Demanding His Brother's Heirs. Michelle Celmer

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.

      That earned him a cautious smile. “I guess we weren’t. I’m Holly Shay.”

      “Jason Cavanaugh.”

      He offered his hand and she shook it, hitting him with another confused look. “Cavanaugh? But Jeremy said his last name—” She caught herself, shaking her head in disbelief. “But it wasn’t Shay, was it? That was a lie, too.”

      “You’re not the first woman with whom Jeremy—” He hesitated, searching for the least painful explanation “—misrepresented himself.”

      “So our relationship, our marriage, it was all one big lie?”

      Now she was getting the idea. “Have there been financial repercussions?”

      She hesitated, but the brief flash of fear and desperation in her eyes was all the answer he needed. Cheating strangers was one thing, but to con his own wife, the mother of his children? “How much did he take you for?”

      She lowered her eyes, and when she didn’t answer he asked, “Did he leave you in debt?”

      With her lip wedged firmly between her teeth, she nodded.

      “Considerable debt?”

      Again, no answer.

      “You can tell me the truth. It isn’t going to upset me or hurt my feelings. I accepted a long time ago the sort of man my brother had become. Nothing you can say will shock me.” Sadly, that was the honest truth.

      She finally looked him in the eye, chin held high, and said, “I’m devastated financially. The only thing of value that I have left is my wedding ring. If it’s even a real diamond.”

      At the mention of a ring Jason sat up straighter. Could it be possible? “Can I see it?”

      “I have it right here actually.” She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out the ring. Jason’s heart skipped a beat. And here he’d thought that was gone forever, too. Traded for cash or drugs or God knew what else. He’d be damned if Jeremy had had a conscience after all.

      “It’s definitely real,” he told her.

      “How can you tell?”

      “Because this ring belonged to my mother.”

      * * *

      Holly was so screwed.

      That ring had been her only hope to claw her way out of this financial abyss, but knowing that it had belonged to Jason’s deceased mother she couldn’t sell it now. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

      “Jeremy was the oldest by seven minutes, so when our mother died it went to him,” Jason said. “It’s been in our family for generations.”

      And that’s where it should stay.

      With a heavy heart, she held out the ring to Jason. “You should have this back.”

      “You’re Jeremy’s wife,” he said. “The mother of his children. It belongs to you now.”

      If only that were true. She may have been his wife, but she obviously hadn’t had a clue who he was. “Please, just take it.”

      Looking uncertain, Jason took the ring. “Are you sure?”

      “Absolutely.”

      The thick platinum band and enormous stones looked so small in his big hand. “Honestly, I figured Jeremy had probably sold it years ago. I never thought I would see it again.”

      He slipped it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. With it went all of her hopes and dreams of a decent start for her and her boys. What would she do now? File bankruptcy? Go on public assistance? Live in a shelter? Or on the street in a cardboard box?

      Jason must have sensed her distress. His brow furrowed with concern, he asked, “Are you okay?”

      “Fine,” she said, pasting on a good face, the way she had for Jeremy, who’d never questioned the sincerity of her words. He’d believed anything she’d told him if it meant keeping the peace. Especially near the end.

      Jason was clearly not at all like his brother.

      “You don’t look fine,” he said, studying her, his eyes and his face, even his expression, so much like Jeremy’s, but different somehow. “If it’s money you’re worried about, don’t.”

      Someone had to. And talk of her dismal finances was making her uncomfortable.

      “My money issues are really not your problem,” she said, letting him off the hook, thinking that would end the conversation.

      “I’m making them my problem,” he said firmly.

      Whoa. His look said he wasn’t playing around, but neither was she. “That’s not