Mistake: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

T
he Castelbon Manor
looked pretty much like the last time I'd seen it, six years prior when Johnathan had let me throw my twenty first birthday party here. I mean, how much can you change a place that was built in the eighteen hundreds anyway? All I knew was that when Johnathan finally kicked the fucking bucket and the property passed along to me, I was planning on burning the place to the ground and pissing on the ashes.

Getting out of the BMW I rented for the three days I was planning on staying there, I pulled my sunglasses down to look around better. Yep, still a country style shithole. "God I hate this place."

I was halfway to the front door when it opened, and Yuki, my dad's house manager came out. As hot as she is, I was surprised to find that my father hadn't hired her strictly for her bedroom abilities. She was into women, after all. I'd even met her girlfriend, and had to admit that was a scene I wouldn't have minded being a fly on the wall to watch. Now, six years later, she was still pretty hot, even as she approached forty. "Mr. Castelbon, how was your trip from Los Angeles?"

"Same as it was six years ago," I replied. "You'd think that Logan would be less of a hell-hole to fly into after all these years, but nope. Give me LAX any day of the week."

"I see. Your father is in his study, would you like to say hello?"

I looked at her like she was crazy. "I think I'll check out my room first. Same place?"

"Of course, sir. However, the room next to yours is now occupied. Miss Aksoy is using the room."

I put on what I hoped was my most charming smile. "Really? Well, I look forward to having a chance to get to know Krystal. Johnathan says that she's quite a nice girl. Have you had a chance to get to know her?"

"A little," Yuki replied evenly, "but my brother found out more last night. She choked him unconscious doing some sparring. As little as she is, she apparently knows how to handle herself."

I was impressed, and got the message. Krystal Aksoy was not a girl to fuck with physically. Then again, that wasn't my plan anyway. "I see. Well, I'm off to my room, I'll probably catch a nap. If Johnathan wants to see me, I'm sure he knows where to find me. Oh, and could you have someone bring my bags to my room?"

"Yes sir." Yuki turned and walked off, probably to tell my father that I was here. Either that or to talk shit about me behind my back. Perhaps even both.

My room was pretty much like I'd left it, although Yuki had taken down the Playboy posters on the walls. Considering I'd fucked two of the girls in said posters, at the same time I might add, I wasn't all that interested any more anyway. Stretching out on the king sized bed, I thought about my plan. Knowing that Krystal was able to defend herself put a bit of a hitch in my plans. I'm no slouch when it comes to throwing hands, but my original ploy of using a bit of physical intimidation wasn't going to work. It was a favorite ploy of mine, you'd be surprised by the number of women who want a man who can just physically dominate them.

I considered trying the whole "I'm really a nice guy, just misunderstood," routine, but dismissed that one almost as soon as it came into my head. That stopped working about when I was twenty three and got arrested by the LAPD for what I think was the fifth time. Since then, it was bad boy city for me.

"Hell, maybe that will work," I said to myself, kicking my Nikes off and fluffing the pillow behind my head. "Lots of girls like the chance to try and rehabilitate a bad boy."

With that in mind, I pulled my baseball cap off and tossed it across the room, where it landed perfectly on my dresser. It had been a long flight from LAX, and my body was tired. I figured a nap couldn't hurt, and maybe a better plan would come to me in my sleep.

I was woken up about two hours later by a loud knocking at the door. I rolled over and blinked, checking the digital clock next to my bed before groaning. I'd been in the middle of a pretty awesome dream with two beautiful girls. "What? Jesus, fuck!"

The door to my bedroom opened, and I swear to God the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen walked in the room. She wasn't super tall, maybe five eight, with dark brown hair that flowed most of the way down to her shoulder blades, black eyes, and features that said she had at least a hint of Middle Eastern in her. The first thought that came to mind when I saw her was she looked like Jasmine, the princess from that old Disney movie, or the younger sister of the Queen of Jordan. My fantasy of Jessica Alba and Asa Akira quickly took a back seat to this beauty. "Julian?"

"Uh, yeah?" I said, sitting up. My dream had caused my cock to stiffen in my shorts, and sitting up didn't help hide matters any really. I pulled my legs up to hide it for some reason, I couldn't at the time have told you why. Normally I'd have flaunted it just to get a reaction.

"I'm Krystal. Listen, dinner's going to be in about twenty minutes, and I was really hoping that we could start this off on the right foot. I'm asking you as a favor, could you please join me, my Mom, and your Dad for dinner in the dining room?"

I blinked a few times. This beautiful girl was going to be my new stepsister? And, by the way, if things went right, my next sexual conquest? Damn, I must have won the lottery. "Sure. Can you give me ten minutes to kind of wash up? I was so wiped out from the flight I just kind of crashed on the bed here."

"Sure," she said, stepping back. "You look like you need privacy anyway. I'll wait with them in the TV room. Please, twenty minutes."

She turned and left, closing my door behind her. I lay back on my bed, stunned by what had just happened. I mean, I'd planned on fucking her anyway, but this was truly a case of having your cake and eating it too. She was just the type of girl who pushed all my buttons. Athletic looking, with some nice tits and a flare to her hips that promised a good ass too. Her skin was tinted olive, and I bet she darkened really well when she wanted to, none of that fake bake shit for her. My cock twitched in my shorts, and I thought about it. What the hell, I still had eighteen minutes by my clock. I could use a little relief.

F
or the two
days leading up to the wedding ceremony, dealing with Julian was a strange experience. On one hand, he was just as much of an arrogant asshole as I suspected he would be. Every time he looked at me, every other word out of his mouth in private was some sort of boast or false sounding line. It was annoying.

At the same time however, I could see past that, regardless of what he was saying, a lot of the reason Julian acted the way he did was because he was angry and insecure. Somewhere hidden underneath the two hundred and ten pounds of muscle, tattoos, and swagger was a hurt little boy. In some ways I felt sorry for him over it.

On top of all that, there was the undeniable fact that Julian was handsome. I could see a streak of Johnathan in him, and at the same time, he'd taken the best features from his mother as well. Taller than his father, he carried a lot of muscle on his frame, and from the way it was arranged, it was real muscle too, not fake bodybuilder pump stuff. He had come down to the community center with me, and I got a chance to watch as he put in a pretty good workout in the weight room. In fact, by the end he was able to chalk his name up on the wall for setting the room record for the overhead press, a pretty respectable feat.

The night before the ceremony, I was relaxing in my room when I heard a soft knock on the door. "Come in," I said, setting aside the book I'd borrowed from the manor library. I was slightly surprised when Julian opened the door and came in. "Julian."

"You sure I can come in?" he asked. He was dressed in what I'd come to understand was his normal house attire, a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts, although he'd promised that he'd wear a tuxedo for the ceremony. "I mean, you didn't seem all that happy at the end of dinner."

"I think you can understand why, don't you?" I replied. Despite Johnathan's best attempts, the family dinner idea had fallen apart both nights we tried it. Julian could not let go of his anger and his arrogance to do more than snipe at his father, making the whole meal an ordeal. It was a shame, since the food was delicious. I was going to ask if I could learn some of the recipes before I went back to Chicago. "I mean, I prefer dinner without daggers being stared over the table."

"Hey, at least they weren't being stared at you," Julian replied. "But I just wanted to come by and say.... well, that I'm looking forward to tomorrow. You know, I didn't know if I was going to like you when Johnathan said Sandra had a daughter, but you're pretty alright."

"Thanks. I know things will be a bit strange, but who knows?" I replied. "Anything else?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, sounding slightly thrown off guard. I'm pretty sure he had expected me to return his compliment, but I'm not that sort of person. I'm going to speak the truth. "Tomorrow, your Mom and Johnathan are probably going to expect us to have a dance together at the reception. I was kind of wondering what sort of stuff you dance to. You know, just to make it a bit less awkward and all."

"Considering your Dad's bringing in Meat Loaf and Patti Russo for the reception, I'm figuring there's going to a lot of Wagnerian rock. Pick your favorite from there." I actually enjoyed listening to some of John's collection, and had downloaded quite a few of the songs myself for personal use. I'd even cooked up a surprise with Yuki that she'd arranged with the reception band, that I wanted to spring on them.

"I know. Trust me, I grew up with a lot of that stuff. While I can't stand most of it, I guess I can put up with a slow song or something like that. But, why don't we get a little practice?"

I shrugged and got off my bed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said, let's do a little practice dance. I don't do it very often, and I don't want to look like a jacka.... I mean idiot." I'd told Julian the day before that I didn't like his constant cursing, and while he had dismissed it at the time, I noticed he was somewhat lowering his curse quotient.

"Alright," I said, stepping closer. "Although I'll be wearing three inch heels tomorrow."

"That's okay, I'll be in dress shoes too." He held his arms up, taking my hand in his, and there was a moment when electricity jumped between us. I could see he felt it too, and both of us stepped back for a moment. When he stepped forward again, placing his hand on the waistband of the long pajama pants I was wearing, it rested there lightly, while I placed my hand on his shoulder and we took a hold of each other's hands again. "Okay, that's not too bad. Now, a few steps?"

"Sure," I replied. He led me around, just a simple four step circle, before stepping back. I could see in his eyes that he wanted something more, and I had to admit to myself that my body enjoyed his touch. But then the smug look of self satisfaction that he hid behind dropped over his features again, and I remembered why I barely could tolerate him. "Is that it?"

"That's it," he said. "See you tomorrow, Krystal."

He left my room and I went back to bed, picking up my book where it had been. Still, despite my best efforts, Achilles in my mind started looking distinctly Nordic, and had what might have been a lot of tattoos on his right arm.

* * *

T
he next day
couldn't have been any more ideal if you had bribed the heavens themselves. There were just a few big, fluffy clouds in the sky, and the sun was warm without being overly hot. The ceremony itself was rather simple, although I knew it only looked that way because the wedding planner and Yuki busted their asses making everything come off without a hitch. Just the pure logistics of seating the various Hepburns, Castelbons, and the few Aksoys who had come was in itself a feat of social engineering.

I was grateful that Mom hadn't gone with the standard of having her bridesmaids all wearing stupid looking dresses. My aunt Gina was the maid of honor, which was kind of an in-family joke, while I got to be in second position. The wedding designer had set us up with some very pretty cocktail dresses, and there wasn't a scrap of poofy sleeves or teal in sight. Instead, I got to wear a Vera Wang cocktail dress in deep red, which worked perfectly for me. Mom of course wore white, although she ditched the veil. With her long blond hair very little of it dyed that way, she was angelic in every sense. To be honest, I was so happy for Mom the whole thing went by like a flash. The only thing that did cross my mind was when I came in, Julian was sitting in the front row on the Castelbon side, wearing a tuxedo that made him look actually normal, and incredibly handsome. He kind of looked like James Bond, but a bit bigger and more muscular.
Wow, he cleans up pretty good,
I thought to myself.

With the ceremony completed, the reception got underway just as the afternoon turned cool. The English manicured garden had been set up with a huge pavilion, and the food was good. I'll say that Alinea can turn out better food, but I also know that I've never had to cook for two hundred people at once, with all the courses to be delivered within a seven minute window from Mom and Johnathan getting their plate to the last table. I personally had the cedar plank salmon with roasted vegetables and a buerre blanc sauce, and the dessert was even better, a blackberry gelato that married perfectly with the slices of chocolate wedding cake.

As the sun finished going down, the entertainment itself kicked off. Despite my concerns that having a couple of international stars as the wedding band wouldn't work, I had to say, Meat Loaf rocked the house. He was a consummate showman, but at the same time I thought he did a great job of knowing when to fade into the background and let either his partners (Patti Russo is totally underrated, and should have had her own level of fame that matched Loaf's) or the happy couple take precedence. My uncle Keith gave a pretty moving and at times funny speech for the couple, using a lot of anecdotes about John and Mom from their younger days that had everyone laughing.

It was time for the dancing to really kick off when I sprung my surprise. Mom and Johnathan had already had their first official dance as man and wife, when Meat Loaf, who was in on the whole surprise, suddenly started coughing. "Excuse me guys," he said, turning. I was standing by the side of the stage, supposedly getting ready to make my speech for them, and he winked at me in between coughs. "Well, I was going to do another song, but I think I might need to turn the microphone over to someone else. Thankfully, before the reception, we were approached by a young lady who wanted to give her mother a special gift. So Krystal, I guess your time is now."

He stepped back and let me into the spotlight, and I have to say it felt strange standing up in front of so many people. I could feel a tremble come to my legs. "Remember, the other hundred and ninety seven people here don't matter. Just sing for your mom and John. Besides," he said with a wink, "we've got your back."

I nodded and smiled. He faded back into the background, and I looked out at Mom and John. "You know, when Mom told me she was dating again, there was a part of me that wanted to say, 'what took you so long?'" That comment earned a few chuckles. "I'll always miss my father. Dan Aksoy was the greatest Dad I could ever hope for. And he was a great husband, too, which is why I think Mom waited so long. But the first time I met John Castelbon, I knew she'd found the right man. John, my father left some very big shoes to fill, and I have to say you've done that. You've been kind, you've been funny, but most of all, you've loved Mom with all your heart. You've even accepted her strange daughter that insists on going into cooking like her father."

"John, Mom, this is for you."

The keyboards hit, while the dramatic music started. I had worked on this song for weeks in my spare time, to the point that I could sing it to myself even while in the kitchen at Alinea, and knew it by heart. The first entrance began, and I launched into the lyrics.

Streets of Fire
is perhaps everything that was bad about movies in the nineteen eighties. Overly stylistic, short on reasonable plot, and somehow the director got bad performances out of a cast that was actually talented as hell. I mean, how can you make Diane Lane and Willem Dafoe look like hacks, really? Either way, the music was epic, and as I continued on, I let my mind drift even from singing for John and Mom, and put myself in the singer's place.

Suddenly in my mind I could see Julian as the prince, as the boy that I was singing to. I faltered for just a moment, and thankfully Patti Russo and Meat Loaf worked together to perfectly cover my slip-up, and we transitioned to the fast beat portion of the song.

Mom and John caused quite the round of applause when they got up from their table to dance away the last six minutes of the song, and by the end, I felt a little bit like a rock star myself, as maybe forty or fifty people were clapping and cheering near the stage and at their tables. I looked over at Meat Loaf, who gave me a big thumbs up. "You rocked it," he said, coming over to talk in my ear over the cheers. "Great job."