Stepbrother: Stepbrother Seduction (Stepbrother Obsessions Book 1) (6 page)

Danny spent December being Sarah’s boyfriend. The agreement was that on New Year’s Eve, she would dump him by kissing another guy, and it would be over. It would have to be done so that her reputation wasn’t ruined. He hadn’t had much time for Tanya, no thanks to Sarah who was keeping him busy. She even insisted on coming to family dinners. All they got were a few stolen moments.

Finally, though, New Year’s Eve had come, and Tanya was to meet him at the party after midnight. He’d save his kiss for her when the deal was officially over. It was that simple, really, and Tanya couldn’t wait to get back on track. She hoped to discuss college and the future with him. She’d already gotten early acceptance to her college of choice, and she was sure there were plenty of great schools for football in California.

She looked at herself in the mirror to make sure everything was perfect. He’d actually bought her an outfit to wear; a black sweater that exposed her navel with rhinestone one it, a plaid skirt, combat boots, and fishnets that matched the skirt. It was so her, and he’d made it clear that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want to hide who he was or who she was anymore other than around their parents.

She just hoped that she’d be feeling alright for the party. She’d spent the past few days dealing with some kind of stomach bug. She was pretty nauseous a lot of the time, and she had some abdominal pain. She hoped that she was over it, though the pain was still there. She had yet to throw up, though.

“Can you do my makeup?” Quinn asked, walking into the bathroom. She had just dyed her hair a dark purple and had left it down and curled it. She had on a black pinstripe dress with chains across the back. Tanya’s jaw practically dropped to the floor.

“Sure, Quinn. You look amazing.” Tanya began pulling out her makeup kit, choosing the right eye shadows and eyeliner to make Quinn look perfect. “You think you’ll meet someone tonight?”

“I don’t know, Tanya. I mean, I don’t think I want to meet someone.”

“Oh, why not? I remember how you were all over that friend of Danny’s. What ever happened to him?” Quinn shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the mention of that. Tanya knew Quinn had embarrass herself a little by drinking too much and passing out, but she thought her friend was over it.

“Tanya, there’s something I should tell you. I should’ve told you that next day, but you were so happy with Danny that I couldn’t. I don’t know if Danny was involved or not, but I do know I didn’t have enough to drink for me to have passed out. I think one of them put something in my drink, maybe after you guys ran off. I don’t know. But I remember feeling really sleep and then trying to fight that guy off me. He was like all over me, and then they all were. Then, I remember them getting mad and taking me to Danny’s car. That’s all I know until I woke up here. I don’t think anything happened; I think I pissed them off enough to make it stop. But it just makes me a little afraid to put myself out there again, you know?”

Tanya stared at her friend in shock. Was she saying what Tanya thought she was saying? And Danny had let those guys be alone with Quinn? This was awful. “That’s terrible, Quinn. I feel so terrible for leaving you with them, and I can’t believe Danny would let us around those guys. Even if nothing happened it could have. I’m not waiting for this deal to be done. We need to leave now and go talk to Danny about this. It’s unacceptable.”

“No, Tanya, I don’t want you to ruin anything.”

“Quinn,” Tanya cut her off. “You’re my best friend, and I’m not letting anyone mess with you and get away with it. Danny and I are both almost just as responsible as those other assholes. Let’s go.”

The girls ran out to her mother’s car which was finally fixed and took off for where they knew the party would be taking place. It was at someone house just off the community college campus. Tanya was going to confront Danny about everything. She needed answers about why his friends did this, why he trusted them, and if he really did have feelings for Sarah.  She suddenly doubted everything he’d ever said to her.

On the way there, her abdominal pain was getting worse, but she pushed through it. When she got inside the house she spotted Danny near a group of jocks near a keg and went towards him. She could see the shock in his eyes. But then she paused and looked down, feeling the trickle of something down her leg. Dark red blood was rushing from somewhere, and as she looked back up, the world spun before going black. The last thing she saw were Danny’s baby blues looking at her.

***

Noises and voices swirled in and out of Tanya’s mind. She heard the beeping of machines and the mixture of concerned voices and those of doctors and nurses. She was half awake and half asleep as she tried to focus and pull out just one thing. That’s when she heard her mother’s voice. Her eyes felt glued shut, so she just listened to the broken conversation her mother was having with a man with a friendly voice.

“Pregnant; how could she be pregnant? Her boyfriend is in Portland.” Her mother’s voice sounded confused and teary. Tanya tried to make sense of what was being said. Could she be pregnant? She played the last couple of months in her head like a movie and remembered every moment with Danny. They had never gotten their New Year’s kiss. Could she really be pregnant with his baby?

“Mrs. Sellers, she’s 18 years old. I’m sure there are plenty of things she doesn’t tell you. But the point here is that she was pregnant.”

“What do you mean was?” Funny, Tanya was wondering the same thing.

“Well, the blood loss was actually because her fallopian tube burst. She had an ectopic pregnancy. We had to go in and repair the damage and remove the fetus. She wasn’t that far along, just far enough to cause a problem. She may not have even known herself. But she may need support when she wakes up.”

Tanya heard her mother make a whimpering sound and tried once again to open her eyes and got them to open a slit. Her eyelids felt very heavy. “Mom?” she croaked out, and her mother looked up and ran over to her, grabbing her hand. “What happened?”

“Oh, Tanya, we have a lot to talk about.” The doctor left the room, and Tanya forced her eyes open to see that both her stepfather and Danny were also in the room. She met eyes with Danny and saw the tracks of tears down his cheek before he looked down and left the room.

Tanya splashed her face with some cold water and looked at herself in the mirror. She still hadn’t been released from the hospital yet. They wanted to watch her for a couple days and make sure there were no major complications. This gave her mother the chance to bring in a counselor to talk to all of them. The whole family was supposed to do it together, but Danny had already refused to. She hadn’t seen much of him and hadn’t been alone at all to discuss the fact that their baby, one they didn’t know they were having, was gone.

It was weird, trying to grieve for something that was gone before you knew it even existed. And knowing that that thing was a life, one that had almost ended her own, was even harder. She knew better than to beg to see Danny to talk to him about it. The whole counselor thing was a rouse to get out of her who the baby belonged to and nothing else. She could tell by the way her mother looked at her and probed constantly. It was like her mother suddenly thought she was some kind of promiscuous teenager who needed to be deprogrammed.

She sighed as a knock came on the door. It was probably her mother checking up on her. Tanya walked out the door to find Danny there instead. She peeked around the corner to make sure that no one else was listening. There were some nurses going by, but that was it. Her mother must have still been in the hospital room waiting on the counselor.

“I’m so sorry, Tanya. I had no idea this could happen. I can’t believe we almost lost you.” He looked down at her with worry and sympathy and almost hugged her but then seemed to think better of it. “Can you ever forgive me for putting you through this? I never should have dragged you into my world like that.”

Tanya paused and looked up at him like she was seeing him for the first time. “Do you regret what we did? Because I don’t. I don’t just go around saying that I love someone. I loved you. Heck, I still love you. This was just as much my doing as yours. The only regret I have is not knowing so I could take care of myself.”

She felt angry suddenly, and she didn’t know why. “I’m sorry, Tanya. I don’t know what else to say or how to handle this. I never meant for you to get pregnant.”

“No, but it happened. And now he or she is gone, Danny. Are you gone too?” She stared him down; daring him to tell her he loved her, to tell her anything. But he just helped her into her room and walked away. What was she supposed to make of that?

She sat down on her hospital bed but refused to lie down. She’d been lying down too long already. She didn’t want to feel like an invalid anymore. There was a woman sitting in a chair across from her, and her mother was to her right on a couch along with her stepfather. “Let’s get this intervention over with. I don’t want to be here,” Tanya barked out, looking between the three people who were about to ask her a million questions she didn’t know how to answer. It was the counselor that spoke.

“Tanya, you are 18, so, your parents cannot force you to be here. But they strongly feel that you need to talk to someone, and from what I’ve heard, I agree.”

Tanya scoffed. “Only one of them is my parent.” She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She had never actually said anything like that before. While she had never gotten close to Danny’s father, she had never particularly disliked him. She looked at the two of them sitting there, and they looked upset. She could tell she had hurt them with her statement. And she decided that she needed to try and go through the session just for them.

“I’m sorry, I’m just upset. I’ll go ahead and stick around and see how it goes.” Tanya nodded to the counselor.

“Alright, well, my name is Dr. Annette Barber. I think that your mother has some concerns about how you are handling the current situation and how you got yourself into that situation. Would you like to start this off, ma’am?” The counselor nodded to her mother to start talking. As she did, Tanya couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Darling, I had no idea you and Tim were over and that you were seeing someone else. I should have been more involved in your life, and I’m afraid the move may have changed you or make you act out. I need to know if you were being safe or not. You could have gotten more than pregnant from this behavior. Who is it that talked you into doing this?”

The counselor put up her hand to stop her mother. “I think we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s start with the move and how you felt about that.”

“I didn’t think it was fair that she put someone else’s child ahead of me. I liked my home. But I made some friends here, so it’s not as big a deal anymore.” Tanya shrugged.

“Okay, so have you been acting out at all in your opinion or done anything you wouldn’t normally?” the counselor probed.

“Not really, no. I wasn’t a virgin before.” She directed that one at her mother.

“So, what happened; was it an accident? Did a condom break or something?”

Tanya shook her head at Dr. Barber. “I’m on birth control, but I guess that wasn’t infallible. I didn’t know I was…” Tanya trailed off, not able to complete the sentence. She felt an ache in her chest thinking about it all.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, how are you feeling about the loss of the pregnancy?” Dr. Barber said it softly.

“I’m not sure. I’m still processing it. I didn’t even know that I was. On the one hand I understand that there was nothing that could have been done to save the baby and that I may be too young to be a mother. But I do feel like I’m suddenly missing something I never knew I had. I’m not sure what to think of it. I don’t think the father knows what to do or say either.” Her eyes got wide as she realized what she said. There was no holding it back now. It felt like she was about to vomit the truth all over the room. They had barely left her side, so they would know the father was someone she was close to.

Tanya looked over at her mother and saw the push in her eyes. She wanted to know who he was. She was furious. She would never believe that he didn’t mean for this to happen. But maybe if she knew who it would change things. It was time to get the burden off her chest.

Dr. Barber directed her attention to Tanya’s mother. “How are you feeling about all of this now that you hear some of what your daughter has to say?”

“I’m furious at whoever this guy is who has her under a spell. I feel like my daughter has been taken advantage of and is experiencing a very adult problem before she is ready because some boy has tricked her into this whole thing. And now I hear he’s been here to talk about it right under my nose.” Tanya could hear the fire in her voice and tensed up. It was coming, it had to.

“I wasn’t taken advantage of, mother. I love him!” It came out in a desperate wail, making her sound much younger. “It’s Danny, Mom. It’s been Danny the whole time. And I know it’s wrong, but I love him and he loves me. He had no idea.”

Tanya leaned back and held onto the hospital bed, bracing for whatever explosion was about to come next.