Dare: A Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

The letter only said one thing, but it was enough to make my mouth go dry in an instant.

Hello, darling. Miss me? Don’t worry, I’m coming home to see you soon. The time is nearly right.

Love,

Daddy

Normally I would have thought it was some sort of sick prank, but I remembered exactly what my father’s handwriting had looked like. This was it, without a doubt. Not only that…the paper smelled like him. I still remembered his cologne as clear as day, and there was a hint of it on the letter. But how was that possible? He was dead, wasn’t he?

Not according to the paper I held in my shaking hands right at this moment.

I suppose they never did find his body. Maybe he had survived and washed up somewhere, and decided to fake his own death for the last seven years for whatever reason. Who knew what that man was capable of? All I knew was what was right in front of me.

The letter was from my father. He was alive.

CHAPTER NINE

DREW

Game over. For now. Not that any of this was really a game anymore. I watched Sophie storm away, and it got me so hard that I was just about ready to explode, right here in my boxers like a thirteen year old boy who’d just touched his first boob. Jesus, even when she was mad and screaming at me, she still made me horny as hell.

I sighed and then headed back outside to my car. Screw being in the house with her tonight. All that would achieve was making me feel guilty as fuck. Deep down, I knew that I
should
feel that guilt. She was right. I shouldn’t have humiliated her in public. It was a dick move. I hadn’t wanted her with Dan because I wanted her to myself. I was being selfish, but at the same I was trying to help her because of how much I cared. I knew that guy, and I knew he was bad for her, especially after I’d found out he was dating my friend Ana’s best female friend.

If I had Sophie, I wouldn’t string her along and cheat like that asshole had done. No, I’d treat her how she deserved. I hadn’t exactly made the best attempt at showing her that tonight, though, and I cursed myself for being such an asshole. Why the fuck had I thought it would actually be a good idea to expose Dan’s seedy behavior right in the middle of their date?

I’d blown off a promo gig at a club tonight, but it was still pretty early and I needed something to take my mind off everything. I called up my agent, and she said if I could make it to the place within the next half hour, I’d still get paid. Just as I went to start my car up, I got a text.

Goddammit, it was Vanessa the ex. She’d been texting me every day for the last couple of weeks, and I’d ignored and deleted every one of the messages. Too bad for her. She could beg and plead all she wanted, but I wasn’t getting back with her.

Please call me. I’ve been trying to contact you, but you aren’t picking up or texting back. It’s really important,
the text said.

Sure it was. I deleted it and then gunned the engine, speeding down the quiet suburban street. I had better things to do than deal with Vanessa’s shit. Right now all I cared about was thinking of some way to make things up to Sophie.

***

I was only an hour into the promo shift when one of the bartenders motioned for me to go over to him.

“What’s up?” I said, practically having to shout over the thumping bass of the music.

He pointed down behind the bar where I’d left my phone and keys.

“Your phone’s been blowing up for the last half hour,” he said. “I think it’s your father.”

I strained to hear him. “Huh?”

“I said your father is trying to reach you!”

Shit. Okay, then. That was weird. My Dad never called me this late at night. I grabbed my phone and saw that it had eleven missed calls and three voicemails, and I found a quiet spot somewhere and listened to the messages.

‘
Drew, wherever you are, I’d like you to come home right away,
’ the first message said. ‘
It’s a family matter
.’

The next two messages were much the same, only more urgent sounding. I went back to the bar, grabbed my keys and then strode away.

“Hey, where are you going?” the bartender called out after me. “You models only get paid if you stay till two!”

I didn’t turn around, and I held up my hand in a dismissive gesture so he’d know how little I gave a fuck. As soon as I got in my car, I dialed my Dad’s number, and I put him on loudspeaker when he answered on the second ring.

“Dad, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Where are you?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“I was at work, but I’m coming home now. I only just got your messages.”

“Good. Hurry up.”

With that he hung up, and I was left mystified. What the hell was going on that was so important? When I finally pulled into the street, I saw two police cars parked up on the curb, and my heart began to thump faster and faster in my ribcage. Shit. What if something had happened to Sophie?

I raced inside as quick as my legs could carry me, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Sophie alive and well, sitting at the kitchen table with Marie and two police officers. Her face was tearstained, and I felt a surge of protectiveness. I wanted to go and hug her, but I doubted she would have appreciated it after our argument earlier.

“What’s going on?” I asked for what felt like the hundredth time already.

“Sit down,” my Dad said. “Don’t worry, son, you haven’t done anything.”

I took a seat at the head of the table, and the two officers introduced themselves and asked me a bunch of questions. Had I seen anyone hanging around the house, had I heard anything, yada yada.

“Look, are you going to tell me what this is about or what?” I finally said, narrowing my eyes.

Dad sighed. “Something happened earlier. Sophie received a letter, and it appears to be from her father.”

“
What?
” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up. “He’s dead!”

“Declared dead in absentia, but never actually confirmed dead,” one of the officers said.

“But it’s been seven years. If he was still alive, why the fuck would he only show up now?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” the other officer said. “We’re trying to find out if this was just a prank, or if he really is alive. And if he is alive, we need to find out why he’s only come back now.”

“It’s gotta be a prank,” I said, and Sophie glared at me.

“It’s
not
!” she said. “I know his writing! And I can smell his cologne on it.”

Marie’s face was white. “She’s right,” she said quietly. “It’s his handwriting.”

A woman in a dark blue jacket marked with a white CSI emblem walked in. “We haven’t found any shoeprints outside that come from anyone other than the people in the house. We also dusted the mailbox for any fingerprints, but there’s nothing there. It’s been wiped down.”

“Surely there must be something,” my Dad said.

She nodded. “There is. I took a look at the envelope the letter came in, and there’s a bit of hair stuck to the sticky part that sealed the envelope shut.”

“Can you get DNA from hair?” I asked.

“Sometimes. Actual hair itself, no, but hair follicles can provide DNA. This piece of hair looked like it still had part of the follicle attached. Looks pretty degraded, honestly, but I think we should be able to get a sample.”

“So what do you need from us?” Dad asked.

One of the officers looked at Marie. “If you still have anything belonging to your ex-husband, something like a toothbrush, it would be very helpful. That way we have something to match our sample against.”

Marie was silent, and Dad looked at her before looking at the officers. “There is some stuff,” he said. “A few boxes up in the attic. She didn’t throw all of his stuff away.”

I was surprised to hear that. Maybe she’d expected him to return one day, or maybe she simply hadn’t had the heart to throw it all out after he’d vanished, despite everything he’d done.

“Can you go and have a look, then?”

Dad nodded and headed upstairs, and Marie and Sophie clung to each other, clearly terrified.

“It’s probably not his hair on the envelope,” I said, trying to make them feel better. “I bet it’s just some shitty prank.”

“But who would do such a horrible thing?” one of the officers said, giving me a suspicious glance.

“Don’t look at me. I dunno.”

My Dad returned a moment later. “I found what I assume is his old toothbrush,” he said, holding up a blue toothbrush.

Marie nodded. “Yes, that was his,” she said in a small voice.

“I also looked for an old comb to see if there was something you could directly compare the hair from the letter to in case you couldn’t get a DNA sample from it, but I couldn’t find one. I’ll have another look tomorrow.”

“The toothbrush should be fine,” the CSI woman said, extending a gloved hand and taking it from him before sliding it into a plastic evidence bag. “I’ll take it now.”

She left the room, and the two officers stood up. “We’re going to watch the house tonight, but I’d suggest you all go and stay somewhere else tomorrow,” one of them said. “Somewhere where your ex-husband won’t suspect.”

Marie nodded, and my Dad squeezed her shoulder. “That’s fine. We’ll go to my house in Medina tomorrow and stay there until this is resolved. Thank you, officers.”

“Try to get some sleep. We’ll be right outside.”

With that, they were gone, and I looked at Marie and my Dad. “If it’s okay with you guys, I think I’ll drag my mattress into Sophie’s room and sleep on her floor. That way even if the cops miss anything, I’ll be right there if he tries to break into her room. Not that I think he actually will, but you know…just to be safe.”

Marie nodded. “Thank you, Drew.”

Sophie barely reacted at all to the idea of having me in her room, clearly too stressed over the whole incident for it to even register in her mind that she was annoyed with me. Fifteen minutes later, we were in her room, and I threw a blanket and a pillow down on the mattress on the floor before watching her climb into bed and snuggle under a thick layer of blankets.

“Want me to turn the light off or leave it on?”

“Off,” she said. “I can’t sleep with any lights on.”

I switched it off and then slid under the blanket on my mattress, and I heard her sniffling a moment later. I got up and sat on the edge of her bed, and she pushed me away as I tried to pat her on the back. Sighing, I got back onto my mattress and lay there with my eyes wide open, listening as her sniffles finally turned into soft snores.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I needed to know she was safe, and the only way I’d know that is if I stayed awake, right here next to her.

CHAPTER TEN

DREW

First thing the following morning, my Dad moved us all to our house in Medina. Even if Sophie’s father was still alive and knew Marie had remarried, there was no way he’d be able to get anywhere near our house. With two full-time security guards, high fences, security gates and a state-of-the-art alarm system and panic room, he wouldn’t have a chance.

By the early afternoon, I was moving the last box of stuff into Sophie’s new bedroom, right across the hall from my own. With all the drama in the last sixteen hours, the whole Dan situation seemed to have been dropped. I still felt guilty for the shitty way I’d handled it, but Sophie seemed to have forgiven me. I guess having her crazy Dad possibly back in the picture made her realize that in the end, I had been a douche, but it wasn’t anywhere near the worst thing in the world.

“Where do you want this?” I asked, setting the box down for a moment as I waited for her to emerge from the closet where she’d been unpacking her clothes.

“Just anywhere is fine for now,” she said, coming out with an incredulous expression on her face. “That closet is bigger than my entire room at home.”

I grinned. “Yeah, there are some perks to having a rich Dad.”

Her surprised expression faded into a grimace at the mention of the word ‘Dad’, and I mumbled an apology and picked the box back up. It was filled with notebooks and paper, so I assumed it belonged somewhere near her desk.

“Hey, what’s this?” I asked, picking up a sheaf of papers that had been sitting at the top. They were stapled together, and there was a printed title on it that said ‘Forbidden Steps’. Her eyes widened as she snatched it out of my hand.

“Don’t touch that!” she said.

“Why?” I asked, arching a brow. “Have you written bitchy things about me in there or something?”

She blushed. “No. It’s just an early draft I printed of a story I’m writing. It has nothing to do with you.”

“I didn’t know you wrote stories.”

She looked down at the floor. “Um…yeah, I do. It’s just a hobby.”

Judging by the amount of papers with scrawled writing on them in the box, it was a lot more than a hobby, but I didn’t say anything else about it.

“Right. Let’s go grab some lunch.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, too bad, you need to eat,” I said. I knew she was lying. She was always hungry when she was frightened, and with everything that was going on, she was scared out of her mind. She just wanted to hole herself up in her room right now, but I wasn’t going to let her do that.

“C’mon,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I’ll make you some popcorn with powdered sugar on top….”

She gave me a watery smile. “Fine.”

“I knew you wouldn’t say no to that,” I said with a grin. “All right, I’ll show you the kitchen first, and then we’ll eat.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket as we headed downstairs, and I checked the caller ID. It was Caleb. I ignored it for now. He’d been texting and calling a lot lately, checking up on the ridiculous dare he’d made, and I couldn’t be fucked explaining that it was off. I didn’t give a shit about winning his Phantom, even if it was an awesome car that I couldn’t otherwise get my hands on. What I actually cared about was Sophie.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the house and watching old movies in the cinema room. I made sure to pick all the ones she’d always insisted on watching over and over again when we were kids, and she rolled her eyes as I put on Roman Holiday.

“Seriously? You want to watch this?” she asked.

“Hey, I never wanted to when we were kids, but you forced me to watch it with you so many times that I can’t help but like it now,” I said with a wink.

She smiled, and it was good to see her finally relaxing a bit. I think she finally knew how safe she was here. No one could touch her as long as she stayed within my sight.

My Dad came and found us at eight. “There you two are. Are you going to join us for dinner?”

Ten minutes later, we were all sitting around the main dining room table, enjoying a rich and hearty French beef and red wine casserole.

“Did you make this, Marie?” I asked between big mouthfuls. “It’s so good.”

She smiled. “Yes, I did. Thanks, Drew.”

Sophie opened her mouth like she was about to say something and then closed it again. She did it three times before finally speaking.

“Um…Mom…did you hear anything about the letter yet?” she asked.

Marie’s smile faded, and Dad answered for her.

“Yes, we did. I have some connections, and I managed to get the lab work expedited. We were going to tell you after dinner, but I suppose we have to now, seeing as you asked. They got some DNA from the hair on the envelope, and they compared it to the DNA they managed to get from the old toothbrush.”

“And?”

He exchanged a glance with Marie before looking back at us. “It was a match. Your father sent the letter, Sophie.”

Her face paled, and she dropped her spoon with a clatter. Marie immediately got up and sat right next to her, rubbing her shoulders and making soothing sounds.

“I’m sorry, honey. But it’s going to be okay. We’re safe here,” she said.

“I know.”

There was a tense silence for a few minutes until Sophie spoke again.

“I just don’t understand how he faked his own death. Have they spoken to the friend he was with on the boat that day?”

“Yes, the police have interviewed him, and he swears up and down that your father went overboard. But you know your father. He wasn’t nice, but he was smart. He could’ve fooled anyone.”

“But why?” Sophie continued. She’d obviously had these questions at the forefront of her mind, and it was all coming out now. “Why would he fake his own death in the first place?”

Marie shook her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t. The only thing I can think of is that his business wasn’t doing so well when he disappeared. That’s why there was hardly anything left to live on when it happened. The failing business had almost sent us bankrupt.”

“Oh.”

The maid came and cleared away our plates, and Sophie abruptly stood up.

“I’m going to shower and then go to bed,” she said.

“Okay, honey. We’ll talk again in the morning,” Marie said.

They hugged, and then Sophie padded out of the dining room. I followed not long afterwards, and as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling ten minutes later, my entire body felt restless. Springing to my feet, I headed across the hall to Sophie’s room and knocked on her door. She answered a moment later, wearing only a towel wrapped around herself.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, averting my eyes. “I forgot you were showering.”

“It’s okay, I already got out,” she said. “I couldn’t remember where I put my pajamas, so I’ve been hunting in the closet for the last few minutes.”

“Right. Well, I just wanted to tell you that if you need anything at all, you know I’m right across the hall.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Seriously, Sophie. I don’t give a shit if it’s three in the morning or any other time - if you need anything or feel scared, you come and wake me up. Got it?”

I turned to leave, and she called out to me and grabbed the back of my shirt before saying one word. One beautiful word.

“Wait.”