Read Online Mail Order Stepbrother by Kira Ward - Free Book Online Page B

scalpel like an artist, but she apparently couldn’t do the same with a kitchen knife. Nash ducked the onion but then moved up behind her and pulled her hard against his chest, brushing his lips against her temple.
    He showed up at her door an hour ago, a bag of groceries in his hands and a smile. “ You sounded hungry in your text,” he’d said.
    She wasn’t sure how one could sound hungry over a text, but she was happier than she should have been to see him.
    They sat down to eat a few minutes later, an amazing steak with this incredible risotto and a badly cut salad. She had to take credit for the salad, of course, but the rest was perfect…better than a restaurant meal.
    “Your mother must have been an awesome cook to teach you how to do this.”
    “My mother was awesome on many levels.” He picked up his wine glass and studied its depths for a second. “I was the baby, coming along at a time when my father’s career was pretty solid and she had time to stay at home, to spend some one on one time with me. So we were very close.”
    “You have older siblings?”
    “A sister. She’s six years older than me.”
    Melanie sat back and tucked her foot underneath her, getting comfortable for what she hoped would be a long, informative conversation. He didn’t often talk about himself.
    “I always wanted siblings.”
    “You didn’t miss anything.” He smiled despite the venom in his words. “My sister was like a second mother, always telling me what to do even when it wasn’t really necessary. She’s still doing it.”
    Melanie half nodded. “I get that. I’m still trying to convince my mother she doesn’t have to mother me anymore.”
    “Oh, they never stop.” Nash reached over and took her hand. “My mother would have adored you though.”
    “Would have?”
    A sadness came into his blue eyes, making them darker than the dim light in her tiny dining room had already done. “She died several years ago.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He shrugged. “She’d been sick for a long time. It was almost a mercy when it finally happened. She was in so much pain…”
    Melanie nodded, thinking of the few patients she’d met during her internship who were suffering the final days of a terminal illness. She hadn’t understood the idea behind euthanasia until then.
    Nash lifted his wine glass again, contemplating it a second before he drained it. Then he reached for the bottle to pour them both some more. Melanie rubbed his arm and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
    “Are you close to your dad?”
    Nash didn’t even look at her. “No.”
    There was a certain amount of finality to his statement, and it hurt Melanie to hear. She’d never known her father, because he died when she was so young. All her childhood she imagined what her life would have been like if he hadn’t died, if he had remained a part of their lives. Even now, even as an adult who understood the darker side of humanity, she still wondered what her life would have been like if he had lived. She imagined that even if he abandoned the family it would have been better than not having him at all.
    She couldn’t imagine why someone would willingly choose to not have their father as a part of their life.
    “Do you talk to him?”
    “Have to,” Nash said, setting the wine glass down and pushing his dinner plate away. “The company I run technically belongs to him. So I have to deal with him on the few occasions he chooses to check in on things.”
    “That’s sad.”
    Nash shrugged. “He’s fine. He just got remarried to some young woman my sister apparently approves of. In fact, she called me today and insisted that I come home to attend some party his new wife is throwing for him.”
    “Will you go?”
    “Didn’t go to the wedding. Probably won’t go to this, either.”
    “Why?”
    Nash got up and gathered the dirty dishes, walking them into her small galley kitchen.
    “Don’t really want to talk about it,” he