Demanding His Brother's Heirs

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.”

Two (#ulink_4c7e5e32-9af8-5f38-82e5-853ae657e573)

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 truth. But that was typical for Jeremy.

Jason tamped down the anger building inside him. “What else did he tell you?”

“That he was sick as a child, and because of his illness no one wanted him.”

Jason’s hackles stood at attention. “Did he say what sort of illness he had?”

“Cancer. He always feared it would come back.”

Jason ground his teeth and tried to keep his cool.

“Jeremy did not have cancer. Nor did he grow up in foster care.”

They had been raised by their biological parents in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. There was little he and his brother wanted that they hadn’t received. Maybe that had been part of the problem. Jeremy had never had to work for anything.

“He lied to me?” she asked, looking so pale and dumbfounded he worried she might pass out again. “Why?”

“Because that’s what Jeremy does.” He paused and corrected himself. “Or did.”

A flash of pain crossed her face, and he felt like a jerk for being so insensitive. She obviously had cared deeply for his brother. But if their marriage was anything like his brother’s past romantic relationships, this poor woman didn’t know the real Jeremy. “They determined that it was an accidental overdose?”

Teeth wedged into her plump lower lip, she nodded. Her voice was unsteady when she said, “It was a lethal mix of prescription medication.”

Jeremy would ingest just about anything that gave him a buzz, but prescription meds had always been his drugs of choice.

“You don’t look surprised,” she said.

“His addiction was the reason our father cut him off. The arrests, the months he spent in rehab... Nothing helped. He didn’t know what else to do.” Their father had exhausted every connection he had to keep Jeremy out of jail, when incarceration might have been the best thing for him.

“Why didn’t I see it?” she asked, and in her eyes Jason saw a pain, a confusion, that he knew all too well.

“He was good at hiding it.”

“At first I thought he was sleeping.” Her eyes welled and she inhaled sharply, blinking back the tears. “They tried to revive him, but it was too late.”

“There was nothing you could have done. I know it’s difficult, but please don’t blame yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“No, it’s not.” The way Jeremy behaved was in fact partly due to Jason, and he would never let himself forget that. Although, parallel with the pain of Jeremy’s death flowed the relief that he would never hurt anyone again. He wouldn’t be around to break his wife’s heart. His children would be spared the pain of watching their father self-destruct. His wife was young and pretty, so it was unlikely she would stay single for long. Though the idea of another man raising his brother’s children burned like a knife in his side. If anyone was going to take on the responsibility of raising Jeremy’s kids, it would be Jason.

He opened his mouth to address her and realized he didn’t even know her name. Nor had he told her his. “In all the excitement we weren’t properly introduced,” he said.