Mask - A Stepbrother Romance (37 page)

“Well…I guess Robin called our parents, too,” Sasha murmured.

Fuck.

Chapter 19

Sasha

Thankfully, we weren’t in the hospital for long. It was all like a whirlwind; doctors, nurses, police officers and even a trauma therapist—all wanting to talk to me or examine me. I’d given the police my statement now, and Becca and Travis had already been tracked down and arrested. They’d had more than one kind of illicit substance on them, so I’d been right in assuming they were high out of their minds.

Wherever they were going now, I knew they’d be there for a long time.

I was glad it was all over, because I already wanted the whole debacle to be put behind me. It had been an absolute nightmare, and I never wanted to give it another thought. I’d been lucky to have suffered almost no internal damage at all due to smoke inhalation, and aside from a few bruises on my wrists and legs where Becca and Travis had tied me up, I was fine. I was tired and didn’t exactly feel amazing, but I was alive. That was all that mattered, and I had both Robin and Logan to thank for that.

The only problem with my hospital visit being over was that it meant I had to go and deal with another problem—my Mom and George. They’d seen me kissing Logan when they arrived with the police and ambulance at the farm, but the EMTs had bundled me onto the gurney before Logan or I could even begin to explain. Seeing as Logan had gone into the burning building to rescue me, it was possible that he was suffering from smoke inhalation damage too, so the EMTs had insisted he come with us.

We’d had a blissful five hours without having to explain anything about our relationship, but we knew we’d have to face the music eventually, and now here we were in our kitchen at home—about to incur the wrath of our parents. I’d pictured this moment happening in a number of different ways, but in my imagination, I’d always been prepared. I’d always had a speech at hand.

Right now, we were going in blind.

“We’ll be okay,” Logan said, reaching over and squeezing my hand. He hadn’t been hurt at all in the fire, but his hair was still ashy and his shirt was filthy.

“I hope so.”

“As long as you’re around, it’ll always be okay,” he added.

Suddenly we were kissing as if our lives depended on it, as inappropriate as the moment seemed. For all we knew, it could be the last time we got to be with each other before our parents did whatever they could to separate us.

We heard someone clearing their throat a moment later, and we looked up to see Martha.

“Sorry, Martha,” I mumbled, tearing myself away from Logan.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Your parents are in the sitting room. They’ve just finished speaking with the police about the arrest of the pair who took you, Sasha, and they want to see you now. Both of you.”

“Okay. You knew about us before now, didn’t you?” Logan asked.

“Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. I suspected it, yes.”

“But you never said anything.”

She smiled. “Wasn’t my place. I knew everything would be sorted out one way or another. Don’t worry about your parents. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Logan stood up and hugged her, and I smiled. He might’ve grown up without a biological mother from the age of six onwards, but he’d always had a grandmother figure in Martha, and I was glad for that.

We walked through the house until we reached the main sitting room, gently brushing our fingers together as we went. George and Mom were sitting on one sofa, and they gestured for us to sit down on the other. We awkwardly did as they asked and waited for one of them to start speaking.

My Mom spoke first.

“We’re both very glad that you’re okay. Robin and the police filled us in on the details of what’s been going on with Becca and Travis, and we both want you to know that you can always come to us with any issues you have. We don’t ever want it to get to that stage again. You didn’t need to go through that alone, and we both wish we’d shown you that. It’s our fault for not paying enough attention. I’m sorry. I suppose I’ve just been so nervous about trying to fit in with this new lifestyle that I let everything else fall by the wayside. It won’t happen again.”

I hadn’t expected to hear that. So far, so good.

“Now,” she continued, her face taking on a sterner expression.
Here we go.
“Will you tell us exactly what’s going on with you two?”

“I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” I said quickly. “That wasn’t our intention at all. We know we should have told you sooner…”

“But,” Logan interrupted, grabbing my hand. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We love each other. We’re serious about each other. I know we’re technically part of the same family, but we aren’t really related. We only just met two months ago, for Christ’s sake, and on top of that, we met before we even knew you two were together.”

Mom exchanged glances with George, and they were silent for a few seconds, which somehow felt like an eternity. My heart raced so fast I was certain it was about to explode right out of my ribcage, and I held my breath, unable to do a thing until I heard their response.

George finally nodded. “Okay.”

My eyes widened. “Okay?”

He nodded again, and so did Mom. “If this is serious, and you two are happy, then we have no right to stop you. Like you said, you aren’t really related, and you met before we got married, which isn’t your fault, especially seeing as we surprised you with our wedding,” he said. He paused and cleared his throat. “Of course, this is something we need to deal with in a sensitive manner. As you know, there’s a lot riding on this for all of us, but I’m pretty sure if we all work together, we can make this public without too much drama. Considering my opposition just had a far worse scandal involving your old friend Chelsea Bennett, I doubt anyone will care that my son is dating his brand new stepsister, especially with the added ‘hero’ aspect of you saving her from a fire.”

Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “What did Chelsea do?”

“Well, she started seeing a man recently, and she claimed he was her new modeling agent. He turned out to be a rather well-known porn producer. That little fact is about to break in the media, so believe me…hardly anyone will bat an eyelid at your relationship.”

I almost snorted with laughter. Poor, silly Chelsea. She’d been a bitch, but she hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as Becca and Travis, so at least her little sex scandal wouldn’t hold her back for too long. She’d probably be embarrassed for a while, but she’d bounce back. Rich girls with perfect hair tended to do that.

“So…you’re really okay with us?” I asked, getting back to the subject at hand.

My eyes flicked between everyone in the room as I spoke. There was still a weird tension hanging in the air. Was I missing something?

“Of course. It wasn’t what we expected to happen at all, but we’ll support you. We love you,” Mom said.

“Well,” Logan said, his tone bitter. “
You
love Sasha. But you don’t need to lie to me on my Dad’s behalf, Kari, as much as I appreciate what you’ve both said today.”

I sucked in a deep breath. Now didn’t seem like the right time to be bringing up this issue, but Logan was obviously dead-set on airing everything out right here and right now. I tried to catch hold of his hand, but his arms folded in front of him as he stared at George.

“I love you, son,” George said. “I do.”

“Really? Because it feels more like you’ve just tolerated me for the last fourteen years. You barely even speak to me or look at me.”

“I…”

“It’s fine, Dad. I know why, and I deserve it. It’s because of the fire…because I started it.”

George rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t blame you for that fire at all. You didn’t start it. I’ve told you this before, it was an electrical fault…”

“No,” Logan cut in, his face like stone. “It was me. I was playing with matches in the backyard earlier on that day, just before the fire started. I know you’ve said it was a wiring fault, but you’ve acted like I don’t even exist since then. Why else would you be like that, if it wasn’t my fault? You won’t even let me look at pictures of her.”

George sighed again. “Logan, I wasn’t lying to make you feel better when I told you the fire was started by an electrical fault. Your mother had a curling iron in our bathroom, and even though she’d switched it off after using it, something went wrong with the power outlet, and the fire started. The fire department confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I know you used to play with matches, but you did
not
cause that fire. If anything, it was my fault. I’d been meaning to have the outlets checked for a while, but I kept putting it off.”

He took a deep breath and continued. “And if I’ve been distant…well, I know this is no excuse, and I’m very sorry, but I didn’t mean to. It’s just that you look so much like her. Same eyes, same nose…everything. You’re like the male version of her. It hurt me to see you growing up, because every day, you looked more and more like her, and like I said, I blamed myself for her loss, and seeing you just reminded me. After a while, I suppose it became easier for me to stop spending as much time with you. I thought I could make up for that by sending you to the best schools and giving you the best of everything. But I was wrong.”

This seemed to absolutely floor Logan, and he didn’t say a word as George continued.

“As for the pictures, I didn’t want you to know how much you looked like her, because I thought it would make you miss her and blame yourself even more, so I hid all the old photos of her. I shouldn’t have done that either,” George continued. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Logan, but I don’t want to lose you. I’m sorry. It was never my intention to neglect you, but I suppose I have. I’ve been an awful father.”

“So it really wasn’t my fault,” Logan said, his shoulders slumping. “I didn’t kill Mom.”

“You had nothing to do with her death. I really didn’t intend on being such a bad father to you, but I’m only human. I didn’t know what else to do, but I can see that the manner in which I’ve acted around you has been misconstrued. It’s my fault. I hope one day you can start to forgive me.”

Logan was silent for a very uncomfortable five minutes, and then he gave his father a curt nod. “Okay. I forgive you.”

“Logan, you don’t need to forgive me right away,” George said. I could see his eyes glistening. “I understand that you’ll need time to think things through and really start to—”

Logan cut him off. “No. I don’t need time. We’ve already wasted enough of these years, and I already lost Mom. I don’t need to lose you too.”

My eyebrows shot up as Logan stood up and extended a hand to George, and tears of happiness filled my eyes as they shook hands and then pulled each other into a gruff, manly hug.

Mom smiled at me and patted my hand, and I smiled back at her.

I’d thought it was good enough that our parents were okay with us being together, but this was something else entirely. With George’s admittance of what he’d done, and Logan’s forgiveness for the years they’d been distant as a result of that, we could finally start to be a real, solid family. Granted, it was a rather strange family we had here—me, George, my Mom, my boyfriend who just so happened to be George’s son, and Martha, but it was ours all the same, and I couldn’t hope for anything more.

Being part of a real family meant being loved, no matter what.

Forever.

Chapter 20

Logan

2 years later

In the last couple of years, some things had remained wonderfully constant. Sasha and I were going steady, our parents were still married, we’d maintained our friendship with Robin—she had a great new boyfriend who we’d also become close with—and I was still in college at Murdoch, with three months to go before I officially started law school.

That didn’t mean everything had stayed the same, though; hell no. A lot had changed.

The first major change had been the shift in the dynamic between my father and me. Now that I knew why he’d acted the way he had around me, and now that I knew I hadn’t been responsible for my mother’s death, our relationship had grown much stronger. It was better than I could have ever hoped for in the past, given our rocky history. It was a lot easier for us to talk about Mom now, and he’d even given me all the things he’d hidden from me for so long—photos, jewelry and other memorabilia.

The second change was the criminal trial for Becca and Travis, which had happened four months after they’d been arrested. It had given us all a sense of peace and finality with the issue. Neither of them had bothered trying to plead not guilty, probably due to the overwhelming evidence, and because of that, Sasha hadn’t needed to testify, but it’d been nerve-wracking all the same. They’d been charged with attempted extortion, possession of illicit substances, kidnapping and attempted murder in the second degree, and they’d been put away for a long time. If they ever managed to get out on parole, they weren’t allowed anywhere near us, and besides—if they ever tried to fuck with Sasha again, they’d regret it. I’d make sure of it.

The third change was our parents announcing that they were having a baby just after the trial had ended. Sasha and I now had a little brother called Jack, and while it was kinda weird that we were in a romantic relationship and yet both related to our baby sibling, we’d become accustomed to it. I loved babysitting Jack, and doing so made me realize how much I loved kids. I’d never thought about it all that much in the past, but now I couldn’t wait to have kids—with Sasha, of course. We still weren’t in the right place in life to think about doing that anytime soon, but we’d get there.

All in good time.

Martha was over the moon about the baby Jack situation, too. She’d moved into our parents’ place permanently to help out with him, and she’d always make jokes about me having been replaced by Jack as her favorite boy. It was all in good fun, and I’d tease her right back. She was well and truly part of the family, and she always would be. It just showed that sometimes, the best families weren’t the one who were all biologically related. Sometimes, the best families were made up of people that chose to be together as a family.

That was exactly what we’d all done.

During all of these changes, Sasha and I had started to become publicly known as a couple. We did this slowly, trying to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. Despite our best efforts, our parents had still been forced to fend off a lot of awkward questions, but they’d done a brilliant job of supporting us wholeheartedly and making our transition into the public eye as smooth as possible. Because of them, we were increasingly becoming accepted by everyone else.

Sasha and I had also eventually decided to get a place of our own, because the more we grew as a couple, the more we wanted our own space, despite how close we were to our family. The apartment we were renting now was pretty small and old, but it was cozy and homely, just like I’d always wanted. I didn’t care if I never got to live in a huge mansion again—I just wanted a comfortable home with my girl. She’d changed me and made me grow in ways that I’d never expected, and I was ready to take the next step towards moving on with my life.

I wanted her to know that…and pretty soon, she would.

Strolling through the apartment, I found her curled up on our cream-colored sofa with her head buried in a book. I couldn’t help but smile at how content she looked.

“Babe?” I said quietly, not wanting to disturb her if she was really lost in the book’s plot.

She looked up and smiled. “Yeah?”

“Do you have a few minutes? I have something I want to show you.” There was a nervous edge to my voice, and I was sure she could hear it.

“Of course,” she replied. Whatever I needed, she was willing to give me, every single time.

She really was my perfect match.

She followed me downstairs and outside to my car, and we drove in silence until we reached the cemetery closest to the house I’d grown up in; the one that had burned down all those years ago.

Sasha squeezed my hand as we headed through the main gate, but I couldn’t make eye contact with her. It was taking all that I had just to stay strong. She would understand once we got there. I knew she would.

We wandered along, still holding on to one another until we finally came across a marble headstone, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Marie Ryder. Your mother,” Sasha murmured, peering at the engravings on the headstone.

“Yeah,” I said, sitting down in front of it. Sasha followed suit. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted you here with me today. Today would have been her fiftieth birthday.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” she replied quietly. “I’m glad you brought me here.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in our own thoughts until I felt ready to talk again.

“The more stuff Dad shows me, the more I remember about her and all the things we did when I was a kid.”

“That’s great. What was she like?” Sasha asked.

“She was kind, generous, fun… she always had time to play with me. She was just the best. Losing her was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I know,” she said, squeezing my hand again. “I’m sorry.”

“The more photos I see, the more I can understand why Dad found it difficult to look at me. She really did look so similar to me. It’s getting better now, though. Yesterday I looked at a picture of her, and instead of guilt and sadness, all I felt was happiness, because all I could see when I looked at it was the happy memory of a trip we took to Disneyland when I was really young. That’s when I knew I was finally ready to come and see her here. I haven’t been here since I was a child.”

She gently rubbed my arm. “And how is it? Are you okay being here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’ve helped me get here, you know. You’ve helped me piece myself back together.”

“You’ve helped me too,” she said.

“I have?”

“Logan, you literally saved me from a burning building two years ago.”

I grinned. “Well, aside from that.”

She matched my smile, but it faded only seconds later. “I just meant…when our parents got married, I was kinda screwed up. I was so used to it just being me and my Mom, and deep down, I felt like my Dad was being betrayed by her marrying someone else, even though he died more than fifteen years ago. But you—and your Dad, too—made me realize that I could have a big family again, even though we’re a pretty weird family,” she said. “I know I don’t talk about my father much, but he was great. He was just like you say your mother was; gentle, kind, and loving. But I’ve accepted that he’s gone, and I know Mom and I are allowed to move on and be happy without feeling guilty anymore. I just needed that push, and I got it when I had to move in with you and your father. Believe it or not, all those dumb pranks you used to play on me made me feel at home; like we were just old friends acting like idiots.”

“I guess I’ll have to start planning some more practical jokes, then,” I said, my eyes twinkling.

She grinned and shook her head, and I leaned over and kissed her. I would never, ever get tired of kissing this woman. She tasted so sweet and her lips were so soft; the most perfect thing I’d ever had in my life. I could feel a weight lifting from my shoulders as we embraced, as if every problem I’d ever had was evaporating into thin air. Coming here today had been a good choice, and I knew wherever my Mom was now, she was looking down at us, happy to see where we were at with our lives.

“We need to go,” I finally said, rising to my feet. “We’ve got that lunch thing with our parents. Can I have a second alone, though?”

She nodded. “Sure. I’ll wait in the car.”

I waited for her to start walking away, and then I turned and knelt at my mother’s grave once more. “That was Sasha,” I said. “I wish you could meet her in person. You’d love her. I do, more than anything. Oh, and by the way…Dad gave me your old ring. I’m waiting until a few things are done, and then I’m giving it to her. I hope that’s okay with you. I’ve got this whole plan set up, and she’s going to be so surprised.”

I stared at the headstone for another moment, and the sun chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud above me. I widened my eyes with surprise as I looked up at the sky. I wasn’t usually a big believer in signs or anything of the sort, but in this particular moment, I knew it was a sign. My mother approved of what I was planning to do when the time was right, and I’d made a good choice.

I guess that wasn’t really a surprise at all.

Sasha would always be the right choice for me.