa and her advice had been to look for someone else as quickly as possible. The longer he lingered, the more the pain remained. The online mail order bridal agency had been her grand idea and thinking about it, Jack thought it made perfect sense.

  It would be like a business deal. He would tell her what he wanted and she in turn would tell him her expectations. If they agreed, then they could move to the next step. Perfect. No romantic nonsense and any of that love business. He had no intention of laying his heart out to be hurt again. This time he would be in charge.

  He pressed a key for the next page and it was at the bottom that he saw a picture which blew him away. Her name was Leila Wakefield and she had smoking grey eyes framed by bushes of eyelashes. He felt a stirring in his loins, which he dismissed as having not being with a woman for a long time.

  He liked her pouty lips and oval face devoid of make-up except for a little lipstick. She had shoulder length blond hair, which fell to the sides of her face. Unfortunately, the picture went up to her waist and he could only imagine the rest of her. She was as different to Clarissa as any woman and he thought that might be what drew him to her.

  His ex-girlfriend had a huge bosom, which he later came to learn was as a result of the surgeon’s knife and she was short with fiery red hair. His one condition of his future wife was that she would not be a red head. Jack now believed the stereotype that they had fiery personalities to be true.

  He read her hobbies. She liked horse riding and reading. With a dismissive click, Jack pressed “message me.”

  Dear Leila,

  My name is Jack Farley and I live in Lainey in Texas. I rear horses and train horses for sale. I see that one of your hobbies is riding horses. You’d like it here then. My ranch is in Lainley, just west of Odessa in Texas. If you’re interested, email me and we can take it from there. I’m looking for a committed woman to settle down with and have children with.

  Sincerely,

  Jack

  He read over the message and satisfied he pressed “send’. The message made no promises of romance just a business deal between two people who could help each other. He closed the website, deciding he had spent too much time on it. If this Leila did not work out, he would give up on finding a wife through the agency.

  Jack found the ranch’s interactive website and logged in. It made it so much easier to check on the status of the ranch with a click. The fifty rooms were eighty percent occupied and he felt happy with that. Not that he needed the money, but Jack believed in being a success in everything that he did.

  The bulk of his money was from the family. His family, several generations and counting had been the first to explore oil in Texas. Their wealth had spread to the banking industry, health and it was as though the Texan economy was dependent on the Farley’s. Jack’s own pet project was Ranch J, his pride and joy.

  He enjoyed working with horses and over the years his ranch had built a reputation as the place to buy the finest horses. The restaurant and the rooms had come by purely as an accident. Numerous people visiting the ranch had asked about sleeping quarters and that’s how the expansion had come about. Now Ranch J consisted of fifty ensuite king sized rooms and a restaurant that could rival any five start establishment.

  Jack though concentrated more on the horse rearing side of the business and left professionals to run the hotel. Satisfied with the figures from the ranch guesthouse records, Jack switched off his lap top, stretched and left the house headed for the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it to the deck, off the living room.

  The deck was the least furnished part of the house. It contained a simple round table with four chairs. From where he sat, he could see the stretch of a thousand or so miles that was the ranch property. Jack’s house stood atop a hill, from where the view of the sunrise was stunning. Orange light flooded the valley below, as though someone had lit an orange torch and shone it directly over the land below.

  His thoughts turned to Clarissa as they inevitably did when he saw beauty, such as the sunrise. One thing that was in no doubt was that Clarissa had been a beauty and she had known it too. She had flaunted it, wearing short shorts that barely covered her pubes and strolled around the horse stalls with no thought to the men whose mouths she left drawling.

  Jack had tried to speak to her about her public displays but she had laughingly teased him about being jealous. He was a possessive man and preferred his business to remain his. If a woman was his, he didn’t mind if she walked in the nude around the house, but once in the view of other people, he liked his women to dress decently.

  He could have lived with Clarissa’s indecency when it came to dressing, as a matter of fact he had been forced too. Like most arguments they had, she had won and had continued prancing around the ranch half clad. He had gritted his teeth every time he saw her and she, the tease that she was, exaggerated the sway of her walk and bent over unnecessarily in front of his employees.

  That was not her only vice. Clarissa spent money like it grew on trees. Whenever she went off to town, Jack spent the day with water in his belly. Then come afternoon, the packages would start to arrive, adorned with designer logos. He had tried to explain to her the economics of wealth. The only way to keep your wealth and preserve it for the next generation was to use it prudently.

  His advice had gone in through one ear and out the other and she had continued to spend it like it was her last day on earth. Another thing that grated his nerves was Clarissa’s attitude towards his parents. Their house was on the other side of town and Jack had managed to keep Clarissa away from them. She would pout whenever he went for dinner at his folks’ alone.

  How could he explain to her that while her sexiness appealed to him, it would not work with his parents? They were conservative and just nice people. Had she been a more reasonable person, she would have learnt to dress decently when it was required. As it was Clarissa was stubborn and she flat out refused to dress down when the occasion called for it. Clarissa had gone up there on her own, wearing one of her short shorts and spaghetti tops, three quarter of her tits hanging out.

  As his sister Helen had laughingly told him later, their mother’s jaw had to be picked from the ground after Carissa left. What had gotten to him was her quick dismissal of his parents as boring old farts. That and her attitude towards money had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Helen had told him in no uncertain terms that Clarissa was a gold digger.

  The last straw had been Carissa’s announcement that she had no intention of having children. Jack’s heart had turned to ice. A family was important to him. He had told her so in a cold voice, which she had dismissed with a wave. Children interfered with
your fun, besides what was the point? Why spoil your life? She had said this while sidling up to him and giving him her sexiest smile. It did not work. He shrugged her off. Children were the one thing that he was unwilling to comprise on.

  His parents had kept their counsel to themselves but he had seen the look they exchanged when he told them that Clarissa was gone for good. He had laid down the law. No more spending money. Defiant, she had stormed off to their bedroom, packed all her things and left without a backward glance or thought.

  Being a proud man, Jack never called her or tried to get her back. She did not contact him either. Sometimes he could almost imagine that he had dreamt her up. The silence between them continued and he worked at healing his wounded heart and pride. Helen had come to his rescue with the mail order bride idea.

  Chapter Three

  The wording of the email was cold; almost as if it were a business correspondence. Leila frowned. Her eyes moved to his profile picture. He was ruggedly handsome and she liked his sky blue eyes and the hint of a smile on his lips. His chest was wide and he wore a white casual shirt with the top button undone.

  To Leila’s shame, she felt her body react at the sight of Jack Farley. She smiled to herself and decided to answer his email. She would be just as business-like as he was, though she would have liked some hint of romance.

  Dear Jack,

  Thank you for your email. I must say that this is my first time to look for a partner online and after seeing your profile, I think it was the right thing to do.

  I too seek a permanent relationship and someone committed to marriage and family. I must tell you from the beginning that I too love children and I hope to have some in the near future. If you’re not sure about children, please let me know, as this is something that’s very important to me.

  Other than that, I consider myself a pretty simple person. I admire that you live on a ranch, I did too, before I had to sell it to pay off my late husband’s debts. I was married for only two years.