Demanding His Brother's Heirs. Michelle Celmer
prowess with women was legendary, but even he’d never had one fall to his feet in a dead faint.
As an identical twin, this wouldn’t be the first time someone had mistaken him for his brother. Though he had never gotten this reaction before. Angry words, yes, and once he’d even had a drink thrown in his face. He could only imagine what Jeremy had done to this poor girl. Had he charged up all her credit cards and then bailed on her? Slept with her best friend? Or her mother? Or her best friend’s mother?
When it came to Jeremy the possibilities were endless. But all Jason wanted was to fetch his brother’s belongings, if they hadn’t been disposed of already, and head back upstate. He didn’t know if there was anything worth keeping, and he wasn’t normally the sentimental type, but he had so little left of his brother. Five years ago, after Jeremy had been through another wasted stint in rehab, their father had had enough. He’d disowned Jeremy, disinherited him and purged their home of anything that reminded him of his troubled son. For all the good it had done. And though he knew it was irrational, deep down Jason still blamed himself for Jeremy’s downward spiral. Against his father’s wishes, Jason had even set up a monthly allowance for his brother, who had no means to support himself. Maybe that had been a mistake, too.
Jason knelt beside the woman, whom he was guessing couldn’t be more than twenty-two or three, and touched her cheek. It was warm and it seemed the color was returning to her face. Long brown hair with reddish highlights fanned out around her head and her T-shirt rode up exposing an inch or so of her stomach, making him feel like a voyeur.
“Hey.” He gave her shoulder a gentle nudge and she mumbled incoherently. “Wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered open, big and blue and full of confusion as they focused on his face. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” he said, offering his hand. “Can you sit up?”
“I think so.” She grabbed on, her eyes glued to his face, containing a look caught somewhere between shock and horror. He gave her a gentle boost and though she wobbled a little, squeezing his hand to keep her balance, she managed to stay upright.
“Got it?” he asked.
She nodded and let go, still transfixed. “You look just like him. Except...” She reached up to touch his left brow, grazing it with the tips of her fingers. Her touch was so light it was almost provocative. “No scar.”
“No scar,” he responded.
She blinked several times, then yanked her hand back, as if just realizing that she was touching a total stranger. “I’m sorry. I just...”
“It’s okay.” However or wherever Jeremy had gotten the scar, it must have occurred in the past five years. Since the day they were born, it had been next to impossible to tell them apart. They were truly identical in every way.
Well, almost every way.
“Jeremy never told you that he had an identical twin?”
She shook her head, appearing dazed and very confused. “He told me that he didn’t have any family.”
Jason was living proof that he had.
“He lied to me,” she said, still shaking her head in disbelief. She looked up at Jason, and in her eyes he could see anger and hurt and a whole lot of confusion. “Why would he do that?”
Jason had asked himself that same question a million times. His brother was dead, and Jason was still cleaning up his messes. He would make amends on Jeremy’s behalf. As he had done so many times in the past.
“Maybe I could come in and we could talk,” he said, as it was a little awkward crouched down, half in, half out of the apartment. They clearly needed to get a dialogue going so he could assess the damage. However Jeremy had wronged this woman, Jason would fix it.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
He rose to his feet and held out a hand to help her. “Need a boost?”
She nodded and, clinging firmly to his hand, slowly rose. She was taller than he’d expected. Maybe five-seven or -eight, putting her at his chin level. She was also excessively thin to the point of looking gaunt, with dark hollows under her eyes.
Jason felt a twinge of reservation. Was she strung out and in need of a fix? Had she supplied drugs to his brother, or had it been the other way around?
Whoa. Wait a minute.
He took a mental step back. He didn’t know anything about this woman. It wasn’t fair to assume she was into drugs just because his brother had been. That would be guilt by association, of which he himself had been a victim.
She wobbled slightly and he gripped her forearm with his other hand to steady her. “Take it slow.”
Still dazed and looking pale, she said, “Maybe I should sit down.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea.” She teetered on long slender legs encased in distressed, figure-hugging denim as he helped her to the sofa several feet away. That was when he saw the mostly empty baby bottles on the coffee table.
Jesus. His brother had sunk low enough to prey on a single mother? She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
The idea made Jason sick to his stomach.
He sat on the edge of the coffee table across from her, close enough to catch her if she passed out again. “Have you known Jeremy long?”
“A little over a year.”
“And you two were...involved?”
She frowned. “He didn’t tell you that he was married?”
Married? Jeremy? That was truly a shock. “No, he didn’t. I haven’t talked to my brother in more than five years. Since our father cut him off.”
“Then you don’t know about the boys.”
“Boys?”
“Our sons. Devon and Marshall.”
If Jason hadn’t already been sitting, the news would have knocked him off his feet. As it was, he felt as if someone had stolen the breath from his lungs.
He’d come here hoping to find a personal memento that would remind him of his brother. An article of clothing, maybe a photograph or two.
Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to find offspring. “My brother had children?”
“Twins.”
“How old?”
“Nearly three months.”
Oh, Jeremy, what have you done? “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“So the boys have a real family? Aunts and uncles and cousins?”
She looked so hopeful he hated to burst her bubble. From the shadows under her eyes, and her painfully thin appearance, he was guessing life hadn’t been kind to her lately. “We have distant relatives in the UK, but I’m the only one of our immediate family left.”
“Oh. I don’t have family, either, so I thought...” Her obvious disappointment tugged his heartstrings. But then she took a deep breath and forced a smile. Maybe she wasn’t as fragile as she appeared. “But they do have you to tell them about their father. You probably knew Jeremy better than anyone.”
Most of the time he felt as if he hadn’t known Jeremy at all. Not since they’d been kids at least. “What exactly did he tell you about our family?”
“He told me that he had no family. He said he was orphaned as a toddler and grew up in the foster system.”
Foster system? Nothing could have been further from the