Steven: A Billionaire Stepbrother Romance Novel (12 page)

I pulled him in close, laying my head on his shoulder and hugging him deeply. Our naked bodies were pressed against each other’s.

“But how long can we live this lie?” I asked, as I gently pulled back, looking him in the eyes once again.

Steven was silent for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he finally responded. “As much as I want to say that we can just keep doing this in the shadows, I also know that it’s not really good for either of us. Clearly, this isn’t working out as easily that we had hoped.”

Steven paused for a moment and took a long sigh. The change of expression on his face caused me to assume the worst and I felt my heart sink. I thought that he was about to tell me the most painful thing that I could have ever imagined. I thought for sure that he was about to break the entire thing off with me.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked. “Something is on your mind, Steven. I can tell.”

He looked away for a moment and then slowly brought his gaze back to my face.

“There is definitely something on my mind and I’ve been thinking about it since the first night that we had sex,” he said. “It has kept me awake every night, tossing and turning. I don’t know how much longer I can live with it either.”

I felt like I was about to throw up.

Is he about to break up with me?

Suddenly, though, to my relief, a confident smirk crossed Steven’s face. The tone of his voice began to change and his eyes lit up, as though he had just come up with a solution to our problems.

“I think we need to come clean, Kelsey,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I think we need to tell our parents about our feelings toward each other. Because let’s face it, I’m never going to leave you and I don’t want our love for each other to be hampered by the fact that our parents are married. That’s ridiculous and I’m done living like this. We need to tell them, Kelsey. It’s the only way that we can stay together.”

My jaw dropped and a strange combination of emotions came over me. I was shocked by the fact that he actually wanted to tell our parents about our affair, but I was also so extremely happy that he wasn’t breaking up with me.

“You’re serious?” I asked.

Steven nodded, keeping his eyes locked with mine.

“I don’t see any other way, Kelsey,” he responded. “If we don’t, then we’ll just spend the rest of our lives in hiding, sneaking around and living a lie. Neither of us want to do that and you know it.”

I didn’t really know what to say. The thought of coming clean to our parents made my stomach turn. I pictured my mom turning pale and nearly passing out at the news and I imagined William’s reaction to be pretty similar.

“I don’t know, Steven,” I said, squeezing his shoulders affectionately. “What if they freak out about it?”

Steven shrugged his shoulders and responded instantly, “So what? Who cares? They may feel weird or angry about it for a while, but it’s not like they are going to disown us. If they love us, which they do, then they’ll eventually get over it.”

I sighed as I looked at him. I knew that he was right. We had to come clean or eventually the secret we were hiding would end up tearing us apart. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in the long run, we didn’t really have a choice. But still, I wasn’t quite ready to pull the trigger just yet.

“Can I at least think about this for a while?” I asked. “There’s no real hurry, right?”

Steven nodded his head and a warm smile crossed his face.

“Of course, baby,” he said. “There’s no real rush. We just can’t live in hiding forever.”

As soon as he finished speaking, I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. Then I pulled away, looking into his baby blue eyes, which always had me hypnotized.

“We’ll tell them,” I said. “I promise we will. Just let me think about the best way to go about it.”

Steven moved his hands up my bare thighs, resting them on my hips. Then he sat up straight, bringing his lips to the outside of my neck and kissing me affectionately. After a moment, he pulled away.

“It’s all going to work out, Kelsey,” he said. “One way or the other. And I promise that nothing will come between us, regardless of how our parents react when we do decide to tell them.”

I brought my hand up to the back of Steven’s head and ran my fingers through his thick hair, pulling him against me.

“I love you, Steven,” I said.

Steven immediately brought his gaze up to my face, locking eyes with mine. A smile crossed his face and his eyes lit up in a way that I had never seen them light up before. He was silent for a moment, as if his entire world had come crashing to a halt in that moment. Then, after a few seconds, he parted his lips.

“I love you too, baby,” he responded.

His words sent a tingle through me and an unintentional smile crossed my face. I couldn’t help it. I had been waiting my whole life to hear a man say that to me in a genuine way and Steven just had.

“I’m glad I have you,” I said, as I continued to run my fingers through his hair. “You mean the world to me.”

Steven smiled and kept his eyes on me. He looked so unbelievably happy in that moment and the emotion was contagious.

“That’s probably the best thing anybody has ever said to me,” he responded. “And you know that I feel the same way about you. You mean the world to me, too.”

As he spoke, I leaned forward, relaxing my head on his shoulder once again, holding him close. For the first time in my life, I felt complete. Everything was in order and working out perfectly. Yes, we still needed to come clean to our parents, but that could wait. In the mean time, I was straddled over the man of my dreams, holding him close and not planning on letting go any time soon.

––––––––

“K
elsey, did you get that report written up? I need to have that by tomorrow, so I hope that you’re working on it.”

My boss, Annie, was standing in front of my desk at work, her hands on her hips and her head cocked to the side. She had a particularly condescending demeanor that day. She curled her lips up as she talked, exposing her tall gums and too-big-for-her-mouth teeth. If that job hadn’t been so necessary, I probably would have just gotten up and walked out. But instead, I sat there with a smile on my face, nodding in agreement.

“Sorry, Annie,” I said. “I promise that I’ll have the report done by tomorrow. I’ve been working on it. I’ve just had a lot on my mind and I’ve felt distracted.”

Annie sighed and then placed her hands on my desk, leaning in close to me.

“Hey, I understand how that feels, Kelsey,” she said. “Normally, I wouldn’t be on your case about it, since I know that you always come through. But this report is extremely important, so I need to make sure that it gets done.”

I kept the smile on my face and nodded my head once again.

“Like I said, Annie, it will be on your desk by tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “It won’t be a problem.”

Annie’s stern face slowly lightened up and she smiled.

“Great,” she said. “Thanks, Kelsey.”

Then turned around and left my office, making her way to the next cubicle to harass someone else. I leaned my head back, letting out a sigh.

Annie was annoying, but I guess that I couldn’t be too mad at her for being on my case. My work
was
starting to suffer. There was so much going on in my life and I wasn’t lying when I told her that I had a lot on my mind and it was making me feel distracted.

In fact, if I could have written out a list of all of the things that were going on in my mind that afternoon, the list would have been a mile long. My stepbrother Steven and I still needed to tell our parents about our secret relationship, my job was stressing me out beyond belief and my mother was driving me crazy like usual. But these things were just a small part of what was occupying my mind.

The biggest reason that I couldn’t focus was because it had been three weeks after Steven and I’s last encounter, and I still hadn’t had my period. I didn’t have the guts to go to the convenience store and buy a pregnancy test either. I just kept telling myself that the reason I was late was because of all of the stress in my life. I looked it up online, and it said that stress can cause you to miss your period. In fact, it was supposedly pretty common for that to happen.

I hope that’s all it is. Stress. That must be it. I’ve been late on having my period before...haven’t I?

These thoughts flowed through my mind as I aimlessly scrolled through my work on the computer. It wasn’t that I didn’t eventually want to be pregnant by Steven, but I had just hoped that our situation would be a little bit more stable before that happened.

As I sat there in front of my computer, with my chin resting on my fist, I started to wonder at what point I would get a pregnancy test and how I would give the news to Steven if I was actually pregnant. Just the thought of having that conversation almost made me nauseous. I had no idea how he would react to news like that.

My hands started to get sweaty and I felt a wave of dizziness flow through me. I felt like I was having a mild anxiety attack. I leaned back in my chair, putting my hands over my head and taking a few slow, deep breaths.

I have to get some fresh air. I need to get out of this office for a while.

I grabbed my purse and stood up from my chair, walking away from my cubicle and toward the door that led outside. As soon as I got to the door, I heard my cell phone vibrate. I quickly grabbed it out of my purse, relieved when I saw Steven’s name on the caller I.D.

A smile even found its way onto my face, as I lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hey you,” I said, as I stepped through the door and into the parking lot.

“Hey yourself,” Steven responded, in his deep and sexy voice.

Just hearing his voice caused the anxiety inside of me to lessen and the knot that was in my stomach began to unravel.

“I’m having the worst day,” I said.

Steven sounded concerned as he responded, “What’s wrong, baby?”

I sighed, as I made my way across the parking lot and toward my car.

“Oh, mostly just Annie getting on my case again,” I said. “I think I just need a vacation or something.”

I couldn’t tell him the whole truth. I couldn’t tell him that there was a chance that I was carrying his child.

“Well, I have some pretty exciting news,” Steven said. “It may even cheer you up. Do you want to meet me at the park? I hate to waste this nice day.”

I stepped up to my car in the parking lot, unlocking it and opening the door. Then I crawled in, relaxing into the driver’s seat.

“What time is it?” I asked. “I can only take forty-five minutes for lunch.”

Steven chuckled on the other end of the line.

“Well then you better hurry then,” he responded. “It won’t take long. I just want to tell you in person.”

I cocked my head to the side, immediately wondering what Steven wanted to tell me. I shrugged my shoulders and then reached forward, starting the engine.

I guess it’ll take my mind off of this whole possible pregnancy thing...
I thought.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the park. Can we get some lunch or something too?”

Steven responded, in a sweet and caring tone.

“I’ll bring you lunch,” he said. “I’ll stop by that burrito place and get you a chicken burrito.”

A smile crossed my face, as I pulled out of the parking lot, making my way toward the park.

“Aww,” I said. “You’re so sweet. I’ll see you in a few.”

––––––––

A
fter a ten-minute drive across town, I pulled up to Steven and I’s favorite park. It was tiny, but beautiful, with blooming red roses lining the sidewalk and two giant oak trees located in the center, tall enough to provide shade for the entire park.

I stopped the car and got out, bringing my gaze toward the center of the park, where three benches were located, set up in a way that created a triangle. I saw Steven sitting on one of them, his arms relaxed over the back of the bench and his face looking up toward the sky.

My heart practically skipped a beat the moment that I laid eyes on him and instantly all of the turmoil that was in my mind vanished. It was like someone had flipped a light switch, completely eliminating any concerns in my head. The only thing that I really needed in the entire world was sitting on that bench, just fifty feet away.

Steven saw me, as I walked down the grassy hill that led to the benches. He smiled wide and then stood up. I instantly noticed that he had a dozen roses in his hand and my eyes lit up as soon as I saw them.

“Steven!” I cried out. “You got me flowers?!”

Steven shrugged his shoulders and then nodded humbly.

“Well, you deserve them, just because,” he said. “Plus, we’re celebrating.”

I ran up to him and he held his arms out, pulling me in for a hug and lifting me up into the air at the same time. He twirled me around once and then set me down on the ground, his beautiful blue eyes locked with mine as he handed me the flowers.

I brought them to my face, breathing in the sweet scent of the roses.

“These are so nice, Steven,” I said. “Thank you. You didn’t have to buy me flowers.”

Steven brought his hands to my waist, pulling my body against his. Then he leaned forward, giving me a slow peck on the lips before pulling away.

“Of course I didn’t have to,” he responded. “But you deserve them.”

Then he brought his arm around my shoulder, squeezing me tight. It felt good to be near him again. Steven’s presence always seemed to fix any of the issues that I was dealing with in my life. He didn’t even have to say anything. Just his presence alone was enough.

“So,” Steven said. “Are you ready to hear the good news?”

We took a seat on the bench. Steven kept his arm wrapped around my shoulder, holding me close.

“Yes, what is it?” I asked, eagerly.

The entire car ride to the park, I tried to figure out what the good news could have been. I thought maybe his business had grown or he was taking a vacation or something. I had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth.