by Sybil Ling
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As soon as I arrived, one of the nurses came up to me as I headed towards Mom. “Great, his daughter is here. Maybe we will have a blood match.”
I shook my head. It was no secret that I was adopted, Mom and Dad had explained it to me when I was eleven. They also told me that if ever I wanted to look for my birth parents they would help me. So I told the nurse, “No, I’m not his daughter—”
Mom interrupted and said, “What she means is she is adopted.”
The overweight blond nurse hesitated while leaving us to speak. She seemed to be confused by the trail of events until she stopped and said, “Sorry, you’re right. Not his daughter. His son.”
Shane nodded and moved towards her. No one spoke. I didn’t even know he was there. He’d never replied to my message. He never looked at me. I just couldn’t get my eyes off Mom, waiting for her to explain. To tell me what was going on. She didn’t. Instead, she continued to do what she always did in cases like this, smoke. She pulled out a pack from her purse, avoided me, and then headed towards the elevator.
I wanted to know what was going on, the whole thing was driving me mad.
Son!
Shane was Dad’s son.
He knew all this time. Seems like they all knew, apart from me. How had I been blind? They had the same fiery temper. The same dark looks, and for crying out loud, they were even the same height. I was the only one who’d never fitted in the house. I was the only one who didn’t belong. Not him.
I ran after him in the rain. He spoke to the nurse briefly before leaving the hospital. I was so confused. I felt as if my eyes were deceiving me. Dad had made that sacrifice, because he had loved Mom too much. When the Blake´s told me that they had adopted me, it made sense why there were too many gaps in my childhood. I didn’t remember them because they simply never existed. He was always Shane’s dad. That’s why Shane had always hated me. He knew that our parents had adopted me. They never made it a secret in our teens. But, he must have wondered why they favored me and not him.
I could be with Shane if he wanted me, but the way he was treating me was telling me otherwise. He’d lied when he said that he felt the same. He was jealous that the Blake’s brought me up as their own child, and that Dad hadn’t taken care of his own child. That’s why he had such a bad attitude problem. I recalled the days of Shane going to boarding school and sticking to the window, wondering why he had to go away.
“Wait,” I screamed as he left the hospital. It was raining like crazy, which was usual for Orlando temperatures this time of year. I was due to go to college in a few weeks’ time, and didn’t have a clue whether I was coming or going. Shane had his scholarship sorted, but with his dad being sick, I wasn’t even sure if he was still going to college or not.
“What is it, Jessica?” I hated the way he said my full name whenever he was pissed. He did it to annoy me. He knew it wound me up. He was drenched in the rain and so was I, but I didn’t care. I needed to get to the bottom of this and find out what was really going on. I felt lost and confused, when only two days ago I felt the complete opposite.
“You knew.”
He nodded, then turned and walked away.
“No, I meant you knew that you belonged there more than me. That’s why you’ve hated me for so long.”
He shook his head and left me standing like a jilted bride. I was humiliated all over again, but one thing was for sure. I was going to get answers. This time, I was going to find out the truth. I stood in front of him, blocking his movements. I thought that he would walk around me, but instead he grabbed me and kissed me. A kiss that said a thousand words. I couldn’t touch him. His smoky breath and strong musk were drowned in the rain. All I had thought about for so many nights while I had touched myself was him kissing me like this and it felt like something else. Nothing like I had imagined. Not the pair of us sharing a moment of longing for each other. But, simply a kiss which said good-bye.
He pushed me away and said, “Good-bye.” I opened my eyes to realize that he had left my side. He had spun me around while we were kissing. I tried to find him. I couldn’t. He had gone out of my life, and the wetness on my face was not only the rain, but the tears of my broken heart.
Epilogue
{{Shane}}
Graduation from school was over, and it was time to go to college. I moved to my family home for a while after that night before I left to go to college. I hadn’t seen Jess since that night I’d kissed her in the rain. She knew it was a kiss good-bye. It was too complicated, as I knew she would go to college and find herself a boyfriend. One who would be faithful and love her the way she deserved to be treasured. She was pure, and I was everything but that.
She tried to keep in touch, until I made it clear that she should stay away. She was adopted, and so we were not related by blood, but it was too complicated. We were brought up by the same parents. Sure, I had good looks and charm when I turned them on. I knew that women were only after me because of curiosity. The big, dark haired guy. Could he perform down and dirty in the bedroom as he did on the field? Sure, I played the same way. I sucked, licked, and bit all the right places. Women never complained, but there was always something missing from my life.
Jessica.
Not so much someone, but something. Jessica and I could stay in the same room without ever saying a word. We didn’t need to speak. We were connected somehow like that. I used to hate my dad for sending me away to protect her, it was only after he visited me that I learnt it was to protect everyone. He wanted to look after his son, but his wife hated having me around. I was a reminder of the love that he used to have, and he lost her when she died.
It started when my mom was on her way to meet dad. Her parents didn’t approve, and they tricked her, knowing her plans. Dad thought that he had been stood up and went on a drunken binge until he met Angela. They got married after a few dates. Everyone questioned what the rush was, but he knew the reason. He had lost his love and didn’t know how to handle being alone. Soon after, Mom found out about his wedding. She didn’t have a chance to tell him that she was pregnant. It was too late. My family brought me up, until the car accident, when I lost my mom and was sent to my dad. A complete stranger. He never even knew I existed. Grandma thought it was a better way for me to be brought up. They couldn’t afford to keep me, because grandpa fell ill too. I still visited her, kept in touch. Shit, I even planned to buy her a new house when I got my first big contract.
They didn’t want Jessica to know the truth. Dad felt that she had enough from her troubled childhood that she didn’t need any more complications. He had no idea. I was sent away to school every time I got into a little trouble. I had been rejected by my dad the moment we met, and my stepmom hated me. Not sure how else I was supposed to react to my new family.
College came and went. One time, dad came to see me in college, and for the first time in a long time, we spoke about the past.
He realized that he had made a mistake sending me away, and I realized that I was a jerk for never explaining it to him. I assumed the answers were obvious, but as he opened up about how he felt in the past, I realized it was far from obvious. Today was the first time in three years that I would be face-to-face with Jessica. It was going to be so hard. I’d hoped this day would never come, yet I had no choice. Dad’s contracted cancer after his visit to me in college, and he wanted us around him as much as possible before he went.
As I drove up to the house, which I had placed as a distant memory in my mind, there she was, as beautiful as the last time I had seen her in the rain. I jumped out of the jeep like a nervous schoolboy. She lifted her hand and sunk her lips into mine and whispered, “This time, you are not walking away. No way.” I couldn’t agree more. I would give it a try and figure out what was going on inside that head of mine for good. She wanted me in her life, and I could deny her once. But not twice. Not again.
More Books by Sybil Ling
Excerpt from my latest book
“My second kiss,” I whispered out, lost in Kane’s gorgeous hazel eyes.
“Second? That means…the first was back at the club. Damn!” he grunted, with a look of astonishment in his eyes. “Are you…Heather, are you a virgin?”
I stared idly into his eyes, too scared to answer. I didn’t want to scare him off with my inexperience. Kane gave off a warm, familiar smile, reassuring me that he will be fine with whatever I say.
“Y…yes. I’ve been saving myself!”
“I just can’t believe it! A pretty thing like you, untouched? I thought the guys at your college would’ve gone crazy,” he said with a little smile. “Here I was, angry at guys that didn’t exist!”
Other Titles Include:
Stepbrother: Clubbed
Stepbrother Baby Gamble
Stepbrother Baby Bet
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About the Author
Forbidden fruit is something that Sybil Ling loves to take juicy bites out of. Ms. Ling has been writing risqué stories for some time now and loves the fact that she can now share them
Her specialty is in the tense relationships between women and those men they find themselves so close to, but cannot have. Growing up in a large, and very close, family herself, she writes with both experience and passion. Her stories, while fiction, can definitely be said to be inspired by true events ...
Check her out on Amazon