She Fell for Her Stepbrother, Then Found Out She Was Pregnant novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Name

Lena watches Caleb finish with her name on his lips and he catches her, breaking the moment with a cruel joke; the next morning their father puts them in the same car.

I should have walked away.

I know that now, and I knew it then, standing in the dark hall with the corrected file crushed against my chest.

I didn't move.

Caleb sat in his desk chair with his head tipped back and his tie pulled loose.

His shirt was open halfway down, and the lamp lit the long line of his throat.

His left hand gripped the arm of the chair.

His right hand was moving slowly, firmly, and his hips lifted into it every time, as though he couldn't stop them.

I had sat across from this man for three years and never once seen him lose control of anything.

He had never lost an argument, or a temper, or a single page of a report.

Now his breath was coming in short pulls, and his eyes were shut tight.

"Lena," he said again, quieter, almost to himself.

His voice cracked on the second syllable.

Heat went through me so fast that my knees went weak.

I had never been so angry or so turned on in my life, and I couldn't tell where one stopped and the other started.

He was thinking about me.

Not the owner's daughter, not the girl who got the corner office.

Me, in my bra and skirt, saying get out.

His hand sped up.

"Fuck," he whispered. "Lena, please."

I pressed my lips together hard so I wouldn't make a sound.

His whole body tightened and stayed that way.

Then he groaned, low in his chest, and I watched him come with my name still in his mouth.

His head dropped forward.

His chest rose and fell.

I stood there wanting him, with an ache between my legs I did not want and could not argue with.

Then he opened his eyes, and he looked straight at the gap in the door.

Straight at me.

Nobody moved.

I saw his face go through three things in a row.

First it went white, then blank, and then the old Caleb came back.

His mouth curled.

"Eyes front, Brooks," he said, hoarse and flat. "You'll go blind."

It was such a stupid, vicious, perfect thing to say that my chest went cold and steady.

If he wanted to play it that way, we could play it that way.

I pushed the door open with my foot.

He didn't cover himself fast enough, or maybe he didn't want to.

I looked at him for exactly as long as I wanted to.

Then I walked across his office and dropped the folder on the desk beside his hand.

"Page eleven is right," I said. "The freight wasn't. You were half correct, and that's the most I'll ever give you."

"Lena."

"No."

I held up one finger.

"You don't get to say my name in here and then use my last name like a weapon."

His jaw worked.

He opened his mouth and nothing came out of it.

I took my time on my way to the door.

I let him watch me go, and I didn't look back.

In the elevator my hands finally started to shake.

I leaned against the mirrored wall and shut my eyes, and every second of it replayed: the chair, the gripping hand, his voice breaking on my name.

I drove home with the windows down in the cold.

I took a shower and it did nothing.

I lay in bed with my hand between my legs and thought about his voice, and I came so fast and so hard that I had to bury my face in the pillow.

Then I lay there furious at both of us.

I didn't sleep.

At four in the morning I decided it didn't mean anything.

Men think about all kinds of people.

He was lonely and tired, and I had been the nearest woman to be angry at.

At five I stopped believing it.

I got to the office at seven-thirty, in my best suit, with my hair pinned back and my face perfectly calm.

Mara was already at her desk with the schedule open on her screen.

"Your father wants you in his office," she said. "He's been asking since seven. Are you okay? You look like you ran here."

"I'm great."

"You're the color of a candle."

"I said I'm great."

My father stood at the window of the corner office with a coffee in his hand.

Caleb was already in the chair across the desk, in a fresh shirt, looking at the carpet.

He didn't look up when I came in.

"There's a problem with the Dayton distribution center," my father said. "The flooring for Hartwell is stuck there and the freight numbers don't match what the warehouse says."

He turned around, and he smiled at me the way he smiles at a room.

"You two found the problem yesterday. You'll fix it together. Thursday, in person, both of you."

"Dad," I said. "No."

"Dayton is a two-hour drive and I can't spare a second car."

"I can take my own," Caleb said to the carpet.

"The fuel budget says you can't."

"I'll pay for the gas."

"Your mother already booked the hotel, so that's settled."

That was the first I'd heard of a hotel.

Caleb finally looked up.

His eyes met mine for a heartbeat and went straight back to the carpet.

My stomach dropped and rose again in the same second.

Two hours in a car with a man who had said my name like that, and a hotel with his mother's credit card on it.

"One car," my father said, cheerfully. "One set of phone calls. And I'd like you both to be adults about it."

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