Brandon walked across the expanse of manicured lawns and some splashes of water from the fountain damped the back of his polo shirt. Not that he cared. These days, it felt like he was walking on clouds and nothing could affect him. Meeting Jo and the birth of their son had changed everything. His priorities had shifted, nothing could bring him down.
He caught sight of Jo now. She had neatly laid out a beach towel on the sand, close enough to the waters, but far enough for it to be safe for Jasper, their son. He was sleeping in his pram next to her, while Jo was reading a book.
He admired his wife from a distance. She was in a canary yellow bikini, her breasts bigger now ever since their son was born. Her body had become more curvaceous as well, and Brandon could feel his cock hardening in his pants. It was like every time he looked at her, he couldn’t help himself. She was irresistible to him; and if he had thought that he couldn’t want her any more, the birth of Jasper had changed all that. Now he wanted her more.
Jo had tanned a little now, her pale skin had a darker hue and Brandon knew that it had something to do with the amount of time she spent in the sun these days. All through her pregnancy, she had travelled with Brandon, hopping from one beach resort to the next…and now that Jasper was only two months old, they had decided to remain in Cedar Key for a while, until he was big enough to start traveling with his parents too.
Brandon walked towards Jo now, and she must have caught sight of him from the corner of her eyes, because she put her book down on her lap and smiled lovingly at him.
“How’s work going?” she asked, when he was close enough to her. Before he said anything, he knelt down beside her on the side and kissed her lips.
“Have I told you how much I love you?” he asked and stroked her flaming red hair. Jolie bit down on her lip and smiled.
“Every day,” she replied and they kissed again. When he stood up, her gaze travelled to the tent that was forming in his pants and she smiled again.
“Have you been staring at me again from a distance?” she asked and Brandon’s gaze drifted to her full luscious breasts; he couldn’t help himself.
“Do I do it that often?” he asked and Jo laughed.
“Every day,” she said and Brandon walked over to the pram, where Jasper was peacefully asleep. Ravaging his wife’s body would have to wait until later. He still had an entire day’s worth of work to get through, and it wasn’t even midday yet. He should have kept her in bed that morning a little longer when he had the chance, he thought.
He stared into the pram, at his son’s angelic face as he slept. Jasper had the smallest hands, the smallest nose and Brandon was glad that he also had his mother’s features. They shared the same blue eyes and the button nose. Only his hair was like his father’s, thick and dark. No child had ever looked more beautiful before.
“He’s a cutie, isn’t he?” Brandon heard Jo’s voice behind him and he turned around to find her sitting up now. She was admiring the moment that father and son were sharing.
“I love this little man,” Brandon said, touching his son’s cheek lightly before straightening up. He couldn’t afford a longer break than this. Having Jo and Jasper here with him was a distraction, and he was still getting used to it. Although, it was a necessary distraction and it kept him happy. There was no way that he could spend an entire day without them there, somewhere close-by.
“I should be getting back to work, baby,” he said, stroking Jo’s hair and she blew him a kiss.
“Okay, but don’t work too hard,” she said.
“Same goes to you!” he said, tipping his head towards Jo’s laptop that was lying open beside her. She’d been working non-stop on an article for Dot that Margaret had recently assigned to her. Jo had decided to go back to work after Jasper was born, but only remotely. She had told him that she was done with her other life, that she never wanted to go back to being the “office-bitch” again.
“I’m relaxing, look!” she held up her book for him and Brandon smiled. They kissed and then he began to walk away, already beginning to miss them both. He knew he should have been counting his blessings for everything beautiful in his life, but he couldn’t help but want to think of retiring. He wanted to finally enjoy his life’s hard work, and enjoy it with Jo.
“Hey!” he heard her voice and whipped around to find her beaming at him.
“I love you!” she called out and when he turned back around, he was laughing again.
***
Jolie was asleep, she had dozed off at some point in the sun and now the sound of her phone ringing woke her up. She sat up with a jerk and quickly checked on Jasper in his pram, before fumbling in her bag for her cellphone.
It could have been someone from the office calling about the article she’d been working on. When she answered, and heard her mom’s voice, her heart sank to her stomach. They hadn’t spoken for a year, since the morning after the party.
“Jolie!” she snarled in the phone, and she could tell that her mom had been drinking. She looked at her wristwatch, it was the middle of the day.
“Mom,” Jolie said, realizing that she should have paid more attention to the number and picked up on the fact that it was a Boston number.
“I don’t need to ask how you are, do I?” her mom snarled some more, and Jolie knew that she knew. How? How could she have known?
“How are you, mom?” she said instead and her mother’s cackling laugh filled her ear.
“How am I? How could you even think of asking me that!” she snapped.
“Because I genuinely want to know. We haven’t spoken in a while,” Jolie replied and her mother laughed some more.
“Yeah, we haven’t spoken since the time you stole my husband. I should have known something was going on. How could I have been so bloody blind?” her mother’s voice was dripping with rage, and Jolie felt suddenly sad. Was her mom entitled to her rage? Perhaps she was, especially for being kept in the dark about it.
“How did you find out, mom?” she asked and she could almost imagine her rolling her eyes.
“I read it in a gossip magazine, something like the one you worked for. Billionaire hotelier Brandon Calloway, photographed with new wife, Jolie Parker and their newborn son. You have a child with him? Is that what you lured him with? Your womb?” Her mom was yelling now, and her words stung Jolie like pinpricks on her skin. She looked over at Jasper nervously, an irrational fear gripped her that he could hear and understand and she wanted to shield her son from it.
“I didn’t lure him, mom, and the pregnancy wasn’t planned,” she tried reasoning with her mother, keeping her voice down because there were guests around her.
“What do you call it then? He left me for my daughter! Because he wanted a younger, more fertile body. That is all you are to him!” she yelled some more and Jolie pressed her eyes close. She should have better prepared herself for a conversation like this.
“We met before we knew how we were related to each other. I met him at one of his resorts and there was an instant…” she tried to explain and her mom continued screaming, not waiting to listen to what Jolie had to say.
“I should have known what he was up to behind my back. Where did you do it? In his study? In his bedroom? In my bedroom?” she continued and Jolie let out a deep sigh.
“Look, mom, I’m sorry that you’re upset and I know you have every right to be. But you were married to him for four months. You knew him for four months!” it was Jolie’s turn to yell now, even though she was trying her best to control her rage.
“No amount of apology is going to make this okay!” she continued and Jolie nodded her head knowingly.
“Right. What’s going to make it okay, then?” she asked, in a calmer voice. She had figured out what this phone call was about.
“I want more money. I want the lifestyle that he provided for me when we were married, when my slut daughter came in and swooped it away from me,” her mom snapped and Jolie clenched her jaws.
“You can
forget about it. Get a lawyer if you want to fight this out with him,” she said and before her mom could say anything more, she had ended the call and switched off her phone. She decided that she would get a different number if she had to, but she wasn’t going back to that vicious circle again—of sympathizing for the woman who hadn’t even bothered to ask about her grandson.
Jolie got up and picked Jasper up from his pram and carried him towards the resort. She was desperate to see Brandon again. She couldn’t shake off the bitter feeling that her mother’s words had encased her in. She strode through the sand and across the lawns, with Jasper in her arms, till she finally saw him. Brandon was standing at the top of the steps, across the swimming pool. He was in the middle of some kind of team meeting, surrounded by a dozen of his uniformed employees.
She watched him, just like she knew he liked to watch her. He looked powerful and strong, his dark hair shining in the sun, his beard looking more grey than when they first met. His shoulders and arms were muscular, and his polo shirt stretched the fabric. He was standing with his hands on his narrow waist. His brows were crossed as he remained deep in conversation with his employees.
She knew the way women looked at him, and it didn’t surprise her. They all saw what she saw too, a strong reliable handsome man who could take care of his woman the way a man should.
He looked in her direction suddenly and their eyes met across the pool. He smiled and Jolie felt her knees buckle from the weight of the love she felt for him.
Nothing anybody said, nothing her mother said could ever change that. She was in love with the man of her dreams, and he was in love with her.
Stepbrother Undone
By: Peggy Neilson
Stepbrother Undone
© November 2017 – All rights reserved
By Peggy Nielson,
Published by Passionate Publishing Inc.
This is a work of fiction. All names and characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
This book is for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Warning
This book is intended for adult readers, 18+ years old. Please close this e-book if you are not comfortable reading adult content.
Chapter One
Her face was twisted in the oddest of forms. Face sunken, creating double chins, with nose and forehead scrunched. Of course, she was yet to get used to the idea of a woman in late 50s getting married so abruptly to a billionaire in his mid-60s in a few weeks. Nothing too hard to wrap her head around, really.
Except that the woman was her mother.
“What the actual…” she almost spat her coffee on her blueprints, “hey, ma!” she yelled from her bedroom.
“Yes, darling?” her mother sang from her bathroom, which left Mina bewildered. She was sure her mother had left her room almost half an hour ago to let her work on her projects.
“Who the hell is Dave McCarthy?” She demanded waving the wedding card in the air. She was sure her mother had left it purposely on her bed to read. Heidi Willows only hummed a tune in response and Mina stared at the bathroom door in disbelief. She couldn’t even get herself a man as of yet and her mother is getting married again at 57. And this was amazing news, Mina didn’t deny it, but-
“Ma, I could’ve used a warning!” she stormed into the bathroom to find her mother three fourths deep in a tub of pink and purple bubbles, sipping on wine. The off-white epoxy seemed infused with the smell of roses, and the setting seemed disturbingly romantic, with the wall scones dimmed to give off a soft yellow glow against the stone walls and intricate brown and gold wallpaper, “And I gave you a luxury bathroom of your own, for God’s sake.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” started off Heidi, “Your bathroom seems to have this…this, er…”
“Intimacy?” she deadpanned with a raise of her brow. She understood that, and despite earning extremely well, she kept her living space small and compact for the exact feel. Of privacy and intimacy.
“Yes!”
“That’s beside the point, ma,” Mina sighed in exasperation, “Who is McCarthy?”
She was answered later that evening as she was dragged to a formal dinner with the man in question, and his family. Mina had a client to meet after, so she stuck to a sleeveless, key-hole neckline black number under a white jacket, accompanied with pearl jewelry and simple make-up that lifted her naturally tan features and light brown eyes, leaving her short black hair in an elegant mess of curls around her neck in a side part. Her stilettos clicked behind her mother’s wedges against the marble floor of the McCarthy Continental hotel. They had been invited to their penthouse to enjoy their flavors with a beautiful view of the New York night life.
The elevators opened with a soft ding right into the penthouse. The Korean operator gave them a light bow as they left, and Mina bowed back out of respect. She had a deep appreciation for culture and languages and often co-operated it in her works as an architect and interior designer.
She studied the penthouse in awe. It was a beautiful work of art. Greek accents and Latin calligraphy fell systematically into an aesthetic view, accentuated with modern leather furniture and stone walls that gave the cultural theme a futuristic appeal against the clear glass windows behind which skyscrapers and their lights were spread out.
For one thing, she was delighted this person carried different cultures with importance. All of that she had come across of the McCarthy’s carried with it the Mediterranean, Arabian, and Asian blends beautifully incorporated. A paradox against its name claiming the empire as Continental. Maybe it was on purpose. If she saw any hints of European or Western influence, it was relatively small.
Her mother walked in expertly towards the lounging area.
“A’right, ma, how many times have you been here?”
“Are you her mother?”
“Bruh,” Mina deadpanned, “her mother is here with her third shot and I’m still single.”
“Mina, I introduced to that very nice boy of her co-worker’s who is-”
“He was a misogynistic piece of-”
“Heidi!” A deep, velvety voice cut through from afar, freezing Mina and stealing Heidi’s attention.
Dayum, dat voice, Mina thought appreciatively as a well-groomed and a rather fit man appeared at the top of a glass spiral staircase in a black silk shirt and white pants. Mina felt like she would cry out of shock. Dark skin, with eyes a bewitching hazel decorated with a grey, well-groomed mustache and hair pulled back to the nape of his neck, all over clean cut features, the man was the epitome of Mina’s image of slay.
“Does he have a son?” she whispered to her mother who cheekily elbowed her in the stomach, “Ma, I’m serious.”
Heidi gave her daughter a sly look, “What if he turns out to be a misogynistic piece of shit?”
“Lel, I’ll change him.”
“I’m so glad you could make it,” Dave said as he reached out for Heidi, kissing her cheek in greeting, “Oh, is she your daughter?”
His accent very subtly gave away evidence of multilingualism. This only excited Mina even further.
He’ll be such a cool dad to have, she squealed internally, I’ll die!
Heidi brought Mina forward by her shoulders and introduced her to him. He met her so warmly that it almost shocked her. How could someone as sternly built be so jolly and soft? She melted like a kitten under his touch on her head that welcomed her in his abode. Is this what kittens feel like when their owners pet them? Now Mina was really going to cry, but she did her best to hold back tears.
“Her son will be here soon,” Dave announced, “Let’s have a seat, shall we?”
Mina took to the leather couches across from them, and started grilling Dave McCarthy shamelessly. This was her mother she was sharing with him, and she deserved nothing but the best. He and Heidi laughed at
her demeanor, but something told her that Dave found it endearing. It wasn’t long before his son finally entered the premises.
“Ah, Aaron! You’re finally home,” Dave greeted him joyfully as he stood up. Mina got up as her mother followed suit, and turned around to greet him.
“Yeah, the meeting kind of stretched out longer than I would’ve liked.”
Mina’s jaw almost dropped and crashed through the marble flooring. She felt in dire need of breath as her heart stumbled in her chest. If she thought Dave McCarthy was good-looking, then this guy took beauty to a whole new level.
He had his father’s hazel eyes, only brighter and speckled with green. His hair was darker than a raven’s brushed back into a short pompadour over beautifully golden skin framed with a beard and mustache trimmed well close to his jaw. His blue pinstriped suit fit him perfectly. Too snug in Mina’s opinion, but she did not mind one bit.
Wait, he’s going to become her brother, she realized, dammit!
He’s not your blood, though, argued another part of her mischievously.
Forget it, Mina, she told herself, you don’t date anyway.
Heidi walked forward to greet him and Aaron met with her warmly, “Good to see you again, Heidi. Have you been doing well?”
“Better than ever,” she replied happily. His gaze rose to meet Mina’s, and she swore she must’ve blushed. Mina never blushed.
Ever.
Look at this shit trying to get to me, she grumbles internally, while another part of her kicked her repeatedly for putting her guard up so quickly. Aaron politely broke away from the adults and approached her. Although his face looked respectful, there was a mischievous darkness behind his eyes she wasn’t quite ready to deal with. She had half a mind to break into a run, but his eyes kept her rooted to the spot.
Oh, he’s trying to dominate me, is he? She thought defiantly as she straightened her back and locked away her emotions, meeting him with a cool composure, Imma show him who’s boss.
Unwrap Me Daddy_A Holiday Romance Page 48