Total pages in book: 15
Estimated words: 13680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 68(@200wpm)___ 55(@250wpm)___ 46(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 13680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 68(@200wpm)___ 55(@250wpm)___ 46(@300wpm)
When our parents got together I was awkward, gangly but he was my hero. He always stood up for me. Until not long after graduation he left and never looked back. Just like my mom.
Now his mother’s dead and he’s back in town.
Part of her last will is that we reconcile but he’s dead set against her wish that we spend the month together at her villa in France. Even for his inheritance he doesn’t want to spend time with me. Why does he hate me? Why can’t I get the image of his grey eyes and solid body out of my head? What happened that night he left town?
Stepbrother’s Inheritance is a stand alone novella. It contains adult themes and sweet, sexual content.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
I don't know why this all has to fall to me. My stepmother's dead and Dad's a wreck. She was his entire world and my stepbrother, well he's off doing his own thing.
My fingers trail along her shelf of bells. She had bells from all over the world, every state, every place she ever visited. I pick up a delicate glass one with doves and a small volcano pressed into the front. "Hawaii" it reads. A slight twist of my wrist and its delicate tinkle falls into the silence of the room.
The life is gone from this house.
As a stepmother, Meryl was all right. We weren't close but she wasn't 'evil' or 'wicked'. She made my dad happy and that was all I really wanted from her. After my biological mother left he was so depressed. I thought he'd never be happy again. Now that Meryl's gone he's a wreck again, buried at the bottom of a bottle and I don't expect him to come up for a while.
Opening the hallway closet there's a box of pictures and scrapbooks on the bottom shelf. I'm supposed to be sorting her belongings but this looks more interesting. I grab the box and carry it to the dining room table. It's heavy, there must be a lot of books in here.
The pages crackle as I open the first one expecting to see childhood memories. Instead it's filled with articles, carefully cut from papers and magazines and placed under laminate.
Ben. Of course.
Prince Benjamin Brandt Sets World Water Speed Record! The first headline reads.
Prince of nothing. He's not really a prince, that's just what the media has dubbed him. We're Americans, I think there's a law against us even having a title. I shake my head as I turn the page trying not to look at the grainy black and white photograph of him holding a trophy.
There are more photos of him at premieres with A-list actresses, club openings with socialites, he must be good to have so many beautiful women at his beck and call.
Benjamin Brandt To Build New Rocket for Speedboat
They go on and on. There's not a single photograph of childhood, just clippings of Ben's exploits. Knots tighten in my stomach as I turn each page, anger burning. It's always about him. Ben's so perfect. Ben can do no wrong. Slamming the book closed I go over and jerk the fridge open but the door refuses to open.
"Damn it!"
I pull with all my weight but it refuses to budge. Jerking on it, the door opens with a pop and I fall backwards into the center island bruising my kidneys. I stare into emptiness. Of course, they've already gotten rid of the perishables leaving empty shelves lit up and waiting to be filled.
Tears fall unbidden. The door slowly closes and I sink to the floor. Those empty shelves seem the perfect analogy for my life. Lit up and waiting to be filled. I don't try to stop my tears as they fall.
I feel awkward and alone. Unwanted. Dad did his best. There are scars left on you though when your own mother abandons you. I have only vague memories of her. A smile that doesn't really have a face to go with it. A scent. The smell of her sticks with me. After she left Dad got rid of every trace of her he could find.
My last memory of her is the two of them arguing when I was six. I crept to the top of the stairs after their yelling woke me in the middle of the night. Something slammed, a pot maybe, then she yelled. Those last words of hers, those I recall clearly still. They echo in my mind, sometimes, in the dark when I'm deep asleep I hear them.
I hate you, she yelled.
My chest contracts hard as I sob. I hate you.
She may not have said them to me but she meant it. There hasn't been a single word from her since that night. No birthday cards, no phone calls, no letters.
That night I heard the kitchen door slam shut and had run to look out the window. She stormed into the garage, backed her car out before the door was even open and sped away into the night. She didn't look back. Not once.
I hate you.
At last the tears slow leaving me an empty void. Rising from the floor I head into the bathroom to wash my face. I don't look in the mirror until after I've splashed cold water on my face. It doesn't help much. My eyes are puffy, my face is red but who do I have to impress?
I take a deep breath then go start sorting in the bedroom. The dresser has pictures of Ben and I as kids. I pick up the picture of us at Disney World with Mickey Mouse. Our first 'family' vacation after Dad and Meryl married. I was ten, Ben was fourteen. Neither of us knew what to do about each other.