Forbidden: A Stepbrother Secret Baby Romance (8 page)

"Oh, sorry," she giggles at me. "I'm Kelly, by the way." She bats her eyelashes at me.

I groan inwardly, doing some calculations in my head. She has on a UCSD t-shirt that looks almost brand-new. She can't be much more than twenty years old. I try to shift my massive, muscular legs over to give her more room. "That's great," I reply drily.

She looks slightly put off by the fact that I'm not playing along. I close my eyes as the plane starts to move, breathing as much as I can. Toughen the fuck up, Jax, I think to myself. The plane rattles and shakes beneath me, the engines roaring. I feel like I'm going to be sick, the watered-down whiskey churning in my stomach. After what seems like an eternity, the plane levels out, the seatbelt sign dings, and Marissa is moving toward my aisle with the drinks cart.

I decide to chance looking over at Kelly. She's back into her iPhone again. I look at the screen and see "Smoking hot...like a beast of a guy. Seriously."

As uninterested as I am, I'm still a guy. I like the attention. Kelly looks up from her phone and catches my eye. Shit. I'm grinning like an idiot.

I reach awkwardly in front of me as if I'm grabbing my headphones and tablet and suddenly realize that there is no seat pocket in front of me; I've left both in my duffle bag. I forgot to take them out in the rush to get to my seat. I glance over at Mr. Business, who has managed to pull out his laptop in an amount of time that probably breaks a world record. I doubt he will be amenable to moving again for my benefit.

I'm stuck.

"You going home for the holidays?" Kelly asks me, hastily putting her phone down so I can't read the screen.

"Yep," I reply briefly, staring forward and trying to catch Marissa's eye so she can get over here with the drinks more quickly.

"Oh my gosh, me too!" she squeaks out, wriggling her firm little body in her seat. I can feel the warmth of her thigh through my jeans. "Are you going to be there for long? Like, ugh. My family is so annoying sometimes. I just cannot. And like, I'm definitely going to need a drink before Thanksgiving dinner, you know?"

I raise my eyebrows at her. There is no way she is twenty-one. "Juice boxes are easily obtained at the grocery store, I think." I hear the words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them. God, she's annoying me.

She looks mildly wounded by my words but rapidly recovers. She glances over and sees that Marissa is almost to our aisle. "You know what, I totally forgot my ID. Do you think you could get me something?"

My anger is starting to build. I can't stop my mouth even if I wanted to. "You made it on an airplane without ID?"

Kelly blinks a few times. "What? Um, no, I mean it's up in my bag and I had to put it in a compartment way in the back of the airplane." She adjusts her top so her cleavage is poking out at the neckline.

I snap and lean forward so my forehead is almost touching hers. Her eyes grow as big as saucers. "You want a drink, or do you just want to fuck? I'm big, but I know from a lot of experience I can fit easily into airplane bathrooms." I feel her warm breath on my cheek. She lets out a little squeak.

"I-I-no, thank you," she says.

I lean back, satisfied. "You shouldn't talk to strange men on airplanes."

I know it's harsh of me to do what I just did. But I'm bored. I'm bored with women throwing themselves at me. It's easy. I say no more than I used to. A lot more. I turn in my seat just enough so my back is toward Kelly. This is a short flight. Hopefully I can get through the rest of it without being bothered.

I close my eyes and think about the last time I had sex. I count back. It's been about five months. Five? That can't be right. But I know it is. Because the last time was a few weeks after the wedding. I'd gone on a website looking for any woman who looked like...her. I looked for any woman who looked like Tessa.

I feel my dick start to wake up in my pants. I adjust the fabric, trying to calm myself down so I don't end up with a full-blown erection and accidentally make Kelly think that I'm thinking about her. Because I'm definitely not.

I hadn't known that pregnant escorts were a thing. I've been with a ton of women. Hundreds. And I've paid for my fair share of sex before. But in the weeks after the wedding, I couldn't stop thinking about Tessa's body and the way the fabric of her dress couldn't conceal her bump. I wanted to lift her dress up and look at her glorious body underneath all of that fabric. I couldn't get it out of my mind.

It was such a problem that the night after I left my dad's house and went back to my place, I couldn't get it up for my girlfriend.

That had never happened before.

And then it happened again. And again. And again.

That girlfriend broke up with me.

One night I went online and started clicking through websites. I found a woman who was seven months pregnant and advertising her services.

Tessa is solidly off-limits and therefore I want her. I want her body underneath me. I fucking want her.

***

My dad is staring into the screen of his Blackberry, standing in the middle of the baggage claim, oblivious to the fact that he’s blocking the flow of foot traffic. He refuses to upgrade his phone, perfectly fucking happy to push those awful little buttons to type messages. He has a preppy sweater tied around his shoulders with a button-down shirt and pleated khakis. I hate him for what he's wearing.

It reminds me of every single time he drove away from me and my mother for business trips that sometimes lasted months.

I duck into the bathroom to avoid him for a little while longer. Three men are using the urinals, their suitcases at their feet. I walk over to the sink to wash my face.

I look at myself in the mirror. My long hair has come loose from the bun I'd thrown it up in to get it off my neck. Good thing I came in here. My dad hates my hair. I take it out and twist it back up into a slightly neater bun. I won’t be surprised if he pays one of his house staff to buzz my hair when I'm asleep over the next week. After washing my face and dabbing it with a rough, thin paper towel, my phone buzzes in my duffel. I don't even bother digging it out. It's likely my dad asking where the hell I am.

Mr. Keeps-Everyone-Waiting hates waiting on people. Of course.

I wander out into the baggage area and grunt a hello.

"Hang...on...just...one...second..." My dad can't rip his eyes away from the tiny screen. It's a full thirty seconds before he looks up at me. When he finally does his eyes immediately go up to the bun on top of my head. A look of disapproval crosses his face. "Well, do you have luggage?"

I feel a jab of annoyance at his words. I'm not sure my dad has ever hugged me in my life, but there is still a part of me that expects one from him. "Nah, just this," I say, indicating the duffel bag that is slung over my shoulder.

"Great, let's go then. I'm double parked." He turns around and walks away from me, Blackberry still very much in his grasp.

I follow him out into the brilliant southern California sunshine. I’ve only been living in San Francisco for just over a year, but the gloom and fog there are starting to get to me. I feel a little like a wilting flower. I pull on my Aviator sunglasses and realize that what my father means by "double-parked" is that he left his black, gleaming Maserati running in the fire lane. Right next to the curb. I look around, waiting for the security guard circling the area with his bike to pull my dad aside, but nothing happens. My dad nods his head at the guard and the guard returns the gesture almost imperceptibly.

I laugh darkly and slide into the car. "How much did you pay this time?"

My dad makes it a habit of carrying around hundred dollar bills to pay people to overlook the questionable things he often does. Things that "normal" people would be arrested over? My dad does those things all the time without consequence.

He ignores my question and puts the car in drive. He peels out of the space, narrowly missing a rental car bus. The bus driver lays on the horn. My dad either doesn't notice or pretends not to. "Two hundred this time. Usually it's only one hundred. The guards must be talking to each other. They’re driving up the price."

I stare out the window while we wait at the stoplight. "You been picking up a lot of people from the airport recently?" This is not a job I have ever imagined my father doing. This is exactly the type of thing he pays other people to do for him. He'd never managed to peel himself away to pick up my mother and me when we'd go on trips out of town.

"I picked up Cassie all the time when she would fly out here. And earlier I was supposed to get Tessa and Ryan but she took a cab."

I feel my stomach drop through my feet at the sound of her name. All the blood in my body rushes to my dick. "Tessa, huh?" I try to sound nonchalant but my normally deep voice is an octave higher than it normally is.

"Yes, I must not have told you she was coming. She and Ryan arrived an hour or so ago."

"Ryan? Who the fuck is that? I thought that weasel-faced boyfriend of hers had a different name," I grunt, annoyed. I try to play it off, but I know that his name is Paul. Paul Donald Oliver. The man with three fucking first names. I'd looked him up more than once over the last few months, trying to find out everything I could about him. He is a mid-level manager at an insurance firm in some forgettable town in Indiana. He’s a zero.

A zero with a secret girlfriend apart from his actual girlfriend.

But I’m not supposed to know that. My stomach fills with excitement at the thought of Tessa finding out so she can leave him. I just can’t be the one to tell her, because then I’d have to explain that I’ve been investigating her shit rag boyfriend.

My temple throbs at the thought of him. I've wanted to punch him from the second I saw him at the wedding. He'd spent the entire ceremony staring at his own feet, and then the first part of the reception holed up in the corner with his cellphone. I hadn’t known who he was until later, but there are just some people who give off certain vibe, you know?

My dad turns the steering wheel as he darts through slow cars on the highway. "Ryan is the baby. Her son," he replies. "It was supposed to be all three of them arriving today, but Paul couldn't make it. He's taking a later flight tomorrow I think. So it's just her and the baby for now."

Despite my spending the better part of the last months fantasizing about my pregnant stepsister, for some reason my mind hasn't connected the dots that she would have a kid at the end of her pregnancy. I feel a rush of panic and annoyance at the thought of her being a mother. I decide to change the subject. "You really didn't have to pick me up. I could have taken an Uber."

"I don't know what that is, son, but Cassie insisted that I come get you. Apparently it's a thing they do in the Midwest."

"How fucking charming," I say, looking at the hills rushing past.

"Curb that at the dinner table, okay?" My dad sounds annoyed.

"Curb what?" I ask brusquely.

"The coarse language. Cassie hates it."

I roll my eyes. I'm nearly thirty years old and I'm getting a lecture form my dad about appropriate ways to speak. Why didn't I lie and stay in San Francisco? It's not like my dad would have the moral high ground to fucking judge me about choosing work over family.

Though now that I know that Tessa is here without Paul, I'm almost looking forward to a cozy family dinner.

CHAPTER TWELVE

TESSA

Stepping out of the taxi cab and into the driveway of Lyle's mansion, I feel like kissing the ground in gratitude for a safe arrival into sunshine. The perfect-temperature air envelopes my body and the sunshine on my skin gives me goosebumps. I feel like a frozen chicken thawing out.

Ryan is asleep in his car seat but I know that won't last long; it’s nearly time for his dinner. The taxi driver sets my suitcases next to the door. I tip him with the only cash I have and walk up to the front door. I lift the brass, lion head-shaped knocker and rap twice. The noise wakes Ryan and he bursts into tears and screeches almost immediately. I set down the car seat and lift his body out, patting him on the back and murmuring, "Shhh...it's okay. Dinner soon."

Not soon enough the door opens. My mother's face falls when she looks at Ryan who is still in full flow. "Ah," she says, arching her brows. She recovers fairly quickly, pasting on a passive-aggressive smile and adopting a faux-cheery voice. "Well, then. I see that Ryan is definitely making his presence known."

I am exhausted and in no mood for my mother's crap. I push her aside. "Thank you, Mother, for that stunning insight," I snap. I regret it at once when I see the look of rage come over her face. "Sorry, Mom, I'm just really tired right now."

My mother composes herself as she sees an opportunity to criticize me. "Yes, Tessa, darling, you look absolutely terrible," she says to me, patting her bouffant hair protectively, as if the funk of me being on an airplane is somehow contagious. "Go wash up before Lyle gets home."

"Where is he, again?" I ask, attempting to haul my own suitcases up the stairs with Ryan in my other arm.

"I told you this already," my mother sighs from the bottom of the staircase, not offering to help me at all.

I vaguely remember her mentioning it in one of the fifty texts she's sent that day. "I've been a little preoccupied today, Mom," I reply to her from the top of the stairs. I stop to catch my breath. I am out of shape from having the baby, thirty pounds heavier than I used to be. I mostly love my new curves but I keep catching Paul looking at me with barely-disguised disgust. It makes me feel like I'm not a woman.

"He is at the airport picking up Jax," she replies.

I nearly drop both suitcases down the stairs, thankfully managing to keep a firm hold on my baby. "Jax?" I ask in a voice that is three octaves higher than my regular voice.

My mother sighs again. "Yes, Jax. I told you that he was coming."

I take the final three steps up to the landing for safety and stability and then turn around to see my mother looking up at me with irritation. "You definitely did not tell me that Jax was coming. I would have remembered that."