Two: Her New Stepbrothers

SCARLETT

Alpha Vaughn did the introductions.

"This is Logan Vaughn, my first son, Alexander Vaughn, my second, and Blake Vaughn, my last son for now," then he threw a suggestive wink at my mom.

But that was even the least of my concerns. I was too focused on Logan Vaughn, the man who ruined my life and turned everything upside down but he wasn't even looking at me. His eyes had met mine briefly when his father did the introductions but that was it, no flicker of recognition flashed in his cold eyes.

It looked like he didn't recognize me. For the past two years, I've had to live in absolute misery because of what he did to me but it seemed like he didn't even recognize me. Of course, I wasn't the only one whose life he had ruined, I was just a number and nothing important.

My anger multiplied but there was nothing I could do, I couldn't cause a scene, at least not now.

The second son, Alexander, who looked like a carefully crafted perfect image and looked like something that belonged in the museum didn't even look at me at all. He had looked past me as if I was irrelevant.

It was only the last brother, one that looked like a cinnamon row with his charming and boyish smiles and eyes twinkling with awe and wonder that made me feel welcome.

He held my hands, pressed a kiss that made my stupid heart skip to the back of my palm, and complimented how I looked like the exact carbon copy of my mom.

I didn't know it was going to help but his warmth really got me to relax a little and it made the rest of the dinner seem less of the herculean task that it was even though it was too suffocating to sit across the man that ruined my life and be able to do nothing about it.

And the second brother was having a good time pretending he was the only one at the dining table.

Seconds bled into minutes and soon enough, we were nipping on the dessert even though the only thing I wanted to do was to stand up, leave this house, and never return.

"So tell me," Alpha Vaughn started, "your mom told me you started a little beauty business a couple of years ago, how's that going?"

I didn't tell Mom how my business had ended because I didn't want her pity so she was still of the opinion that I was still running my beauty store.

"It closed down," I answered quietly and I heard Mom's not too subtle gasp beside me.

"But you didn't tell me," she chastised.

"How?" Alpha Vaughn probed, "lack of funds? poor management? Poor planning?"

Maybe because he was a businessman, he didn't sound the least bit awkward, and frankly, I wasn't bothered by his questions, I just wanted to let it all out.

"No, a big construction bought the building I opened my store in and without warning, demolished the building. I lost my business that way."

Logan's demonear gave nothing away. He didn't even blink in my way at the familiarity of my words.

"You should have told me, Scarlett," Mom continued, "you know I'd have helped you."

I didn't know that and I most definitely didn't want the help.

"That's unfair but not uncommon," Alpha Vaughn said, "you'll be my stepdaughter once our wedding is officiated so you won't be without powers anymore. What's the name of the company? I should get my secretary to get them to pay you some settlement fee."

"Apex Construction," I answered immediately and it wasn't because I wanted his help but because I wanted to see if Logan would react now.

He did. He turned to me ever so slowly and assessed me with those dark and unreadable eyes of his before he spoke up.

"If you're expecting an apology or settlement from me, then you have none coming. In the business world, you either eat smaller businesses or you get eaten by bigger ones," he pushed his chair back and stood to his feet, "I'm done here."

And he was gone.

I think everybody came back to after he left the dining area.

"I apologize for my son's unruly behavior. Logan is a cranky businessman but you can rest assured that you'll get your compensation, you're family now and you should be treated as such."

I smiled tightly, "I don't think you should be apologizing for a grown man's behavior and I would be turning down the offer of compensation if it won't go to all the businesses affected by the demolition."

Someone snickered. It was low and barely audible but I knew what I heard and I knew that the man sitting across me, Alexander Vaughn who had acted as if he was the only one in the dining room since he stepped in just snickered at my words.

Dinner was done, and Mom wanted me to sleep over because she felt we had a lot of catching up to do but I was done being in that suffocating house and even though Mom had no idea when we said our goodbyes, I had no intention of coming back to that house ever again.

"Uffff, sorry," I apologized instinctively as I took a step back from the wall, no body I just ran into.

Alexander Vaughn was staring down at me, his eyes unreadable and the corners of his lips twitched into something I couldn't decipher.

The air in the bathroom dimmed and everywhere suddenly became hot and I was overly aware of everything, each breath I was taking, each thump of my heart, and alpha aura oozing from the fine specimen of a man standing across me.

And he was too fine. He didn't look like he was made for walking, he looked like he was made for a museum, to be seen and admired.

And worshipped.

I swallowed, everything suddenly overbearingly suffocating when he wouldn't stop looking at me and he didn't say anything and I felt my legs turn into jelly as I sidestepped him to walk away.

"Your plan is so small-minded, I'm going to advise you to just stop before you make a fool of yourself any longer."

"What?" I whirled back to look at him. He was by the zinc now, casually washing his hands and avoiding looking at me as if he had not just insulted me like that.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know," he looked up at me through the mirror, "it's a first family dinner and you had to bring up what my brother did to your poor excuse of a business. Made me wonder if all this is an elaborate plan by you and your mom to get back at Logan."

What? No longer he had his mouth shut because once he opened it, he was spitting out utter garbage. And the business that I put everything into seeing come to fruition was the poor excuse of a business?

I smiled tightly, swallowed the anger and bitterness his words made me feel afterall, I wouldn't see him again and I wouldn't have to deal with any of them again.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Ohh but I do," he whirled around and started walking towards me in slow strides, "you came to a dinner full of males that aren't your family dressed like a slut," his eyes scanned my body from head to toe, stopping briefly on my exposed cleavage, his eyes lingering on my exposed legs and lower thighs and I found myself swallowing, found a lump forming in my throat with the way he just appraised me.

As if I was a slab of meat.

The heat of his gaze was still stamped on the exposed parts of my body as he dragged his eyes back to my face.

"You shouldn't bother yourself too much. Dressing up like a whore won't get a raise out of any of the three of us and the only male you'd probably get his attention is our man, not like that'd be too bad of an option for you."

My anger intensified.

"Do you always judge ladies on your first meetings?"

"Suspicious ones that are dressed like they're begging to get fucked and trying to dig their fangs into wealthy homes."

I opened my mouth to talk but he was suddenly out and I was alone.

I felt tears sting my eyes, the event of the day catching up on me. I just wanted to survive and thrive but the only thing I got was to get labelled a whore by the brother of the same man that destroyed my business.

"Do you need a ride?"

I didn't even notice that a car had stopped in front of me. I was at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to arrive after I turned down Alpha Vaughn's request to have one of his drivers drive me home.

It was Blake Vaughn, the last brother. He had the glasses of his sports car rolled down and stared at me with a smile on his face.

"No, I'm okay, the bus will be here very soon."

"Ohhh, I insist," he was suddenly out of the car, "you're about to be my sister and I think Dad would have my head if he knew I left you when I could have given you a ride."

"I'm serious, I'm okay, the bus should be here in less than 5 minutes."

"And it might start raining heavily before that 5 minutes," as if on cue, a huge thunderstorm punctuates his sentence. I shivered slightly.

"See that, let me just give you a ride, we're about to be siblings, we could use the time to do some catching up."

He won, especially when the rain started drizzling. He held the car door for me, put his hand at the top of the door in case I hit my head on it and all this while, he had a charming smile that put me at ease on his face.

I told him my address, one that I was partly embarrassed of and he entered it into the map.

"So I'm just going to apologize for Logan's behavior. I hardly know you but I'm sure losing your business to him must have hurt. I'm sorry for that."

"It's alright," it wasn't. I have lots of loans to pay off because I lost my business.

The sound of Rema's calm down filled the car and it took me a while to realize that it was his ringtone. He picked up the call, and told the person he was going to call him back.

"You love Rema?" I couldn't keep awe and glee out of my voice.

"Of course," his voice was equally as gleeful as mine, "I love everything Afropop."

"Same here, Afropop is my favorite thing these days. I listen to anything Rema, Wizkid, Davido, Tems, Ayra Star."

"Wow, you're my favorite person already. It's amazing to see someone love Afropop like this."

We settled into a conversation about Nigerian music and at some point, he even turned on Rema's Calm Down.

Before I knew it, I had settled down and was enjoying myself. Blake's warmth and energy were that contagious and it made me wonder how he could be brothers to two devils.