Stepbrother Billionaire(2)

I groan as a volley of chuckles goes up around the room, and turn to see Emerson Sawyer, my blue-eyed nightmare, striding toward me. He’s easily six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a tapered torso, and effortlessly defined muscles. His mop of shaggy, chestnut brown hair is artfully tousled, a stray lock swooping across his forehead. He’s making jeans and a crimson tee shirt look as good as a three piece suit, and has a lit cigarette cradled in his full, firm lips.

Naturally, my personal nightmare looks like an absolute dream come true.

“Don’t call me that in public. Or ever,” I tell him, crossing my arms to hide the fact that my heart is slamming against my ribcage at his approach.

“Why not, Sis?” he grins rakishly, taking a long drag of his smoke.

“Because it’s creepy as hell,” I reply, exasperated, tucking my long, ash blonde hair behind my ears. “And it’s not even true.”

“Sure it is. For all intents and purposes,” he shrugs.

I’ve known Emerson Sawyer for nearly four years, now. Or, rather, I’ve known of him for four years. Our Connecticut town has two elementary schools that feed into the same high school. Emerson and I attended separate grade schools, which were pretty starkly divided between the richer and poorer families in town, but ended up at the same high school together. I noticed him the very first day of freshman year, when he mouthed off to our sex ed teacher for taking a hard line in favor of abstinence (the most characteristically Emerson thing ever). He, on the other hand, had no idea I existed. Until this year, that is, when both of our lives—personal and social—got turned upside down.

“What’s the matter? You ashamed to have a brother from the wrong side of the tracks?” Emerson presses, jostling me out of my thoughts.

“Don’t put that on me,” I snap back, “As if you can stand having a prissy rich girl for a would-be-sister.”

“You are kind of a bummer,” he says flatly, “But if it makes you feel any better, it’s your personality I hold against you, not your money.”

I stare wordlessly at Emerson, knocked into sullen silence once again by his masterful putdown. By now, but Emerson has figured out exactly how to get to me.



About two months ago, I got the shock of my life when my widower father, Robert Rowan, announced that, after four years of refusing to date, he had just met the new love of his life. Her name was Deborah, he told me. They’d met at AA and “really hit it off”. He talked about her incessantly, stayed out all night like he was a teenager again, and generally weirded the hell out of me.

After just two weeks, Dad told me that he was in love, and wanted to introduce this Deborah to me as soon as possible. I begrudgingly agreed to be around for dinner the following night to meet his mystery woman. We lost my mother Sandy to a terrible car accident just before I started high school, so the idea of a new woman in my father’s life was a little hard to swallow. Still, I did my best to put on a happy face and be as supportive as possible. I’ve never been very good at saying “no” or standing up to my dad, so it’s not like I had much of a choice.

As our doorbell rang the next night, signaling Deborah’s grand entrance into our family’s life, my dad asked me to answer the door. It wasn’t until I was en route that he mentioned Deborah’s son would also be joining us for dinner. When I swung open the door to welcome our guest and her plus one, I’m surprised that my jaw didn’t crack from hitting the floor so hard. There, standing on my doorstep, was Emerson Sawyer. And I could tell from the blank, disinterested look in his eye that he had no idea who I was.



“What’s this?” Emerson interrupts my thoughts, grinning as he snatches the metallic flask out of my back pocket. A trail of sensation sears along the skin just above my belt as his fingers brush against my bare flesh. Goosebumps spring up where his fingertips glanced against my body. It’s like my every cell is hard-wired to respond to him. I need to give each and every one of those cells a stern talking-to.

Emerson knocks back a slug of booze without checking to see what it is first, and lets out a raucous hoot as he tastes the strong whiskey.

“You brought the good stuff!” he crows, draping a muscled arm across my shoulder. “This must be from Daddy’s stash, huh?”

“Give it back, Sawyer,” I demand, trying half-heartedly to push him away from me. If I’m being perfectly honest, the feel of his hard, solid body against mine is something I’ll never stop secretly jonesing for—but he can never know that.

“Come on, Sis. Sharing is caring,” he teases, holding the flask up in the air, just out of my reach. Mocking my height—or lack thereof—is one of his favorite hobbies.

I sigh, refusing to engage in his game. Sometimes, I miss the days where Emerson didn’t even know my name. We don’t go to a gigantic school—there are about three hundred kids in our senior class. So for the first three years of high school, I was able to harbor a huge, unrequited crush on Emerson without ever actually having to speak to him. Emerson’s a lacrosse player, part of the “in” crowd. Because our school is so diverse, socio-economically speaking, popularity doesn’t depend on how much money your family has. If it did, I might actually be known around school as something other than “that short girl who’s always drawing.” But the gods of popularity did not decide to favor me, it would seem. My very petite, nerdy, soft-spoken self is just about invisible in the halls of McCarren High School. In fact, these days, the thing I’m best known for there is being the daughter of the guy Emerson’s “hot mom” is dating.