HIM—A Stepbrother Romance: With BONUS NOVELLA: PERSONAL (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Kate

“Do you mind if I check my e-mail to see if my professors have commented on my oral defense?”

“Sure. I actually need to check mine, as well.”

And just like that, our phones turned on to the sounds of so many alerts and buzzes, texts, e-mail alerts, and voicemails an eerie chill coincided with a crack of thunder and there was no shaking the feeling: I was doomed.

Emily
:
Is there something you want to tell me?

             
Lacy from Texas
:
Holy fuck! You are like on a yacht with BRADLEY RAINSHAW. WTF. When did you two fall in love?

Claire:
Can’t wait to see you in Paris. A little birdy told me you were getting some much needed r&r. I seriously want you to know that I think that whole idea is seriously FAB. You deserve it. I knew you would always be my sister. Wink.

Lacy from Texas
:
OMG, were y’all like in love your whole life and that’s why you moved away? Why didn’t you tell me?

              Mom
:
How did your defense go? I would like to send a plane for you for Thursday to pick you up and meet Claire and I in Paris for the gala. I know you normally do not like to attend these things but I think as a family unit, we need to be there for Bradley now more than ever.

Emily
:
Like there’s a girl that looks just like you that’s kissing Bradley. I’m assuming it IS you.

Professor Lancaster
:
Hi Kate. I just would like to make sure you received the panel’s e-mail. There is no need to reply. Thank You
.

Lacy from Texas
:
Is his like cock as big as they say it is? I promise I won’t confirm with like USweekly or anything. Lucky bitch! Do you know how epic this makes you?

Mom
:
Sweetie, I…well, I just want you to know that I know about the yacht. And Maldives. And I’m okay with it. I really am. Should I send the plane for you somewhere else then? Or, will you be coming back with Bradley?

“Oh my god. I could throw up. Is your phone about the same thing my phone messages are about?”

His face was frozen, too frozen. He actually looked like someone pushed pause on a DVR. Hello? Speak! How do you feel about this?

“Bradley?”

His lip finally twitched and his aqua eyes darkened to deep pools of water. “I’ll be right back. Stay in here.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. This was bad. My stomach was in my throat as I tapped the e-mail with my thumb, scrolling for the familiar e-mail of my professors.

The subject matter:
We know.

Kate,

We regret to inform you that we will not be able to supervise your studies next year. Partying it up on a yacht isn’t the academic behavior we expect from our serious students—especially in their most important academia week of their soon-to-be career. And no, we don’t believe everything we see in the press. After reviewing the recorded Skype session, our suspicions were confirmed that you indeed were on the yacht. The rocking was undeniably there. Perhaps you should attend your graduate studies in the states where the students are more lax.

Bradley

My mind was racing a million miles a second. How dare that bastard go to the press?

It felt like the longest walk down to the captain’s pit but alas I was there and he had Bob Marley playing as if nothing was wrong. As if nothing had actually just transpired. As if he was on freaking
Gilligan’s Island
.

“You!” I growled as I took his white crisp collar in my fist.

“Wha…what did I do, Mr. Rainshaw?” His hands flew off the wheel and in the air. Panic flooded in his wrinkly eyes, eyes that had seen the sea many days of his life.

“What did you do? You broke our non-disclosure agreement. Selling our photos?”

“What? I…” he ran a free hand through his thinning hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Mr. Rainshaw. I barely own a computer. I don’t even know what websites I would send something to?”

“
People
magazine?
USweekly
?
TMZ
?”

“I haven’t owned a television in nearly three decades. I just took a picture of that full moon last night.”

I searched his eyes. I could normally call BS in a heartbeat. His tanned face filled with horror, and his fear conveyed that he might be telling the truth.

“Let me see your phone.”

“I…uh…well…okay…um.…”

The man had an iPhone but didn’t have a lock on his phone. He had the bare minimum apps. I went to his photos and they were filled with nature and sea pictures. A few of him shirtless and smiling when he caught a fish.

“How do you know it’s not that chef you brought?”

“Because he’s been with my family for years. He’s seen so much shit, I knew I could trust him.”

“Well, honestly, Mr. Rainshaw. I didn’t do what you think I did.”

I sighed as I scrolled out of his collections and saw the little cloud in the middle: Shared.

I scrolled through the album.

“Who are these people?”

“Those are just…just my family.”

“And they see every picture I guess that you take since you’re sharing an album?”

“They are? I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t know that,” he commented with the inflection rising like a question.

“What do you mean you didn’t know that?”

“I was just in over the holidays and my sister did something with my phone. I don’t understand how the cloud works. I had no idea what it even meant. All I know is I see pictures of her and my niece and nephew and now I guess like you said they see pics of me.”

“Niece and nephew?”

“Yes, they’re 16 and 18.”

I glared out at the angry waves. They matched the heat I felt inside. I wanted to lay one on him but something about his primitive nature was a clear indication to me he didn’t know what the heck all this digital stuff was.

“She got that for me for Christmas. Honest, I never go home. The sea is my home. I prefer to be out here on the waves in a simple pair of shorts, no shirt and bare feet. I know every creature and speaking of cloud, I know every type of cloud in the sky there is. But on the phone, well, I don’t get these type of things. But she insisted I have one. Full moons are my favorite. Last night’s moon was a majestic one and since my birthday’s in February, I felt it was like it was God’s sign to me of what was to come.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. This guy was really long-winded. He must miss talking to people.

“Do you at least know how to text?”

“I mean…yeeeeeeah?” Again he answered the statement as a question.

All of his texts from the last few days were left unopened. The little blue circle to the left of the names was indication of that. But Jessica’s text grabbed my attention with the first two lines. I swiped at it first and fast.

There it was. Bingo. Jessica’s text said it all.

Jessica
:
Oh my GAWD, Uncle Rick! That’s like…that’s like…. Bradley Rainshaw on your boat! Kissing his former stepsister! Did you know that!? Are they your private clients for the week? OMG please send me more pics! Take more pics!

I turned the phone around and showed him the text.

“I uh…I mean, I guess that’s you and…shit, she’s your step sister?”

I grumbled and sighed.

“Former. Not anymore. Thank you. I’m…I’m sorry for startling you and crumpling your shirt. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Well, I didn’t. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled to him and left his chambers. The rain was hard against my skin. Most people hate the rain but I found it refreshing. I shook my head and peered out at the sea and the droplets that formed against the waves, trying to take a moment to gather my thoughts and focus on how to deal with this very delicate situation.

And I don’t know why but laughter came to my throat. Bent-over, gut-wrenching laughter about the whole thing. I laughed like a crazy man until finally I came to my senses. The whole thing really was perfect. There would be no tiptoeing around about us being a couple. They did us a favor. Not a single thing would be needed from us. Maybe this PR could be spun in a good way. Because together we were a team; we were much better together than apart and I needed her. I needed Kate by my side.

Kate.

It wouldn’t be so funny to Kate.

She probably was seconds from having a panic attack, if she already didn’t have one.

Chapter Twenty-four

Bradley

One minute later…

There she was. Fulfilling my suspicion, bent over hyperventilating.

“Baby, breathe! Breathe! It’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not. No, it’s not. You don’t understand. You don’t understand!” she shouted.

“Do you have a Xanax? Something? Anything?”

“I just took it and a glass of champagne.”

“Come here. It’s going to be okay. Look, now we don’t have to tell people.”

“Bradley.” Her eyes were filled with buckets of tears and her face was so puffy already from crying so hard. I felt horrible. I wanted to shelter her from all pain and only bring her pleasure and happiness.

“Lo…lo….lo…look…look…look!” She cried out between hiccups and short breaths.

I held her head close to my chest as I took her phone and quickly read the e-mail. Oh no. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. Guilt pained my stomach and I felt like it was my fault about the whole ordeal. But something waved its pointer finger in front of my intuition inside. I got these sometimes, these hits during times of crisis. My grandfather always told me to pay attention when an angel of inspiration is taping at your head. Sometimes crisis points the way to truth, yelling loudly, because otherwise you wouldn’t see it, hear it, or know of another option. Pain gets our attention and waves us off autopilot. It’s in crises when you take a closer look at things out of necessity or sheer stress. Stress is what makes a rock become a diamond. Stress is what causes an egg to boil. I knew I had to say something about this.

“Babe, I’m sorry. I really am.” I sucked in a deep breath and ran my fingers through my hair. She looked so sad, as distressed as someone who loses their pet of ten years.
Did this really mean that much to her?
Something told me she was running from something inside. Just like she ran away to escape the pain and craziness of my family.

“What situation? About my PHD going caput? About my dream vanishing? About being professionally known now by an entire circle of intellectuals as a flake out? A partier? A liar? A…Woody Allenish…person? Falling in love with her own family—”

I held up my hands softly.

“She was his adopted daughter. Remember that. And this is different. We are—were— step siblings very closely around the same age that met when we were both almost twenty.”

A crack of lightning boomed so loud even I cringed. It only added to the doom and gloom.

“My grandfather taught me a lot about life. You never got to meet him or have the privilege to know him but he isn’t anything like my father.”

“Okay?” She looked so confused, almost slightly at her wits’ end. Maybe annoyed.

“But he was wise. He read a lot of books and had a lot of great mentors. You know, because of him we have our companies.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, sometimes it’s in a crisis, such as this, where we’re given the gift to look at where we are headed in life, and given the option to choose a different path.”

“Where I’m headed in life now is nowhere! Nowhere!” She was really cute when she was dramatic like this.

“You have no idea how I just want to throw you over my shoulder right now, take you to our bed, spread your smooth legs open and lick you like you like it until you pass out. Especially when you get excited like this.”

“You think this is all a game, don’t you? I’m not a trust fund baby like you. I’m not of wealth.”

“But you could have been throughout this time. What’s ours has always been yours.”

“I didn’t want this money.”

“Why? He loved you like a daughter. He did. He loved your mom like crazy. Kate, you will always have access to our money. Especially now. Especially—”

“But I don’t want blood money. You know that. You know how I feel ethically about everything.”

“We aren’t all like that. I’m changing that, you know.”

“It feels like blood money.”

“And as you saw on the press conference. I’m changing all of that. We’re gravitating away from this very important life lesson here. I—”

“I don’t want a lecture okay, Bradley? I just…I have to salvage this. I can’t
not
get my PHD.”

It’s now or never. I sucked in another breath and readied myself for the delivery. I reached for her hands and looked squarely in her tear-filled eyes.

“Listen, is this really what you want to be doing with your life?”

“Wh…wh…what? Of course it is!” She pulled away from me. Her hazel eyes were light green from crying. I kissed her forehead but she pulled away from me.

“Why would you even say that to me?”

“Because you’re talented, that’s why. And maybe this is a sign.”

“Maybe what is a sign?”

“Ever since I’ve known you, you have had your own voice. When I met you, you weren’t studying other authors’ work, you journaled. You wrote your own stories.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because I just know, okay? And after that play we saw together, I know you wrote your own first act of something really good.”

“Were you snooping in my room sometimes?”

“A lot of times, okay? I’m coming clean. I’m being honest. But I know an artist when I see one. Do you really want to know the real truth about how I feel about this matter?” She looked at me with big doe eyes.

“Because even if you don’t want to know about how I feel, I’m going to tell you. I think this whole academic thing is a ploy. It’s a safety net. You’re able to live, but not really be seen, therefore you won’t be hurt. But do you know what the problem is with hiding from yourself sometimes? Sometimes in hiding from your own self, you lose sight of who you are and you don’t even
recognize
who you are, therefore you don’t know where you’re going.”

“I…I knew where I was heading but…”

“Analyzing other people’s work is great. Don’t get me wrong. It’s fantastic. But if my grandfather sat around analyzing all the great shoemakers of his day and never ventured to create his own and to leave his own fingerprint on design, well, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I think you’re meant to share with the world, that’s right the world, your stories and thoughts about life.”

“I’m…not hiding….”

“Kate, let’s be real with yourself. With me. With the world. You don’t like the world knowing about you. You don’t like the world knowing what’s inside. I know what happened between us years ago caused you to put a buffer between things, and you sealed your heart. But come on. I know you feel resonance with what I am saying to you.”

“Even if I am…even if I do, what good will it does? I still have this suddenly public situation now to face. The whole world will know who I am now. And now, no offense, they’re going to hate me. How am I supposed to write, then?”

“You’re the most loveable person I know. And I’m changing my family’s legacy.”

“You make it sound like I’m hiding out. Like I’m weak or something. I promise you I’m not weak. If you know what I’ve…I’ve been through.”

Her hurt panged my heart like a dagger. I wanted it to all wipe away, her slate to be clean.

I reached for her hands and pressed them to my lips. “On the contrary, the strongest people have shells for two reasons: to protect themselves to stay focused and on track and to stay resilient.”

“I…I didn’t know you were this deep. This philosophical.”

“As I said last week, there’s a lot you never got to know about me. But please don’t let this news keep you away again from something special. From us.”

Her quick breaths returned, heaping quick breaths. And I wondered if I pushed her too far.

“I…I can’t think about all of this right now. I need some time. The truth is, I don’t know if we…if this is going to work. I can’t handle things like this.”

Nah uh. No sir. I wasn’t going to let her go that easy.

“And tell me, Kate. If we weren’t once step siblings, would you then give us a chance?”

“We would have never met.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps this is meant to be and you’re using this all as a way to protect your heart because you’re afraid of being hurt.”