Stepbrother Bad Boy's Baby Boxed Set (19 page)

T
he waves crashed
onto the sand before retreating, wiping away the footprints of the people who were walking below the wave line, leaving the sand smooth and pure within seconds. I wanted to join the waves, to join the sand and be washed away, to be numb and forgotten. Instead, I could feel every second of the past three days come crashing down on my mind, starting with talking with Yuki and ending with getting off the plane in Miami.

I
hadn't planned
on going to Miami. It was just the first plane that was flying out of Logan Airport when I got there. I'd already left the manor, my bag slung into the back of one of the gardener's trucks. The trucks belonged to the manor, so I wasn't technically stealing it, but my license was suspended. If a cop had pulled me over, I most likely would be spending the night in jail. As it was, I got all the way to the long term lot without incident, parked the truck and put the keys in my pocket. Yuki kept extras of all the vehicles, and she could pick it up. I sent her a text message about the truck in case she didn't know, along with the lot and space number, then paid for three days parking with the cash I had in my wallet. I might have been a bastard, but I wasn't going to cause any more problems that I had already done.

G
etting
off the flight in Miami, I wasn't too sure where to go. It was already late at night, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of finding a hotel room. Instead, I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked into the night, heading towards the beach. Something in the idea of the waves and the timelessness of the ocean was speaking to me.

A
s I walked
through the warm Miami darkness, I thought of all the mess I'd caused. I deserved every bit of pain I got from fucking Gina and not telling Krystal, even if I had done it before she and I fell in love. That I'd gotten Gina pregnant, and was now going to have a baby was beside the point. The baby was innocent, but I'd hurt Krystal, who was just as innocent. She didn't know about my original plan, how she'd started off as a pawn in a grand game of revenge against my father. She didn't know how something about her had stopped me, and had changed me into becoming a better man. She didn't know how I'd abandoned my plan after realizing I was falling in love with her, and how she'd become a role model for me, and how she'd given me the courage to confront the truth about my relationship with my father, and to repair a relationship that had been broken for almost twenty years.

I
was
lucky that I didn't get robbed or killed. Miami International is not exactly in the best neighborhood of Miami, and I walked through even worst neighborhoods on my way to the beach. A white boy who looked like me walking through some of those neighborhoods after midnight was asking for it, but maybe it was something in my face or the way I was moving, nobody messed with me. Maybe it was just dumb luck, I wasn't really paying attention nor did I care.

I
ended
up on the beach about an hour before sunrise, just as the first of the few swimmers who wanted to use the Miami beaches were staking out their spots. The Florida coast is terrible for swimming, with waves that lap the beach like a puppy dog rather than crash, so it wasn't like much was going to happen there. I was staggering by that point, exhausted, and fell asleep or passed out in the shade of an overturned row boat on the beach, I couldn't be sure which.

T
hat had been a day prior
. Now, with three days growth of beard, a pretty wicked sunburn and having not eaten too much, I felt hollowed out. It reminded me of the stories I'd heard when I was a kid, and I'd gone to church with a friend for a few months. The Old Testament was full of prophets who just went off into the desert, usually for forty days and forty nights, coming back with some message from heaven, and a raging case of insanity as well. I could understand how they felt, and I'd only been on the beach for two days.

I
was watching
the waves and wondering how painful it would be to just walk into the waves and not stop, when I heard someone call my name. "Julian? Julian Castelbon?"

I
turned my head
, my neck creaking and my eyes blinking. It took me a few seconds to recognize the fit, well dressed man coming towards me across the early evening sand. "Dwayne?"

D
wayne Forrester came jogging
up and squatted in front of me, looking intently into my face. "Yeah, it's me. Julian, how long have you been out here?"

I
waved my hand airily
, it was all the strength I had left. "I dunno. Two days? Three?"

D
wayne's face
changed in expression, and he took my hands. "Come with me, man. I'm getting you off this beach and taking you to my place."

P
art
of me wanted to tell him just to leave me there, it didn't really matter if I died or not. But Dwayne had been an old friend, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone else. Besides, at that point I really didn't care. I tried to stand up, and was shocked to find out that I couldn't stand up at all. Falling back on my ass in the sand, I looked at him stupidly, my butt hurting from the thump and my pride hurting even more. Dwayne took a knee next to me and threw my arm around his shoulder. "Okay. On three. You might be dehydrated and heat exhausted, but you're still a big guy. Ready? One, two, three!"

S
omehow
, he got me to my feet, and the two of us made our way away from the waves to a parking lot, where Dwayne bundled me into a BMW SUV. I watched him start to go around to the driver's side, but before he opened his door, the world swam for me, and I passed out.

I
woke
up and it was still dark. I was on a white leather couch, and I'd been stripped out of the filthy clothes I'd been wearing and covered with a light cotton sheet to cover my nudity. My skin was bright red from my shoulders to my fingertips, and my face still felt like it was about five inches from a heater vent. My torso on the other hand, was goose bumped from the air conditioning, and I shivered under the sheet. I tried to speak, but only a dry rasp came out of my throat. Trying to move wasn't much more successful, and I had to just lay there in the darkness like a helpless baby.

T
hankfully I didn't have
to wait long, as the door to the room opened and Dwayne came in. He looked at me and knelt next to me, holding a cup in his hand. "Slow now. If you'd been out much longer I was going to call 911, regardless of if you'd ended up in the society pages again or not."

H
e wet
my lips with a damp sponge, and I sucked water from it like a baby. It was glorious, the best thing I'd ever drunk in my life, and I nodded gratefully once he took it away. "How long?" I finally asked once the moisture hit my throat and I could form words again. "It's still dark, I can't have been out too long."

"
I
t's
dark because you've been out twenty seven hours," Dwayne said quietly. "Just be glad Erica and Liz aren't around, you'd have woken up in the hospital either way. Now rest, have some more water, and we'll talk in the morning."

H
e gave me the cup
, with a flexible straw sticking out of the top, and raised my head to put a cushion more comfortably underneath it. "Thank you Dwayne. But why?"

"
T
omorrow
, man. Relax, go back to sleep, and we'll talk then. Don't worry, I'll check on you during the night, you'll have plenty of water and anything else you need."

C
onsidering
I'd been unconscious for over a whole day, there should have been no reason I'd go back to sleep. But as soon as I finished the cup of water and closed my eyes, I slipped back to sleep, and although my dreams were of heartbreak and sadness, I still slept until the next morning.

"
S
o what the
hell were you doing going all Castaway on Miami Beach, man?" Dwayne asked the next day. He'd brought me a very simple breakfast of fruits and watery oatmeal, both because my body needed the fluids still, and because he was worried I'd vomit anything stronger. "Seriously, you looked like a homeless guy there, with your bag on the sand next to you, your eyes blinded almost, and as red as a lobster."

I
slowly chewed
at the piece of mango that was currently on my fork, swallowing carefully before answering. "I think I was trying to kill myself," I said. "I don't really know, I was just kind of walking until I gave out."

D
wayne sat
across from me in the dining room, still carefully studying me. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from my bag, both of which hung on my body. I'd probably lost close to twenty pounds in the three days since I'd left Castelbon Manor, mostly water weight though, and my hands still shook slightly from the effort of trying to feed myself. "So what happened? This isn't the same Julian that I knew years ago."

I
thought back
to soon after I'd left college for the second time. Wanting to get away again, I'd flown to the Virgin Islands, where I'd met Dwayne Forrester. The youngest son of the Forrester Hotel empire, he and I had hit it off well, with a lot of second hand familiar connections. He was a few years older than me, and we formed a kind of mentor-apprentice friendship. We'd spent close to three months partying it up among the islands, hopping from place to place probably about two steps ahead of the local constabulary. "Yeah, Curacao was pretty wild, wasn't it?"

D
wayne nodded
and gave me a ghost of a grin. "And Trinidad, and Maracaibo, and St. Kitts, and Santiago. Hell, by the end of it I was wondering if we were just going to become a pair of buccaneers and start raiding the Spanish Main again."

"
W
ell
, we did plunder quite a few bootys," I joked, feeling a bit of strength return. "Although I don't remember who got more."

"
D
oesn't really matter
," he replied. "But what's up with you now? I mean, I've read your name from time to time, you seem to have kept your penchant for getting yourself in trouble."

I
nodded
. "Yeah, I have at that. Meanwhile, the little I've read about you has been nothing but good news. Congratulations on taking over the Forrester chain. By the way, what's this about Erica and Liz? Is your sister living with you or something?"

D
wayne shook
his head and got up, getting a photo from the kitchen. "Here, take a look."

I
looked
at the simple snapshot, and was blown away. The woman with Dwayne was tall, easily five ten, and beautiful in a lot of the same ways Krystal is. Their bodies weren't at all alike, Krystal being shorter and more voluptuous, but they both had a quality to their eyes that told me she was a good person. Held between them was a precious little girl that looked maybe a year old, I wasn't too sure. "You're married?"

"
I
am
," Dwayne told me, a huge grin on his face. "The picture's a little old, but that's Liz in between me and Erica."

I
shook
my head in disbelief. "Wow man. You found yourself a beautiful woman too. Just your type, tall, leggy.... she looks like she should be a model or something."

"
W
ould you believe she was
? She then went into designing, and we met through a fashion show in London. There were a lot of bumps along the road, but we found happiness together. Now that you look a little more like a human being, I wish she and Liz were in town. But, they're overseas in France right now. I'd be with them, but I have a quarterly shareholders meeting I have to go to tomorrow, and frankly I can't miss that. I'm flying to Paris the day after tomorrow though."

"
I
see
. Wow, you've got your life on the right track. Jesus," I said, before the enormity of my crisis crashed down on me. I sat there, emotion choking my throat so that I could barely even make a noise, and told Dwayne everything. I had to give it to him, he didn't once interrupt me or look at me in any way that would make me think he was being disparaging towards what I'd laid out. Instead, he waited until my words trickled off, making sure I was done.

"
D
ammit Dwayne
, what am I supposed to do?"

H
e thought
about it for a second before answering. "I'm of two minds, Julian, and they aren't exactly disagreeing with each other in terms of wanting to help you, but they do disagree on the best way on how to do it."

"
W
hat do you mean
?" I asked, intrigued. Dwayne was one of those guys I respected for quite a few reasons. First of all, his family is about as rich as the Castelbons. Both of us could, and probably at some point in our family histories, had bought a US Senator or two. Hell, we could probably afford to buy a whole country. So for Dwayne, there was never any reason for him to be intimidated or in any way, shape, or form be concerned about my money. Secondly, Dwayne was almost as fit as I was. While his height and frame were a bit lankier, he wasn't a beanpole by any means. In fact, there was one time the two of us had gotten into a bar fight during our carousing of the Caribbean that I had to admit, he did more than carry his half of the brawl as we took on seven merchant marines. Finally, Dwayne was smart, plain and simple. Whereas I'd been blinded by my anger all my life, Dwayne had actually turned his anger into something constructive. Even when we were younger, it was obvious he was going places, despite his partying with me.