Baby for My Stepbrother

Chapter 4

“Hell no.” With a raised voice, he glared at me with his beautiful blue eyes, but the anger behind them was enough to rock me in my seat. When I’d dropped those sonograms on his bed last night, I had no idea he would react this way, and now I was regretting my decision.

Dammit. If he hadn’t brought over that stupid woman, and if I hadn’t allowed myself to be jealous of the fact that he was still screwing around, this entire situation could have been avoided.

His voice was eerily calm when he said, “Nobody is going to raise my kid but me. Do you understand that? I’m not allowing you to put it up for adoption. If you don’t want to be in its life, that’s your choice, but I’m making mine as well. Now, go upstairs and get dressed. I’ll meet you in the car.”

The legs of his chair screeched against the tile floor when he pushed back and stood up from the table – his boots plodding heavily on the floor when he left the kitchen before slamming the front door closed behind him.

Shaking my head, I knew it was useless to try to fight against him, so I stood up and went upstairs to get ready for what I thought would be one of the worst days of my entire life.

“I’m not even showing yet. Why are we going to the mall for maternity clothes?” I looked at Dane like he was nuts Wondering if the guy was suddenly taking drugs, I couldn’t believe he was moving so fast with this baby thing when I still wasn’t even sure how I felt about it.

His bicep flexed as he turned the wheel of his car, his blue eyes glancing over at me with the hint of humor hidden behind them. “You’ll be showing at some point. We might as well get you some clothes that help conceal the fact that you’re pregnant while you’re finishing school. I did the calculations last night based on the date on the sonogram. You can finish your senior year and still graduate before having it. I thought if we bought you some looser-fitting clothes, you won’t have to be a walking billboard for teenage pregnancy.”

My mouth fell open in shock. “You’re the one who got me pregnant. How dare you knock my age? Maybe I should make you wear a shirt for the next nine months that says I knocked up my teenage stepsister.”

His lips pulled into a smile. “Change that to I knocked up my teenage girlfriend and we won’t have a problem.” My entire body flinched at the word girlfriend. “Girlfriend? Since when are we an item?”

“ Since I found out you’re carrying my kid. I told you last night that you’re mine, Luna. I wasn’t kidding. You need to start taking this seriously. That is a life growing inside of you. What we do from this moment forward affects it.”

I laughed. “ Oh, because babies are infamous for being a good reason for two people to stay together …or in our case, get together. We were fucking, Dane. That’s it.”

“Maybe you were,” he said under his breath. “But it wasn’t just fucking tome.” I turned to look at him, my eyes wide with shock. “What are you saying?”

He parked the car and slammed his hands on the steering wheel, his eyes locked to some point off in the distance. After a few seconds of silence, he admitted, “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Luna, about us. That first night – yeah, that was just a quick fuck, but in the nights following it, I can’t lie and say I haven’t felt something for you.”

He finally turned to me and I was shocked by the emotion in his eyes. Dane, the passive-aggressive king of all jerks, actually looked like he gave a shit about somebody other than himself. It was jarring to see it because I never believed that he could care about anybody.

“I care about whether you’re into this, Luna, but on the other hand, I really don’t. I think we’d be good together regardless of our relationship to one another because our parents decided to get married. For the past few years, it’s been you and me – that’s it. We have no other family. But when you think about it, we’re not family. We’re only related because of two people who can’t even bother to stay in the same country as us. That shouldn’t be a reason for us not to give this a try. I’m not saying I’m in love with you – not yet, anyway. But I’m willing to find out if that’s something we could have, if you’ll just stop being so fucking stubborn and give it a shot yourself. I know you’re into me. The way you scream my name at night tells me that. The way you acted when I had Chelsea in the house confirmed it. You were jealous and pissed off. If you felt nothing for me, you wouldn’t have acted the way you did.”