Tied to Him

by Tia Siren

  “I don’t know what I feel anymore, but I know for sure it isn’t love,” I said.

  “Yeah. Who needs it anyway?” she said.

  “Right,” I said.

  Janey and I continued to chat for a while. I spent the rest of the afternoon venting into a bowl of ice cream. Janey didn’t seem to mind at all.

  The following few days were hard to get through. I didn’t have any interest in working, but the more I sat around, the more my mind continued to wander. I was frustrated and upset. I wanted to break something with my fists, but I also wanted to bake cookies and eat every last one.

  So many emotions rocked me, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel at all.

  Then I got a phone call. It was from William, and he wanted to meet. I didn’t want to meet him, but he assured me that it would sort a few things out.

  So, I took some of Janey’s old clothes and threw them on. I was a sad sight, a petite woman in oversized clothing. I did what I could to make it fit, but nothing really helped.

  We met in a small park overlooking the waterfront. On the other side of the water was downtown. It was late in the day, and the streetlights were just beginning to flash on while the sun set hurriedly in the distance.

  I found him on a bench. He just stared off into the distance, barely realizing I had sat down.

  “I loved my wife,” he said. “Nothing will ever change that.”

  He turned to me, and I could see his eyes were welling up, or at least he was doing his best to keep them from doing so.

  “She gave me one of the most amazing children in the world. I’ve done my best to raise him as she would have, but in the end, she barely got a chance to hold him.

  “She had complications from childbirth and horrible internal bleeding. It was a terrible way to go. She held him in her arms for about five minutes before she passed on. And as she did so, she told me that she wouldn’t have thought twice about saving Kevin’s life over her own.

  “I took the loss of her incredibly hard. I threw myself into my work, hoping that I might find some solace in doing what I did best. But nothing ever replaced her.

  “I gave every ounce of my love to my son, and I wanted him to find someone to spend time with. I wanted him to choose for himself the person who would keep him happy. I only want the best for him, and he knows what’s best for him.”

  I listened to William pour himself out to me. I wanted to throw an arm around his shoulder and give him a hug, but it still felt too soon, and I was still frustrated.

  “I was surprised when he chose someone who looked a lot like my wife. He never even met her. The only mother he’s ever known is the photograph in my bedroom.

  “I talked to him the other night. He told me that he didn’t pick you to be his playmate; he picked you to be his new mother. I should have known sooner, but I felt myself drawn to you. Part of me wanted it to be real, and when I saw the chance to make it real, I took it.

  “Growing up in a ghetto will make you take any chance you can at being happy. You can hate me all you want for taking that chance, but I’ll never hate you for bringing hope back into my life and making my son the happiest person in the world for just two weeks.”

  William reached into his pocket and produced a small envelope, which he handed to me.

  “It’s the money promised to you. Your work was worth more than two weeks, so I paid you for the entire year. I’d love to have you back in the house again, but I understand if you would prefer to keep your distance.”

  He stood up from the bench, and before I could say anything, he walked to his car and drove off. I sat on the park bench for a few minutes before I moved.

  I wanted to think that I was doing something good by being in his life, but I also felt terrible for dredging up old feelings he’d buried a long time ago. It wasn’t even his fault that he’d come on to me.

  I needed to sleep.

  8.

  Another day passed, and I dwelled sullenly on the story I’d been told by William. The look on his face as he’d revealed one of his most intimate secrets had told me all I needed to know about him.

  The ice cream in my bowl was melted before I even took a bite, and by then I just had to throw it away.

  I pulled the check he’d written to me from the envelope and found something else tucked inside. It was a small letter. The letter was written in crayon, and I welled up with tears the second I read it.

  “I’m sorry,” it said in terrible writing.

  Kevin must have snuck the note inside without William knowing. I felt terrible and guilty. I was so full of frustration, but I needed to tell them that it wasn’t their fault. I knew what today’s date was. It was the day they’d be leaving for Europe.

  I put on some of the finest things I could steal from Janey’s closet and took a cab to the airport. I needed to see William and Kevin and make sure they would be okay. I wanted to explain my actions to them and tell Kevin that I wasn’t his mother.

  Security at the airport was tight, but I still pushed my way past. If my memory served me right, they would be taking off for Germany in less than half an hour. I had to be quick and find the jet that William owned.

  A lucky word or two from a security guard found me on a tram to the private airstrip. I hoped I would make it in time, but the seconds kept ticking by.

  I sprinted into the hangar just in time to see Kevin and William boarding the flight. I wanted to scream out to them and tell them everything that was on my mind.

  Those thoughts faded as soon as I saw them. William turned around and saw me. He smiled widely and waved. Kevin’s eyes lit up when he spied me from his window seat. I waved at him with excitement.

  William strode from the plane and met me, shouting at the pilot to wait a second.

  “Does this mean you’re coming with us?” he asked.

  “I had an entire speech prepared about how frustrated I am, but, you know, it just doesn’t seem like the right time or the right place,” I said.

  “So you’re not coming with us,” he said, sighing.

  “Oh, I’m coming. And you’re buying me an entire new wardrobe,” I said.

  He held out his arm for me to take. This time, it didn’t seem like an empty gesture. I wrapped my arm in his and followed willfully.

  “This doesn’t mean I’m in love with you,” I said before we stepped on the plane.

  “And you never have to be,” he replied.

  *****

  THE END

  BILLIONAIRE TWIN STEPBROTHER BOSS Romance – Twin Stepbrothers’ Baby

  1

  I tried to smile as my mother swept into the room, but it was hard to do. After all, could I really be that happy for her third wedding? She and my father divorced when I was ten. No big deal, I guess. When I was twelve, she married Steve. He was an all right guy. He treated my mother well and did right by me. But for whatever reason, just after I graduated high school, my mother left him.

  My mother had never worked a day in her life. Well, not up until that point. My father took care of her, and then Steve did. They both did well for themselves, for us. Steve had his own son, and we all lived together for four years. He made less than my dad, and there were more of us, but still my mother never worked.

  Deborah. That was my mother’s name. Deb. It sounded like a serial bride’s name, didn’t it? When Deborah left Steve, she took as much from his as she could. It got her through a couple of years. I left, went to college, and got my own debt, most of it stemming from ridiculous student loans.

  And then my mother had to work. She couldn't put it off any longer. For two years she had made it on what she’d gotten from Steve. She dated during that time, but nothing ever turned out to be serious.

  First, Deb got a job at a coffee shop. She was fifty. It humiliated her, and she quit within her first week. A few other jobs followed, and then she applied to Harding Corp. I thought that was a dumb name for the company, but they had their hand in a lot of stuff. If you walk
ed into any big box store, half the stuff came from them. Shampoo, blankets, oven mitts, Harding Corp made it all. For such a big company, you would think they would be headquartered in New York or California somewhere, but nope. They had a big building smack dab in the middle of downtown Chicago, where I was born and raised (well, the suburbs at least.)

  My mom saw an ad for a secretary, and she figured she would apply. She didn’t know it was a spot for the personal secretary to Gerry Harding, the man who ran the company. His father had inherited it from his own father, who had taken it from his, the man who had built the company. Gerry was good looking, rich, and for some reason, smitten with my mother.

  That wasn’t to say my mother was not a catch. She was a beautiful woman. Her hair was long and brown, like mine, though I didn’t have to dye the gray from mine since there wasn’t any. Our eyes were similar as well, dark and expressive. Her skin was much tanner than my own, hers the color of caramel, mine somewhere between that of a porcelain doll and snow. I’d ever been one for the tanning bed.

  I wasn’t there, of course. I was knee deep in college stuff then. But I can just imagine what my mother wore to her interview: low-cut shirt—she had great breasts, big and round, another trait we shared—and short skirt. Our legs were long and slim, but shapely. My hips were a bit more pronounced, my butt bigger, but my mom could work it. She was a total MILF. She didn’t get the job, but she did get Gerry Harding’s number.

  Two years or so later, I was out of college and she was getting married. I had been staying with her for the two weeks since my graduation, but after the wedding she was moving in with Gerry, and I wasn’t sure where I was going to go. But I had to put the worries aside and be happy for my mother. On her third perfect day. Her third wedding. Her once-in-a-lifetime ceremony, for the third time.

  She came into the hotel room, her bridal gown over her arm, followed by her stylist, a severe-looking Mexican woman named Marie.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so excited,” my mother said as she stopped in front of me and we embraced.

  “I’m glad, Mom,” I said.

  “Help me, Josie,” she said to me. “I feel rushed. Let's get this dress on.”

  “You cannot rush perfection,” Marie said in her thick accent. And so, we couldn’t. I stood in that room, helping my mother with her dress and makeup and hair—whenever Marie would permit me—for much longer than I would spend on my own wedding preparations someday. But finally she was ready, and we went down to a waiting limo, which drove us to an oversized church.

  My mother and I had never been religious. Gerry Harding wasn’t as far as I knew, but the church they had rented was massive and ornate, and I was pretty sure the pope would weep tears of joy if he saw it. The ceremony was beautiful, and it was obvious Gerry had thrown a lot of money into it. The party afterward was even more fun.

  I had no date. I had gone to college out of state and had come back so recently that I hadn’t really had time to reconnect with any old friends. Going stag was fine. I danced with who I wanted and made out with some guy I didn’t know in a stairwell for a bit.

  He was a nice guy, and he smelled good, but I found I was really smitten with one of Gerry’s sons. Both of them actually. I hadn’t met them before since I hadn’t been back much during school. They were twins, a few years older than me. Tyler and Bradley. Tyler had a small scar on his chin, a white streak through tanned flesh. Otherwise, they were identical: tall, with muscular arms and toned stomachs, at least as far as I could tell beneath their impossibly expensive suits; blond hair kept about the same length; blue eyes and dazzlingly white teeth. They were handsome. They were hot. I wanted one of them to take me into that stairwell and hike my dress up and bend me over. I didn’t care which one.

  I’d always been a sexual being. It was just who I was. High school, college, I liked sex. I experimented. I didn’t need to be dating guys just to sleep with them. I was tipsy at the reception. Tyler and Bradley both had dates—thin little things with fake tits. They weren’t married or anything, but I chalked it up to a missed opportunity and had more drinks.

  When I sobered up the next day, sleeping in my bed at my mother’s house—I could at least stay until she was back from her honeymoon—I realized that Tyler and Brad were my stepbrothers now. I shouldn’t have wanted to have sex with my stepbrothers. That was a little too southern for Chicago.

  2

  I had a degree in advertising, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. My mom and her new husband spent two weeks in the Bahamas. Then he was back to work, and his secretary, the cute young thing who had gotten the job my mother had wanted, called me and told me my stepfather wanted to meet with me.

  “When?” I asked. I had been sleeping, still at my mother’s house even though she hadn’t come home after the Bahamas. She had a new home.

  “Today if that works for you. Three?”

  “What time is it now?” I asked, yawning. The woman paused.

  “One ten,” she said finally.

  “Okay, yeah. That’s fine,” I said, and then I hung up so I didn’t have to hear her silent judgment anymore. I showered and dressed and then took a frantic drive, as I wasn’t quite sure where I was going. Even so, I found myself ten minutes early, sitting across from the woman I had spoken to on the phone in a small room outside my stepfather's office. I didn’t wait long. He opened the door and smiled as he walked over to me. I stood up, wondering if he wanted to shake my hand, but instead he pulled me into a hug.

  “How are you?” he asked me.

  “Great,” I said, and followed him into his office. Gerry’s office was larger than some people’s homes. It had a wonderful view, large windows along one side of the wall that looked out over the city. Gerry sat behind his desk, waving a hand at one of two chairs across from him. I sat. He smiled.

  “How was your trip?” I asked.

  “Wonderful,” he said, nodding his head. He was a good-looking guy, tan like my mother, white teeth like his sons. His hair was thinning and gray, the only slight against his looks. We spent some time shooting the shit, as my father always said, and then he got to the point.

  “Your mother tells me you went to school for advertising.”

  I nodded. “She’s right.”

  “I’d like to offer you a job here.”

  My mouth fell open, and I hurried to close it. “I’ve been applying to some ad firms,” I said. “I didn’t think that was something you did here.”

  “We do it all,” Gerry said with a laugh. “Really, though, we’ve been putting an in-house ad team together for the last few months. Perfect timing, with you graduating.”

  “Not a lot of places have in-house ad teams,” I said.

  “This isn’t a lot of places,” Gerry Harding said with a wide smile. He was certainly right about that. He went on. “We make a lot of things here, a lot of products. We want to take more control of the way they’re presented to the public. We’d like you to join the small team.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t believe my ears. Finding work had been difficult, to say the least, so far. But now, here was a job falling into my lap.

  “Okay,” I said, and my stepfather smiled. We spent half an hour going over things, and I signed a couple of papers. I started the next day.

  I spent most of that morning trying on different outfits. I wanted to impress, and I wanted to look sexy. I knew I was attractive, and I had been my entire life. I had used it in high school to get what I wanted from teachers and male students alike, and it had worked on my college professors too. I knew it would work at my new job. I wasn’t willing to sleep my way to the top, of course, but a woman should use anything she could in her bag of tricks. Advertising was dominated by men, and I wanted to dominate. If my boss, whoever that ended up being, wanted to fuck me, then that was just something I could use to my advantage.

  I ended up in a short skirt—not out to the club short, but above the knee short. I pulled on some stockings, and sitting on the bed and cro
ssing my legs, I found that with just a small hitch of the skirt, you could see the top of my stockings. I loved hosiery, and thigh highs were my favorite. That was true of most of the men I knew too. Pantyhose was always sexy, but stockings, those were fucking hot.

  My blouse was tight and low cut, not in a trashy way, but enough to show off my ample cleavage. A pair of black pumps finished the package. I did my makeup and was out the door.

  I arrived ten minutes early and found a woman waiting for me when I got off the elevator. I had been told to report to the fifteenth floor of the high-rise building. My stepfather’s company owned the building, but there were other companies that rented space out as well. A whole floor had been empty, and it had been given over to the new project, the in-house ad team.

  The woman waiting for me, and others, was ten years older than I was, with fiery red hair that fell to her mid back. She was cute, tall, and angular, with a sharp chin and nose, and her eyes were the green of the ocean when the sun hit the water just right, shifting it from blue.

  “Hi. I’m Carolyn,” the woman said, and I shook her hand. “Come on back,” she added, and turned. I followed her to a conference room with glass walls. We stepped inside, and two others were sitting there: a short Asian man around my age who introduced himself as Colin when I shook his hand, and an older guy with a beard who smiled and waved to me across the table.

  “I’m Mark,” he said, and I would have guessed he was going to be my boss, but then the red-headed lady left, I sat down, and no one spoke. It occurred to me we were all just ad grunts, waiting for the boss.

  Before I found out who was in charge, Carolyn brought back one more grunt, a tall man with a bit of a gut on him who turned out to be named Chris. Carolyn then asked us if we needed anything, a water or something, and we all declined. I could tell that everyone was nervous.

  I knew the next two people who came in. They entered together. Tyler was typing something on his phone, his head down. Brad smiled at us all and sat at one end of the table. Tyler sat at the other and set his phone down. Brad started.