Read Online His Dark Secret – A Stepbrother Romance by Vanessa Wilde - Free Book Online

 
    My dad had been horrible to her for a long time before my mom worked up the courage to finally walk out on him, after he'd gotten another woman pregnant. In all honesty, that probably wasn't the first time he'd done that, but it was, at least, the first time someone had come up to my mom and told her all about it over coffee and tears at a local diner.
     
    That was the last straw on an already straining camel's back. (Did I just call my mom a camel? Oh gosh, I think I actually did...)
     
    Anyway, because of that, and a probably a bunch of other things she doesn't talk to me about, my mom has never really been able to trust men, all through the time I was growing up.
     
    That is, until she met Mr. Stevenson (that's not his real name, but like I said, seriously bad things could happen to me if it were...).
     
    He's a land surveyor, which I guess means an engineer with a telescope. All I know is that he worked for a telecommunications company for a long time, doing land surveying stuff, but has since set up shop as a specialist consultant, which I think means he makes a lot more money – or gets to feel like he does, at any rate.
     
    Mr. Stevenson is tall, with a bit of wispy, blonde-ish brown hair on top, and small round glasses. He's handsome enough, I guess – in a thin, waspish sort of way.
     
    In all honesty, he didn't seem like the most exciting guy you'd ever meet – though he was a little too severe to ever be called boring. But considering what my mom had been through, I can just about get what she saw in him. Whatever else you say about him, Zachary Stevenson isn't the type to go and get some secretary pregnant.
     
    (Part of the reason I still call him Mr. Stevenson is because you wouldn't dream of ever calling him “Zach”... and my mom always calls him “Zachary”. Which might not sound disgusting, until you hear the way she says it. And I guess it's too late to start calling him “dad” now, since I'm going away to college this summer anyway. At least, I hope I am...)
     
    And so, my mom became “Mrs. Stevenson”, and we moved across the state to... well, I can't use the real name, so I guess I'll just call it “Springfield”.
     
    And that's where we come to the crux of the story.
     
    That crux is 6-foot-5, is the star player on the varsity volleyball team, and is called Jonathan. 
     
    So, as it turned out, Mr. Stevenson had a son my age – though luckily, he was born a couple of weeks before me, so I got to play the “little sister” card a few times in the early days, and get him to do the more annoying chores. He didn't seem to mind too much.
     
    The first time I met him was the same night I met his dad. It was also the same night I was told my mom was going to get married. Completely uncharacteristically for both of them, Mr. and (ugh) Mrs. Stevenson whizzed through the whole courtship thing like it was going out of style. I doubt a whole month had gone by since they met each other.
     
    My first impression of the kid who was to become my stepbrother (and so much more...) wasn't all that bad, considering the awkwardness of the occasion. (Though that was an awkwardness only felt by the two of us. My mom and his dad were too busy flirting with each other to really notice.)
     
    He was very lanky – I'd go so far as to say gangly – and as pimply as you'd want your stereotypical 16-year-old to be. He only really talked if you asked him a direct question, and spent the rest of the time staring out the window of the restaurant we were sitting in.
     
    (...if only I'd known how different he would look in a couple of months, I might have run straight out of the room right then, and saved everyone a lot of trouble... But, I didn't, and that's why I'm telling this story now...)
     
    The only other thing I really remember from that meeting was how big his hands were, whenever he would take them out from under the table to do a quick snip with his knife and fork. They must have been twice