Possessive Fertility Doctor Stepbrothers (Stepbrothers' Forbidden Fantasies #12)

1. Anya

ANYA

The pamphlets in the waiting room are taunting me.

Maximizing Your Fertility After Thirty-Five. Understanding Ovulation Cycles. Creating Life: A Journey for Hopeful Parents.

Every glossy brochure screams about creating families while I sit here, one month after burying what was left of mine, waiting to ask three stepbrothers for permission to access my own money.

The irony tastes bitter on my tongue—bitter and ridiculous and so perfectly absurd that I almost laugh out loud.

Almost.

I don't laugh because that would crack something in me that I'm not ready to examine.

Instead, I straighten my spine and cross my ankles and pretend the pregnant woman two seats over isn't making my chest tight with her careful hand on her belly.

My mother's money—my money now—is sitting in some account I can't touch because apparently graduating college at twenty-one with a literature degree, cum laude, doesn't qualify me as responsible enough to make my own financial decisions.

The receptionist calls my name with the kind of bright professionalism that makes me want to roll my eyes.

I follow her to an elevator, then down a hallway that screams expensive—warm wood, soft lighting, the kind of understated elegance that comes with being the largest fertility clinic in North Carolina.

Everything here whispers success and competence, and I hate that I'm grudgingly impressed despite myself.

"The conference room is just ahead," she says, gesturing toward glass walls that reveal a long table surrounded by leather chairs. "They're waiting for you."

They. As if I could forget. Jones, Eric, and Vincent Ashford—my stepbrothers by virtue of one year of marriage between my mother and their father before death decided to collect both parents in one neat sweep.

The will reading was three weeks ago, and I've been seething ever since. They control when and how my inheritance gets released, which means my dream of opening a library café sits in their hands instead of mine.

The door opens, and all three of them are already inside.

My breath catches—not a gasp, not dramatic, just a small hitch I hope they don't notice.

Seeing them again hits differently than it did at the wedding last year.

Then, I was twenty and overwhelmed and trying not to stare.

Now I'm twenty-one and furious and completely failing at the not-staring part.

Jones is at the head of the table, six foot three of controlled authority in a tailored dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. Dark blonde hair pushed back from his face, blue eyes that track my movement as I step into the room.

The ink on his arms disappears under the fabric—chest tattoos I glimpsed at the wedding, sleeve tattoos that spiral from wrist to shoulder.

His beard is perfectly trimmed, and when our eyes meet, something low in my stomach tightens in a way that makes me want to turn around and walk right back out.

"Anya." His voice drops my name like it weighs something. Not quite warm, not quite cold. Just... substantial.

Eric's leaning back in his chair, blonde hair twisted into a man bun, green eyes already crinkling at the corners with what looks like amusement. He's the tallest at six foot five, broad through the shoulders in a way that makes his casual posture look deceptively relaxed.

The trimmed beard softens features that would be too sharp without it, and when he smiles—really smiles, not just the polite version from the wedding—my pulse does something stupid and fluttery.

"Look at you," Eric says, and there's genuine warmth in it. "All grown up and ready to take on the world."

"I was grown up a year ago." The words come out sharper than I intended, but I don't soften them. Sharp is safer than whatever's happening to my nervous system right now.

Vincent doesn't say anything, but his brown eyes don't leave my face. He's sitting across from Eric, dark hair shorter than Jones's, stubble instead of a full beard. Leaner than his brothers but still broad, still solid, still making the air in the room feel thinner somehow.

Chest tattoos disappear under his shirt collar—no sleeves, just the dark ink across his chest that I definitely should not be thinking about. His expression is calm, watchful, like he's cataloging every micro-expression I make and filing it away for later analysis.

None of them look alike — different coloring, different builds, different everything.

Jones is the only biological son. Eric and Vincent were both adopted, a detail my mother mentioned exactly once, like it was a footnote instead of actual relevant information about the family she was marrying me into.

The silence stretches until Jones gestures toward an empty chair. "Sit."

It's not a request. I sit anyway, because standing here letting all three of them look at me is doing things to my body that I refuse to acknowledge.

The chair puts me at the foot of the table with them arranged around me—Jones at the head, Eric and Vincent flanking. Surrounded. This was deliberate, and they know I know it.

Fine. Let them think they have the advantage. Let them think twenty-one means naive, that cum laude doesn't count for anything, that I'm here to beg instead of demand what's already mine.

"So." I fold my hands in my lap and lift my chin. "I want to discuss my inheritance."

"We figured." Eric's still smiling, but something shifts in his posture. Less relaxed, more focused. "Why don't you tell us what you're planning to do with it?"

"Open a library café." The words come out clear and confident because I've been practicing them.

"A combination bookstore, coffee shop, and community reading space.

Somewhere people can buy books, grab coffee, attend readings, book clubs, author events.

Charlotte needs more literary spaces, and I want to create one. "

Vincent speaks for the first time, voice steady and even. "That's a nice idea."

The pause after idea lands like a weight. Not plan. Idea.

"It's more than an idea," I say, jaw tightening. "I've been researching the market, looking at locations, working out the details."

"Have you?" Jones leans forward slightly, and the movement draws my attention to his hands—broad, long-fingered, ink curling around his wrists. "What's the startup cost?"

The number I've been carrying around suddenly feels less solid than it did this morning. "Around two hundred thousand. Maybe two fifty."

"Maybe." Eric's eyebrows lift. "That's a pretty wide range for someone who's been working out the details."

Heat crawls up my neck. "It depends on the location, the renovations needed?—"

"What about operating expenses?" Vincent's question is quiet but pointed. "Staff, inventory, utilities, insurance, marketing budget?"

I have answers. Sort of. Ballpark figures I've pulled from Google searches and business articles, rough estimates that made sense when I was sitting alone in my apartment but feel flimsy under the weight of three pairs of eyes that clearly know more about running a business than I do.

"I'm still finalizing those numbers." The words taste like admitting defeat, but I force them out anyway.

Jones's expression doesn't change, but somehow the air in the room gets denser. "Have you run a business before?"

"No."

"Managed staff?"

"No."

"Handled inventory, supply chains, vendor relationships?"

Each no feels like losing ground, but I can't lie. I won't give them that satisfaction. "I have a literature degree from UNC. I graduated early, cum laude. I know how to research, how to learn, how to?—"

"How to run a business?" Eric's voice is gentler than it should be, which makes it worse somehow. "Because what you're describing isn't a research project, sweetheart. It's a quarter-million-dollar investment with employees and overhead and a hundred ways to fail."

The endearment hits me wrong—too warm, too familiar, too much like he cares when this is clearly about proving I'm not ready. My hands clench in my lap. "I can figure it out."

"Can you?" Jones pushes back from his chair and stands. He's not dramatically tall, not towering, but something about the way he carries himself makes the room feel smaller. "Or are you asking us to gamble a significant amount of money on your ability to figure it out as you go?"

The truth sits heavy in my chest—he's right, and we both know it. My plan has holes. Big ones. The kind that could swallow two hundred thousand dollars without a trace. But admitting that out loud, to them, feels like surrendering something I'm not ready to give up.

"That's my money." The words come out tight, controlled, nothing like the scream building behind my ribs.

Jones walks closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "And your mother trusted us to make the right call."

Fuck. He's right about that too. The will was clear—the trustees have complete discretion over distribution of funds, and they're not obligated to release anything until they deem me "financially responsible." Whatever that means. Whatever they decide it means.

My spine straightens because that's what I do when someone backs me into a corner. "So what are you suggesting?"

Eric leans forward, elbows on the table. "We have a proposition."

"Of course you do."

"Our secretary quit two weeks ago," Eric continues, ignoring my tone. "Her husband got transferred to Germany, and she moved with him. We need someone to manage appointments, handle correspondence, organize files—basic administrative work."

I wait for the rest because there's always a rest.

Vincent supplies it. "Work for us for three months. Show us you can handle responsibility, meet deadlines, manage competing priorities. After three months, we'll release your inheritance and help you develop a proper business plan."