Please Mr. Sinclair I'M Your Step Brother's Wife

ADRIANA CHEN

I never knew how fucked up I was until I met him. I always saw myself as the good girl. The girl everyone pointed at when they needed an example of discipline, restraint, and control. The kind of girl teachers trusted without checking twice, the kind parents used as a standard when scolding their own children.

In senior high, I even received an award for the most disciplined girl in school. People clapped harder than necessary, as if I was proof that goodness could be measured and rewarded. I didn't think much of it then. I even believed it myself.

That's not until I met the devil of Sinclair the one man I should have stayed away from. The one sin more forbidden than forbidden itself. And I accepted it. Hell, I became devoted to committing it. My greatest sin. Julian Sinclair.

What began as a normal ceremony, me meeting my boyfriend Andrew Sinclair's family. He had mentioned his family, of course. In Royal City, the Sinclair name held power and influence. But I hadn't connected the dots. If you're thinking I fell for Andrew for money, you've entirely misread me.

The truth is far more embarrassing. Even my friends think it's stupid. I fell for Andrew Sinclair because he saved a kitten. A small, trembling thing on the edge of a busy road, and there he was, this tall, breathtakingly handsome boy crouched down in his pristine white shirt, coaxing it to safety. My heart stuttered in a way it had never done before. Then I bumped into him at Royal University. Then again when he was out with his boys. And again, after that, in ways I stopped being able to count.

Fate, I told myself. We shared so much, ambitions, humour, late-night conversations that stretched long past midnight. He wanted to be a lawyer. He was my dream made real: tall, warm, driven, kind. He did mention an adoptive father, some powerful figure in the city. I waved it off. What did it matter?

✦ ✦ ✦

A year later, I remember it clearly. The 23rd of August. He got down on one knee and I said yes before he'd finished the question. I had it all mapped out in my head, the wedding, the honeymoon, two or three children, a life so beautiful it looked like something out of a Sunday film. I had built us a future and furnished every room of it.

It was on a Friday night when his car pulled to a slow stop before iron gates so grand they seemed less like an entrance and more like a declaration. Beyond them, the Sinclair mansion rose against the evening sky a monolith of pale stone and arched windows lit from within, manicured hedges flanking a driveway that stretched further. My breath left my body harder with an explosion.

"OMG babe," I breathed, voice barely holding together, "you are the son of Benjamin Sinclair - the Sinclair Tycoon?"

Andrew glanced at me with that easy, unbothered smile of his, as though we'd just pulled up to a moderately nice restaurant. "What's wrong? I told you he was my stepfather."

"I didn't know you meant the Sinclair!!"

He shook his head, amused in a way that made me want to throttle him gently.

Four men appeared before we had fully stepped out, moving in seamless formation, their uniforms impeccable.

"Welcome home, young master and young miss!" they called in near-perfect unison. The words landed against my chest like a small, velvet shock. Young miss. I had never been addressed that way in my life. My body didn't know what to do with it heat rose to my cheeks and my fingers curled nervously at my sides.

The butler, introduced as Mr. Evans Grey, a silver-haired man led us inside. My one consuming fear was my future mother-in-law. The dramas had prepared me for cold eyes and clipped disapproval. But Victoria Sinclair was warmth itself, and Mr. Benjamin received me with a handshake that felt like welcome. The evening softened. Laughter moved around the table. I almost exhaled.

Then Mr. Grey reappeared at the edge of the room. His expression had shifted, still composed, but carrying the particular weight of a man delivering news that rearranges the atmosphere of a room. He stepped close to Benjamin and said, in a low, measured voice: "Sir. The young master has arrived."

I had forgotten about him entirely. Andrew was the adopted son, absorbed into the Sinclair family after his mother's marriage, which was precisely why he wasn't that known. Julian Sinclair was a different species of wealthy. Not just his father's wealth, his mother's side was also rich money. He had his own brand before most people had career plans, and the Kingsley Casino was Royal City's largest casino.

Julian Sinclair made his entrance, wearing a sleek, tailored suit in deep gunmetal. The jacket was structured, with sharp lapels and no pocket square. Beneath it, a charcoal silk shirt, the top button undone. Dark trousers, perfectly pressed, broke cleanly over shoes with no tie.

He didn't greet us neither did he acknowledged the parents. He simply crossed the room at his own pace, lowered himself into the chair at the far end of the table and reached into his breast pocket for a cigar.

He exhaled slowly, a curl of grey smoke rising between us, and only then did he look. First at Andrew and then at me.

"Such an important occasion," he said, "and I wasn't invited." He took another slow pull of the cigar, let the silence stretch a beat too long, then the edge of his mouth curved not quite a smile, not quite anything kind. "No matter. I brought gifts."

Adriana Chen

Looking back now, the way he looked at me that first evening should have told me everything. His whole presentation was the precise type I had spent my entire life instinctively avoiding. I had a radar for men like Julian Sinclair. I had always taken the longer route around them, kept my gaze low, my posture closed. I mean for his gift was a packet of protection.

Julian pressed his cigar into the ashtray slowly, the ember dying with a small hiss. Then he straightened, adjusted the lapels of his coat with two fingers, and let the smirk stretch.

"I hate kids," he announced.

He was already turning, already moving toward the door when he paused mid-step as though something had just occurred to him. He glanced back at Andrew, casual and cutting in equal measure.

"Right - when is the wedding, bro? Don't forget to send an invitation." And then he was gone, his footsteps disappearing.

Benjamin Sinclair was on his feet before the echo of those steps had faded, his jaw set, excusing himself quietly. Down the corridor - Benjamin & Julian

From where I sat, I could hear them, not every word, but enough. The sharp cadence of Benjamin's voice, controlled but fraying at the edges. Then Julian's, lower, slower, each syllable a door closing.

It was Victoria who moved first. She rose from her seat with the quiet authority of a woman who had learned that rage left more wreckage than grace. She touched my hand once brief, warm, certain - before she followed them.

I stayed the night. The room assigned to me was vast in the way that old money rooms always are - high ceilings, heavy drapes, furniture chosen to last rather than impress. I stood in the middle of it for a long moment after the door clicked shut, just breathing.

Andrew found me before I could spiral. He was warm and present and entirely himself, and when I wrapped my arms around him from behind and pressed my lips softly to the back of his neck, the tension in my shoulders unknotted itself by degrees.

"Is he always like that?" I murmured, his hands finding mine, fingers interlacing.

"Like what?"

"Like some - like a complete and utter-" I exhaled sharply. "Is it just being a spoiled kid? What is actually wrong with him?"

Andrew was quiet for a moment too long. The warmth in his posture shifted; he moved to the window, and the city lights below painted the side of his face in gold and grey. When he spoke, his voice had gone somewhere careful. "I don't really blame him. If I were in his position, I would probably hate me too."

"What does that mean?"

"Family things. Dark family things. Things I don't want you anywhere near." He crossed back to me and stepped into my open arms, and I held him, this careful, considered, warm man I had chosen and I didn't ask again. I trusted him. That was the truest and most naive thing about me.

I moved in officially the next morning. The wedding was two weeks away. In those fourteen days I settled into the mansion's rhythms - the soft knock of Mr. Grey before breakfast, Victoria's laughter drifting from the garden, the vast library on the second floor that became my favourite room. Julian was absent from all of it. According to the butler, he rarely came home. I filed that information away and did not examine my relief too closely.

✦ ✦ ✦

Three Days Before the Wedding - Midnight

I woke at midnight with the particular thirst that comes from a too-warm room and too many thoughts. I pulled on what was closest, a red satin slip dress, loose at the shoulders, edged in lace, the kind of thing you only wear when you are certain no one is watching. The house was a held breath. Not a footstep, not a creak. I padded barefoot down the grand staircase into the kitchen, where the refrigerator light spilled out in a single cold rectangle across the marble floor.

I had the jar of water in my hand when his voice came from behind me.

"Trouble sleeping, sunshine?"

I startled so hard the jar slipped. A he caught it before it could shatter. I spun around, heart slamming once, hard, against my ribs like it had just remembered what fear felt like.

Julian Sinclair stood barely two feet away, in dark trousers and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He handed the jar back with a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Careful, sister-in-law. Well - to-be."

"Hello," I managed, taking a step back. My heel found the cabinet behind me. There was nowhere further to go.

"Relax, sunshine. I won't bite." He reached past me for a glass. He poured the water and held it out. "Unless you want me to."

I took the glass and drank in a single go and was already turning to leave when his arm came up, not grabbing, just appearing, cutting off my exit. I turned back and found him closer than he'd been a second ago, one hand braced on the refrigerator above my head, the other holding a small tin. Red berries. My back found the cold metal of the fridge and stayed there.

"A friend recommended these," he said, his gaze fixed on me. "I've never tasted them before. But I hear your specialty is plants. Exotic farming." A pause as he drew one berry from the tin. "Tell me if she has a good taste."

He was tall in a way I hadn't properly registered when we first met. Here, with the refrigerator at my back and nothing between us but cold air and the faint smell of something dark and woodsy, his cologne, or just him, I couldn't separate them he was enormous.

My pulse did something it had no business doing. It didn't race faster after every beat. I told myself it was the shock of being startled. His eyes moved over my face with an attention that felt surgical. My fingers tightened around the glass. I didn't move.

I reached for the berry.

His hand intercepted mine barely a touch, just a redirection, his fingers curling once around my wrist and releasing before I'd registered the contact.

"I'll be the one doing the feeding,"

Something went very wrong with my breathing.

He lifted the berry and ran it across my lips, slowly, the skin of the fruit was cool and impossibly soft and he moved it with a patience that felt like punishment, tracing the curve of my lower lip, then the upper, then back again. My entire nervous system narrowed to that single point of contact.

My heart was no longer beating normally; it had taken on something closer to a stagger, an arrhythmic stutter I felt in my throat, in my fingertips, behind my eyes.

My lips parted slightly. He pulled the berry away.

Brought it to his own mouth. Bit into it slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving mine, dark juice catching the faint light. Then he held out what remained, the other half, glistening, offered between his fingers, and before I could locate a single reason to refuse, he pressed it between my lips himself.

The flavour bloomed, sweet with an edge of something almost bitter underneath. He leaned in, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him. His voice, when it came, was barely above a murmur, each word landing precisely where he intended it.

"How does it feel?" A fraction closer. The glass in my hand was the only cold thing left in the world. "Delicious?"

Adriana Chen

I could not get him out of my head. I had never thought someone could intrude on me so thoroughly, not just occupy a passing thought, but settle in like furniture, rearranging something fundamental. The midnight scene kept replaying with a fidelity that embarrassed me.

Something coiled deep in my stomach every time the memory surfaced, and every time I brushed it off, told myself it was nothing.

The night before the wedding, I went to stay with my bridesmaids. My three best ladies, Syndra Jules, all sharp wit and wild laughter; Agnes Brown, pragmatic and perpetually unimpressed; and Sophia Kent, who balanced the two of them. All three of us had graduated from the same college, all three of us now worked at Evergreen Exotic Breeds, the largest exotic plant company in Royal City.

It was around ten when I noticed Syndra had entirely absented herself from the proceedings. She was nested in the armchair across the room, blue reading glasses perched on her nose, a novel pressed close to her face. She giggled every few seconds, delighted giggles that had nothing to do with any of us.

"Seriously, Syndra," Sophia called, reaching over to grab the book. Syndra yanked it out of reach without looking up. "You do know we have a girl night to attend? This is her eve."

"Sorry, sorry - but this has reached the most critical section," she said, not sounding remotely sorry.

Agnes and I exchanged the particular look we reserved for Syndra's book phases. I laughed despite myself. "What is it even about?" I asked, already bracing, she had a gift for consuming a full hour with a plot summary.

The two girls shot me a what have you done look. Syndra adjusted her glasses with great ceremony and turned to face us fully.

"Forbidden love," she said warmly, "between a wife and her husband's brother. Spicy as fuck and I mean next level smut. And right now, they are in the middle of fucking in his office when her husband is about to walk in - can you picture it? I am barely breathing."

"Yuck," Agnes said flatly. "You're genuinely enjoying a story about a woman cheating on her husband?"

"It is not cheating - that is entirely the point," Syndra said, sitting straighter. "She was arranged to that marriage. Just pure business, not love involved. The brother is the one who actually earns her. So technically-"

"Technically it is still cheating, Syndra-"

"Technically it is forbidden love - there is a difference!"

They argued. Their voices rose and fell around me like weather, but somewhere between Syndra's passionate defence and Agnes's equally passionate rebuttal, my mind simply... left.

Husband's brother. The words landed differently than they should have. Julian's eyes appeared in my mind unbidden, the precise, categorising weight of them as they moved over my face in that dark kitchen. And then, with a slow creep of heat I had no business feeling, I remembered what I had been wearing. A red satin slip with a thin lace. The refrigerator light had been dim, just barely dim enough. My heart accelerated at the thought and then, before I could stop it, another thought arrived entirely without permission. What if there was enough light for him to actually see everything. I even picture him examining me, stripping naked in his head, my heart raced even faster.

What was I even thinking.

"Adriana!"

I surfaced. All three of them were staring at me.

"What's going on?" I asked, disoriented.

"You've been muttering to yourself for the past minute," Agnes said carefully. "What is going on with you?"

"Nothing," I smiled, brushing it off with the ease. "Nothing at all."

Syndra pointed at me with the spine of her book. "I know exactly what it is. Wedding pressure. Very common. Very treatable."

"With what?" all three of us asked.

She held up the novel. "A forbidden love affair between a bride and her devastatingly handsome brother-in-law."

The pillow that flew at her was Agnes's. "She is getting married tomorrow, you absolute idiot-" and the room dissolved into noise and laughter and a small war over the book, and I laughed with them.

The wedding came fast, the way important things always do. Being married into the Sinclair name meant the world showed up, the kind of faces you recognised from newspapers. The hotel booked for the ceremony was immaculate and full, every seat claimed. I walked down the aisle in a gown heavy enough to be its own event, make-up precise and deliberate, smiling broadly.

Twelve hours later, it was done. I was now Adriana Chen Sinclair.

You might be wondering, I certainly was, Julian did not come. His assistant arrived in his place, bearing apologies and an explanation: an important meeting, scheduled half a month prior, immovable.

His gift, however, arrived in the car park. A brand new Bentley, current model, waiting beside two additional vehicles, a pair of Toyota Land Cruiser 300 Series, fully loaded, matte black. Even Andrew's family, accustomed to wealth in all its forms, paused. I stood in front of them for a long moment, entirely outflanked.

Andrew was not surprised in the least. Back at the mansion that night, still in my gown, I found him in the sitting room with a glass of champagne, entirely at ease.

"Aren't you surprised he actually sent you gifts?" I asked, setting down a gift envelope

Andrew smiled, languid and unbothered. "Why would I be surprised? He's my brother. Of course he gave us a gift."

"He barely speaks to you. He never comes home. You never talk about him. I just assumed-"

"Hate is the wrong word," he said, more carefully. "He hates our father. Growing up, he was actually decent - nothing like those dramas you've probably watched. Our relationship is complicated. I'll explain it eventually."

I watched his face something had lived behind his eyes all day. He kept glancing at his watch. He had done it all through the reception. I had noticed and said nothing, because it was my wedding day and I had decided to be gracious.

"Andrew." I set down the envelope. "What is going on? You've been somewhere else all day."

He crossed to me, pressed his lips to my forehead - warm, quick, apologetic. "Something urgent. I'm sorry, darling. I won't be long."

The door closed behind him.

I stood in the middle of the room in my wedding gown, surrounded by gifts and flowers and all the beautiful evidence of a day that had just ended, and I was completely, perfectly alone.

"Abandoned on my wedding night."

After about two hours, I dragged myself down stairs to get some cold milk, being left alone on my wedding night was such a disgrace I didn't anyone to learn about.

Andrew just texted an apology, what a joke, I grabbed the milk and made my way upstairs, luckily, during this time, both the maids and butler had gone to their respective quarters. As I headed upstairs, that was when I heart it, a faint groan, steady breathing and some noise of something slapping on each other. The direction was the room reserved for Julian, the light on the hall way was on, I wanted to ignore, not until I faintly heard my name.

My body stiffened and chills ran down my chills, again loudly now, my name. I wanted to see, but my body was against it, but I went. His door wasn't close, not even that slightly opened, no it was fully opened and right at my view Julian was there, fully naked, before a large frame of my photo, in my wedding dress, just me alone, his had stroking his cock as he groaned over and over, faster and faster.

"Yeah, Sunshine, that's it Adriana, make me cum!! Fuck!! Am going to cum!"

I dropped the milk on the floor, he heard it, turned to face me, his hands holding his hard cock as he stared heard on me and smiled.

"Like what your seeing sunshine?"