Max: A Stepbrother Romance (13 page)

“What else did the sweet doctor say about his condition?”

“Nothing”, Pandora said, distracting herself with her nails. “Just that. He said he’s pretty weak overall and it could be any day now. I thought that’s why we were here.”

“It is why we are here, isn’t it? Mom?” Isabella looked confused.

“Drink your champagne, Isabella”, Alexis commanded. “We are here mourning the fact that my husband, your stepfather is in the hospital, on his deathbed.”

“And we have his credit card”, Pandora added.

“Exactly”, Alexis confirmed, allowing herself a little smile. “With any luck, I might be able to find you girls a replacement in here. Not that we need one now anyway.”

“You might for Gracey”, Pandora huffed. “She’s worse than that poodle-brain Alexander.”

“I heard poodles were the most intelligent dogs.”

“Shut up Isabella, you know what I mean.”

Isabella looked at the fizzing bubbles at the bottom of her glass, her skin hot from being chastised.

“What will happen to Alexander? We’ll keep him won’t we?” Isabella said, suddenly worried.

“Look, If Gracey wants to make a choice between her family and a stepfather who spent most of his life ignoring her, then so be it. It means less money to split between the rest of us. And as for Alexander, he’s all yours, but he’s not putting another damn paw in the house as long as I’m alive.”

“What does the will say exactly, Mom?” Isabella asked. “I mean, does it say how much we are going to get?”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that my sweet little cherry, you let Mommy sort out all of our finances. And we are going to start with another bottle of that deliciously expensive champagne courtesy of your recently very generous, hopefully not-alive-for-much-longer stepfather.”

Alexis alerted one of the bouncers by throwing a drinks coaster into his back, and a moment later a waiter came over with the order.

“Life is going to be nothing but expensive champagne and superior quality from here on in ladies, you can be sure of that.”

Alexis raised her newly filled glass and her daughters followed suit. “I’m so glad to have you two with me”, she said. “Gracey was always a little different, but you two I knew I could always count on.”

Pandora and Isabella exchanged a glance and then looked back to their mother.

“The future”, Alexis said and drained her glass in one.

***

G
racey had been sleeping and woke with a start to see Leighton standing over her stepfather’s bed looking at the fat, unresponsive man lying on top of it as if he couldn’t make sense of the shape. She had to blink twice to realize she wasn’t still dreaming.

“Hey“, Leighton said upon seeing her. “Sorry for waking you up.”

Gracey rubbed her neck where the edge of the hospital chair had made it sore.

“It’s ok, I shouldn’t be sleeping anyway.” He didn’t look like one but she thought it best to ask anyway. “Are you a doctor?”

“No”, Leighton confessed.

This confused Gracey even more. If he wasn’t a doctor, what was he doing in here stood at the edge of the bed staring at her stepdad?

“Then, I mean, I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing in here? It’s a private room.”

“I’m sorry to intrude. I can leave if you like. I haven’t seen Philip for a long time, but we used to know each other very well, in a past life if you like. I heard about the incident and I was in the area so I thought I’d pop in. I don’t think
we’ve
had the pleasure of meeting before though.”

Gracey softened. A little bit more awake now, she could see just how good looking this man was.

“I’m sorry for being cranky. I’m Gracey, Philip’s youngest stepdaughter.”

“Not at all”, Leighton said and took her hand in his. “I’m Leighton.”

A moment passed while they both looked at the graying man, lying prostrate in the bed.

“What happened?” Leighton eventually asked.

Gracey sighed.

“Last week he had a heart attack brought on by a stroke and smashed his ribs when he fell over in his office. When we brought him here, they could do little else but stabilize him. Since then he’s been in a coma and getting worse day by day.”

“Where are the rest of your family?”

“They’re the ones that should be here not him”, Gracey mumbled, too low for Leighton to hear her. “Out celebrating”, she added, louder this time.

“Celebrating?”

“My stepfather wasn’t well liked”, Gracey explained. “In fact, you’re the only one outside of the family who has come to see him.”

“It doesn’t surprise me”, Leighton said. “Your stepfather had a knack for making enemies and not friends.”

“They’ve taken his credit card to The Exchange with every intention to max out the limit.”

“The Exchange”, Leighton scoffed.

“You know it?”

“I know of it”, he said. “Philip must have done well for himself. That’s a members only bar.”

“He wasn’t all bad”, Gracey confessed.

“Is that why you’ve spent every day here while the rest of your family go off and celebrate?”

Gracey didn’t feel like she needed to answer the question. “Do you want some time alone with him?” she said instead.

Leighton shook his head. “He wasn’t good to me either. I just wanted to come in and see him before he died. I heard he was pretty bad, and looking at him now, he doesn’t look like he’s got much time left.”

Gracey reached for her stepfather’s hand and squeezed it tightly in hers.

“There’s still a chance he’ll pull through”, she said, even though she didn’t truly believe it herself.

Leighton watched this act with curiosity. He had no idea just how pretty Gracey was going to be, and it threw him a little. What was meant to be a very quick visit to say goodbye had the potential to turn into something else entirely. And Gracey had already said she was the youngest daughter, which meant there was at least one more.

“Is your sister as upset as you are?”

“Which one?” Gracey said. “Pandora and Isabella don’t give a shit about Philip because he never gave a shit about them. As far as he was concerned, we were the trade off he had to make to ensure Mom would marry him. He was under her spell, and he wasn’t the first. Just not under it well enough for him to care about us.”

“I still don’t really understand why you’re here then”, Leighton asked.

“He doesn’t deserve to die alone”, Gracey said. “Besides which, he was warming up. We were beginning to get along.”

“It’s a shame he left it so late then.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Silence hung in the air momentarily while Gracey studied the stranger she was now revealing intimate parts of her life to. It was the kind of thing that happened around death, people became more honest about their own lives.

“So, what’s your deal then?”

Leighton smiled at her. For some reason she could feel herself going red. His look was so intense, she could almost feel him looking around inside her. Gracey pushed the thought away. It was the kind of dirty thing her sister Pandora would think. Then she thought it was a good job Pandora wasn’t here, because she’d have already wrapped Leighton around her little finger. Pandora was a good looking girl, and men seemed to go crazy for her.

“Philip and I were partners in a business a long time ago”, Leighton said.

“Business partners? You don’t look old enough to me.”

“Well, that was probably one of the reasons it didn’t work out.”

“And then what?”

“Well then we kind of dissolved the company we had started together and both went our separate ways. I haven’t seen him since then.”

“Until now.”

“Until now”, Leighton repeated.

He could see she was scared. Philip may not have been the best stepdad in the world, but he figured he was probably the only one Gracey ever knew. Perhaps the other girls were older enough to have experienced things in a different way. Leighton could see she was hurting and perhaps much more vulnerable than she was making out. There was nothing worse than trying to make up for lost time. It was a pain he recognized.

“Do you mind if I stay for a while?” Leighton asked.

“Not at all. Here, take my seat. I could do with a break anyway.”

“No, I didn’t mean alone, it would be nice to have the company, that’s if you don’t mind, of course.”

“I don’t mind. I suppose I could do with the company as well. You can probably tell, he’s not much of a talker.”

“He never really was.”

“I guess not. Look, take the seat for a bit, I’m going to stretch my legs and get some coffee.”

Standing, Gracey came up to Leighton’s chest, so if he were to hold her, she would fit perfectly within his grasp. The space at the end of the bed was tight, and as she tucked in to squeeze past him, she had to choose to do it either facing him or facing away. It was a last minute decision caused by a sudden attack of self consciousness and as she gripped the edge of the bed to slide past him, she wasn’t able to avoid contact. The heat that coursed through her body stayed with her all the way through the wait for the coffee to drop out of the machine, the thirty minutes or so more that Leighton stayed with her and long into the night after he had gone, right up to the point where she knew if she wanted to feel it again she’d have to somehow find him.

***

T
he Exchange was packed when he got there. It was the best this city had to offer, which really paled in comparison to what he was used to. Gracey had been a welcome surprise to his hospital visit, and he thought it only fair to pay a visit to the rest of the family while he was here. It didn’t take long to spot the siblings, they both had the same features as their sister, although neither one of them was anywhere near as beautiful. Another sweep of the place picked out who he thought must be the mother, spread eagled across a satin sofa in one of the exclusive sections of the club reserved solely for those members who could afford to enter the very highest echelon. Leighton wasn’t a member here, although he had dealt with the holding company before. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t a single place Leighton Tempest couldn’t find his way into if he wanted to.

Pandora and Isabella were up at the bar chatting flirtatiously to a pair of identikit men in very expensive, ill-fitting suits. He couldn’t work out which one had copied the other first or whether the two had kind of evolved independently of each other. Of the two girls, one of them was clearly the alpha female, and the object of both mens competitive urges. The other seemed happy to be along for the ride, doing little other than giggling along when she thought it might have been appropriate. The alpha looked like she was toying with the men, happy to let them think there might have been a possibility she’d let them take her home. A dangerous quality. They were probably computer analysts or hedge fund managers, Leighton thought. Those guys were always pale skinned and lacking in taste. Always the first ones to be cock-teased and the last ones to know about it. He took a seat at the bar, close enough to be able to hear their conversation, and far enough away to not have to be part of it when she came over to talk to him. And Leighton knew that would only be a matter of time.

When the most satisfactory bourbon was on the bar in front of him - a simple drink with a complexity of flavors - and he could feel the eyes of curiosity burn against the back of his head, he turned, caught Pandora’s eye and smiled, the effect of which, he heard with satisfaction, knocked her out of her flow of conversation.

He then began to count to ten in his head. When Pandora came over, Isabella left with the two other men to gape, a silent gap in the conversation that contrasted strongly against the chatter that had preceded it, he had got all the way to four. It wasn’t quite a record, but it was definitely up there.

Pandora leaned against the bar. She was cocky, and he liked that about her. Alphas dig alphas, there was no doubt about that, it just wasn’t a lasting combination. Besides which, this one looked far too easy.

“What took you so long?”

Pandora smiled. This was exactly the kind of guy she saw herself with. Smooth, sexy as hell, straight to the point and as cocky as she was. What was she doing messing around with Tweedledum and Tweedledee? A quick look back over to them seemed to indicate that without her Isabella felt completely at a loss. She made eyes to indicate for her not to come over under pain of death.

“I could ask you the same question”, Pandora said. “I’ve been waiting for someone like you all night.”

“Is that right?” Leighton said. “It looked like you and your sister were plenty busy.”

“You seen what usually comes in here?” Pandora said, making eyes at what she saw as a very poor reflection of humanity around her.

“I have to say this is my first time”, Leighton confessed.

“Is that right?”

Pandora pulled up a chair and sat at a right angle to Leighton, her foot on his stool to swing him around to face her. “What brings you here then?”

“It isn’t the bourbon, I can tell you that.”

“You’re in the wrong state. You should be ordering what I’m drinking.”

“I can’t see you drinking a thing.”

“That’s because you haven’t ordered it yet.”

Leighton appreciated the wordplay. He got the impression that this wasn’t the first time Pandora had used that line, but it was the first time he’d heard it being used on him. It deserved credit and to that end, he bought Pandora what she was ‘about to start’ drinking, switching over to the champagne himself and leaving the bourbon to the side.

“I like a man with style”, Pandora winked. “Even better if he has money to go along with it.”

Leighton noticed that the group to their left had already split up, Isabella returning to the safety of the cordoned off area to slump against the cushions like her drunk mother.

“She doesn’t have my stamina”, Pandora confessed, unable to keep her eyes off Leighton. He could feel them all over his body, even to the shadows of his pleated suit trousers. Pandora had already finished her first glass. She took the bottle to top herself back up.

“What are you celebrating?” Leighton asked.