Mail Order Stepbrother (11 page)

“He’s just…he’s too much like Dad. Too stubborn, too smart for his own good.” Alyssa turned toward Melanie. “If they could just find some sort of equal ground. I’m hoping that Burt agreeing to come to this party is a beginning. And the film... Merchand is one of the sponsors, so they’ve had to work together the last few months planning the promotional campaign. I’m hoping it will help them get past all of this crap and remember that we’re all family.”

“If there’s anything I can do—“

Alyssa smiled. “I was hoping you would say that. Burt arrives tomorrow morning. I was thinking, if we ladies are out of the way, maybe they’ll have time to speak to each other. So I’ve arranged for your mother, Lisa, you and me to go to a day spa.”

“What about the party?”

“It’s pretty much all organized. Kari, my father’s assistant, will be here to deal with any last minute details.”

That sure beat the day Melanie had expected to spend. She nodded a little more enthusiastically than she probably should have and agreed to a long, relaxing spa day.

Maybe she could get used to this money thing…

***

They only got two calls while they were at the spa. One to let Alyssa know that her husband, Robert, picked up Burt safely at the airport and took him to the house. The other from Burton to let Amanda know that he and Burt were going golfing. It seemed like a hopeful sign.

Melanie lingered in her bedroom while preparing for the party. She called the hospital to check on her patients again, then checked her emails and text messages. Nash texted early this morning to let her know he was on his way to his family’s, but he hadn’t texted since. She hoped it was going well for him. She could almost imagine him playing video games with his nephew and teasing his niece. She’d forgotten to ask who was the eldest, but she imagined it was the girl. She imagined him joking about the boys she would be dating, imagined him making her blush with his threats of beating up the boy who broke her heart.

He would make such a good father someday. A man with a heart like his…how could he not?

She looked at herself in the mirror, the soft blue dress hanging from impossibly thin straps to drape just perfectly over her many curves. Nash had said she would break hearts the moment she walked into the room. She knew he was teasing, but the memory still made her blush.

She wished he was there with her.

“You okay, Melanie?”

She turned and smiled at Lisa who had just come in wearing a soft pink dress that contrasted nicely with her auburn hair. “You look beautiful.”

She blushed, self-consciously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Not as beautiful as you.”

Melanie crossed to her and gave her a quick hug. “Well, we should go downstairs and break a few hearts, then.”

Lisa giggled. “Uncle Burt says that all the time.”

They walked downstairs hand in hand. They could hear the noise of the party long before they could see it. The huge sitting room that had seemed so expansive earlier now seemed small as they turned the corner. There were wall to wall people, all dressed in fancy dresses and expensive suits. Melanie had been to a lot of cocktail parties in the course of her medical career, but none of those had been anything like this. She was pretty sure she recognized multiple celebrities, including that guy she lusted after as a teenager after she saw him in a movie about international spies.

“Is it always like this?” she asked Lisa.

“Always.”

Melanie grabbed a glass of champagne off a passing tray and gulped half of it down in one swallow. She was going to need the fortification of alcohol if she was going to get through this night.

“There you are,” her mother said, coming up behind her. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

Someone turned out to be dozens of people, most of whom Melanie already knew from the media or people whose names and professions she could hardly keep straight. She met a CEO of an international conglomerate, an actress she had watched on television weekly all through college, a movie producer responsible for one of the most controversial movies of the decade—who happened to be really nice and retrieved her a third glass of champagne—and the star of Burton’s newest film, the same one that was due to come out in a month or so. There was a lot of conversation about that film. People were expecting big things from it.

After an hour, Melanie’s head was spinning, and they had yet to make their way halfway across the room, let alone out on the veranda where more of Burton’s guests were being entertained by a string quartet. She hadn’t seen Burton yet or the mysterious son everyone was constantly talking about. She did see Alyssa several times, coming close enough to wave from across the room.

“This is insane,” she said close to her mother’s ear.

“Burton’s a popular guy.”

“What’s a casual get together like? Only a few hundred of his closest friends?”

Her mother laughed, but she didn’t deny it.

Melanie was shaking hands with another of Burton’s friends—the head of some Wall Street financial firm—when she thought she saw the back of a familiar head out on the veranda. By the time she was able to look again, the head was gone, but she could have sworn it was…no, it couldn’t have been.

She’s just been thinking about him too much.

But then there was this laugh that sounded so familiar.

The first chance she got, Melanie grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her outside.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

Melanie shook her head even as she scanned the faces that were packed ten deep on the open stone floor. And then she heard his voice, the funny way he had of saying business—a combination of his east coast upbringing and a slight Texas twang. She spun on her heels and there, not three yards away, stood Nash.

“What is he—“

“That’s Burt,” her mother said. “I’ll introduce you.”

Her mother dragged Melanie across the veranda, practically mowing people down as she went. Halfway there, Burton moved up behind Nash and laid his hand on his shoulder. Nash glanced back at him, the tension that came into his shoulders and that tick in his jaw made it pretty obvious there was bad blood between them. With them next to each other like that, however, Melanie could see…

Her heart jumped into her throat, and she pulled her hand from her mother’s.

“Melanie—“

She turned and ran as quickly as she could in a formal dress through what felt like a million people between her and escape. She slipped across the yard to the porch outside the kitchen and through the side door.

“This isn’t happening,” she whispered. “It’s not happening.”

She paced, pressing her fingers into her hair, dislodging the careful pins the hairdresser had placed. Tears burned her eyes as the image of Nash standing beside Burton played out in her head over and over again. Why didn’t she see it before? They had the same nose, the same blue eyes. Even their mannerisms, now that she thought about it. She remembered how Burton had moved his hands while telling a story at dinner the night before, the way he was constantly spreading his fingers to put emphases on the things he was saying. Nash did that. And Nash had this way of smiling with half his mouth when he wasn’t sure he agreed with something she said. Burton did the same thing last night.

It didn’t make sense.

How could Nash be Burton’s son?

“Melanie?”

She didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to look him in the eye and see the truth there, to see all the lies he had told her. She shook her head as tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks.

“I was going to tell you.”

She pressed her fingers into her hair again, wishing she wasn’t standing here in a formal dress meant to turn a man’s head. She wished she was in jeans and a t-shirt, that she was wearing something that she felt confident in so that it didn’t feel like the whole world was falling apart and that she felt like she deserved it for trying to pretend to be something she wasn’t.

“This weekend, I was going to tell you everything.”

“Going to?” She shook her head. “That’s kind of like saying an affair is an accident, that it didn’t mean anything. It really doesn’t have the ring of truth, you know?”

He came up behind her. She could see his shadow grow longer and thinner. But he didn’t touch her, which was good because she wasn’t sure she could handle that just then. She scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks, her hands coming away with little smears of makeup that reminded her of the expensive spa day that was now going to waste.

“If I had known you were Amanda’s daughter—“

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Melanie—“

“Why did you lie?” She turned around, the hurt in his eyes like little daggers stabbing her over and over again. “All this time and you didn’t even tell me your real name.”

“Nash is my name. It’s my middle name.”

“Your middle name?”

“Yeah. Burton Nash Collins, Jr.”

“And Watkins? Where does that come from?”

“My mother.” His eyes dropped slightly. “It was her maiden name.”

Melanie shook her head. “What else do I not know about you? How many other lies did you tell me?”

“This one was big enough, don’t you think?”

That quirky smile he always offered when he thought he was in trouble slipped over his lips. He reached for her, but Melanie stepped out of his reach. The smile died.

“When I signed up for that dating site, it was to find an honest relationship”—to which Melanie snorted—“because every woman I’ve dated since college knew who I was and was only after the name, the fame, and the money. I wanted to find someone who saw me for me.” He shoved a finger into his own chest. “I wanted someone who wanted me, not because of who my father is, but because of who I am.”

“But we’ve been together for weeks. Did you really distrust me that much?”

“I…I don’t know what it was.”

“You said you loved me.” Melanie’s voice shook a little, and she hated it, hated that he could see the pain he was causing her like it was some sort of badge she was wearing on her chest. But she needed to know. “Was that a lie, too?”

Nash stepped back and dragged his fingers through his hair. To Melanie, that felt like an answer.

She brushed past him and rushed up the back stairs.

***

The party lasted until late in the night.

Melanie undressed and showered, scrubbing at her flesh as though it would take away the dirty, used-up feeling that lingered. Afterward, she curled up on the bed and tried to concentrate on some mindless television. Her mother came and checked on her once. She didn’t seem to believe her when Melanie said she was feeling ill, but she didn’t push her on the topic. That was the thing about her mom. She knew Melanie well enough to know when she needed a little space.

She didn’t sleep. All she could think about was Nash. He was somewhere in this same house, laying his head on a pillow somewhere nearby. Was he thinking about her? Or was he sleeping like a baby?

A little before dawn, she dressed and slipped out of the house. She thought a long walk on the beach might settle her thoughts. Or, at the very least, run off some of the energy that only added to her sense of discord. She saw the sun come up, watched birds hunting for their morning meal. She passed homes that were just as, if not more so, impressive than Burton’s, and she saw bluffs that were awe-inspiring. But her thoughts were so full of Nash that it might as well been a movie set for all that she paid attention to it.

It all felt like a lie. All those nights at her apartment, when they in bed talking about all the things they had in common—and the few things they didn’t—when he touched her and the world just fell away no matter what had happened that day…it was all just a lie.

How did she know that anything he said to her was the truth?

That was a thing. Maybe it was just because her heart was so desperate to be loved. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to believe that the only way a man could whisper those three little words was if he was lying. But that moment—those whispered words—were the only thing that felt genuine.

She should go. She should go back to Dallas and forget about all of this. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much when Thanksgiving came around or whatever the next occasion would be that would require the entire family to get together again. Maybe there would come a day when it wouldn’t hurt to sit across the family dinner table from him.

Her stepbrother.

The thought made her cringe.

She turned a corner and Burton’s house came into view. She paused in her step, however, when she saw Nash standing by the gate that led onto the pool deck.

“We need to talk, Melanie.”

She shook her head as she attempted to move around him. But he wasn’t going to let her off that easily this time.

“It wasn’t a lie.”

She froze, her heart the only thing moving. Even her lungs had frozen, refusing to take in the next breath.

“I do love you, Melanie. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but I do. And I don’t want it to end.”

“You lied to me.”

“It was stupid. I should have told you the truth the night we met. But I was afraid it would change the way you looked at me and I so loved the way you looked at me that night…”

She looked up at him, and something inside of her melted. She stepped forward, placed a tentative hand on his stomach. He touched her cheek, his thumb wiping away a tear as he lifted her chin. He moved into her, drawing her closer to him, and it felt more perfect than anything she had ever known before. She could already taste his kiss, could already feel his hands touching her in ways that only he had ever done. It healed some of the pain, that touch. But it didn’t make it disappear.

She moved around him and shoved through the gate.

***

She was nearly finished packing when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

“Come in.”

Her mother stepped gingerly through the door as though she didn’t want to expose the room to something out in the hallway. Melanie dropped a sweater into her suitcase and turned to grab a t-shirt when her mother came up beside her and took her hand.