Chapter 1

Payton

I was finally ready to get out on my own and do something with my life. I had just spent six years completing a MBA, trying to rush through before cancer finally took my father from me for good. I had managed to finish my undergraduate before he had died and I knew he was proud of me but he had never got to see me graduate. I shake my head to clear the thoughts bringing me down. It had been two years since he passed but it never got any easier to think about him.

I had one week off to relax, then I was going to work at my stepfather’s real estate firm in the accounting department. It wasn’t what I really wanted but it was a guaranteed job, so I had to take it for the time being to get some experience. Hopefully after some experience I could get a job in marketing but they didn’t have any openings in that department and I didn’t want anyone saying he made a position for me. Plus it would allow me to get to know Roland better.

I was not exactly happy that my mother had gotten remarried one year after my father had passed but I wasn't overly surprised. My mother was not a very independent woman and believed a woman needed a man to be happy. God knows she questioned me enough about not having a man in my life. I loved my mother but no way would I ever be as needy and dependent on a man as what my mother was. I didn’t need a man to be happy, certainly not the drunken frat boys who had tried to get in my pants in university. They were so crude and vulgar, after a few parties my first year at school I was turned off by men and their one track minds. I sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with me as at 24, a man was the last thing on my mind. Most of my high school friends were married with children on the way.

As I put away my belongings in my new, temporary (at least that was what I hoped) room, I thought about my mother’s new husband. Roland was nice enough to and I was grateful to him for giving me this opportunity to at least build her resume but there was something about him that I just didn’t like. I had only met him twice before, last fall when I had come home for the wedding and again when I came home for Christmas. Those two times I had stayed in my childhood home. Since then, much to my heartbreak, my mother had sold our family home, so I was now settling into a guest room in my stepfather’s house. As soon as I had enough for an apartment of my own I would have my freedom. He was a widower with no children, so why he had this huge house was a mystery to me. I knew from my mother that he held a lot of dinner meetings here with potential clients and as a real estate mogul I guess he had an image to upkeep.

Apparently Roland was making some big announcement at dinner tonight, so I guess I had better finish this up and get ready to see what that was all about.

After spending the past six years in university and living on student loans, I can’t say that I had a lot of formal clothes to wear. I felt completely underdressed in my best leggings and a sweater as I came down the stairs from my room for dinner. My mother had on a dress and heels, makeup perfectly applied, while Roland had on a full suit. My mother looked up from the martini she was mixing and I noticed that Roland already had a glass of amber liquid in his hand. Well, that was new, mom drinking a martini. She had a rare glass of wine in the past, usually at celebrations but I had never seen her drink anything stronger and certainly not on a regular Saturday night.

I see her look me up and down but before she can say anything Roland reaches for his wallet. He takes out a credit card and puts it on the minibar in front of my mother, “You should take Payton shopping tomorrow, she is going to need some new clothes for work and other functions.”

Okay, That was pretty rude. I clear my throat and say, “I have a little saved up, I just had no need for anything other than this to sit in a classroom all day and I haven’t had a chance to do any shopping yet.”

Roland waves it off like it is no big deal, “Oh no. Consider it a welcome to the family gift. You are going to need business clothes for work and a few cocktail dresses for other functions. If all goes according to plans. But we will talk about that once Jacob gets here.”

Jacob? Who the hell was Jacob. I look at my mother for an answer but she just gives me a fake smile and takes a sip of her drink. “Would you care for a drink, Payton?” She asks me.

I don’t normally drink but I have a feeling I’m going to need one to get through this dinner so I ask for a simple glass of red wine. As my mother hands it to me, the doorbell rings.

“Oh that must be Jacob now.” Roland says, “I’ll go let him in.”

When he leaves the room, I turn to my mother. “Mom, who is Jacob?”

“Why that is Roland’s son, your brother now I guess,” Mom says with a weak laugh.

I am surprised to say the least. Not only has mom never mentioned Roland having a son, he wasn’t at their wedding and there has never been any mention of him in any of the news articles I had read about Roland and his firm. I knew his wife had died in an accident but that was it, there was no other family ever mentioned.

“I didn’t know Roland had a son? Why didn’t you tell me, mom?” I kind of don’t know what to make of this. It is bad enough to have a stepfather you know so little about but now I have a stepbrother as well?

“Well, dear, they have been estranged for some time now. He actually was in the Marines for the past ten years and just came back stateside. Apparently, he was quite the handful as a teenager but Roland is hoping the Marines straightened him out. It would be great to have a former soldier by his side if he decides to run…” I don’t get to hear what else my mother has to say, as Roland and Jacob enter the room.

I look towards the two men and cannot compute the opposites that are standing before me but I am only focusing on the unknown man. In a pair of scuffed up black leather boots, black jeans worn in all the right places, a royal blue long sleeve Henley, a neatly trimmed beard, up into the bluest eyes I have ever seen. He has dirty blond hair touching his shoulders and one of those durags bikers wear, the exact same color as his shirt, tied around his head. Not the type of man who would ever get my attention but why the hell does it feel like my whole body is on fire? Holy Mother of Baby Jesus, this is my brother?