Mine - A Stepbrother Romance by Caitlin Daire Read Free Book Online

so foreign to me, like I was a medieval peasant walking into a royal palace.
    We reached the top of the double staircase and turned left down a long hall with high ceilings, the walls adorned with presumably priceless paintings. Two wooden doors stood at the end, and Victoria rapped on them as I anxiously stood behind her.
    “Sir? Arizona is here.”
    With that, she turned on her heel and left. I hadn’t exactly warmed to her, but being here without her now suddenly filled me with panic. I needed some sort of buffer. What if Roy didn’t like me? What if he was totally ashamed of the way I’d turned out without him as a parent?
    The doors flew open a second later, and I stared into the hazel eyes of a tall, dark-haired man I’d only seen before in photos on his company website. It was only now that we were up close that I realized I already shared something with him. My eyes. His were so similar to mine, only filled with years of pain and sorrow.
    “Arizona,” he said, staring down at me. “You came. Thank god. You have no idea how long I’ve waited…”
    His voice trailed off as he became choked with emotion, and he reached out and grabbed me in a tight bear hug. I wasn’t sure how to react, so I reached my arms around him and gingerly patted his back. Yeah, he was my real father, but it felt so awkward just jumping straight into a hug.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away a moment later. “I know you don’t know me at all. This probably feels very strange for you. Please, come in.”
    He gestured towards a chaise sofa on one side of the room, and then he closed the door and sat across from me, staring at me silently for a solid three minutes.
    “You look just like her,” he finally said. “Your mother. Except for your eyes. Hers were green. You got my eyes.”
    “Oh,” I said in a tiny voice, not quite knowing what on earth I was meant to say in this situation.
    He stood up and marched over to his desk before returning with a framed photograph. “This is her,” he said, passing it to me. “I thought you might want to see it. I just wish she could have been here to see this day.”
    I gazed at the photo, and I had to admit he was right. She looked very similar to me, only older and with green eyes like he’d said. Her hair, nose, mouth and even her ears were the same as mine. She was smiling in the photo, and I felt a pang of sorrow for the mother I’d never known.
    “What was her name?” I asked.
    “Rosa,” he said. “I named my company after her. We named you Hannah, after her sister. She died in the same car accident that took your mother.”
    “I see. I’m really sorry. That’s awful. I wish I could have met her.”
    There was another long silence, and I shifted my weight around the sofa, feeling awkward as hell.
    “I don’t expect you to call me Dad, Arizona,” Roy said. “I realize you probably still think of those people as your parents, seeing as it’s been that way for nineteen years. But believe me when I say I want to get to know you. I want you to stay with me as long as you feel comfortable. I want you to know that no matter what, you’re my daughter. My family.”
    I replied with a nod, not knowing what to say to that, and he smiled. I racked my brains, trying to think of some sort of topic for small talk, just to get things started. “So…um, what exactly does your company do?”
    He smiled. “I started it twenty-four years ago, not long after I met your mother. It’s a long story that you’d probably find quite boring, but basically I owned a small boutique real estate agency. I made a few good investments, and then I acquired another small but failing company and helped turn it around. I kept on going with that sort of thing, and now here I am.”
    We chatted about his business for a while longer, and then he asked me to tell him about myself. My life, my childhood, my likes and dislikes…everything. After a while it strangely didn’t seem awkward at all.