His Brother Stole Me and He Regrets It

1 When I opened my eyes after the crash, the physician told me I was Mrs. Mercer. Preston Mercer, standing at the foot of my bed, confirmed it without missing a beat: "My older brother is your husband. Harrison Mercer." Moments later, the man himself pushed open the door. Tall, severe, exuding an authority so absolute it made the room shrink, he carried an aura that kept anyone from daring to meet his eyes. Frightened and disoriented, I looked up at him and timidly whispered, "Husband?" He stood frozen for a beat, his jaw tightening, before letting out a low, gravelly, "Yes." Over the weeks that followed, our devotion deepened into something raw, fierce, and entirely consuming. Until the afternoon Preston threw himself to his knees on the concrete floor, sobbing hysterically: "Summer, I’m your husband! He lied to you! He took you from me!" I struck him across the face with everything I had, then hurled the divorce petition straight at his bleeding mouth. Harrison stood rooted in place, staring at me as if the ground beneath him had just given way. I turned, letting a slow, deliberate smile touch my lips. "Mr. Mercer," I said softly, "I’m officially back on the market. Are you going to ask me out, or what?" Without a word, he swept me into his arms right in front of the man who had discarded me, crushing his mouth against mine in a kiss that stole whatever breath I had left. "There's nothing to consider," he murmured against my lips. "In this life and every one after, you are my wife." On the third morning after waking up from the wreck, my head still felt like it had been run through an industrial spin cycle. The sharp, sterile sting of hospital antiseptic burned the back of my throat. I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights, waiting for the gray, shifting blur to sharpen into focus. A man stood by the edge of my mattress. Cut from expensive cloth—custom-tailored charcoal suit, crisp cuffs—his brow was knotted in tight, irritable lines as he tapped his foot, glancing repeatedly at the Audemars Piguet on his wrist. "Preston…" The name slipped from my lips on instinct. At the sound of my voice, his entire body stiffened. He turned around slowly. It was a handsome face, undeniably refined, but right now it was twisted into an expression of sheer impatience. For reasons I couldn't articulate, a primal thread of attachment flickered in my chest; some buried part of my subconscious insisted this was the man closest to me in the world. Yet when he looked down at me, there was no flicker of relief. No warmth of someone getting back what they thought they’d lost. He looked at me the way someone looks at a burst pipe flooding their hardwood floor. His phone buzzed violently in his trouser pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the glowing screen—Vivian—and jabbed the decline button before shoving it away. He drew a tight breath and took two stiff strides toward the railing. "You're awake." "What… what happened to me?" My fingers reached up, brushing against the thick gauze wrapped around my skull. A sharp, needle-like throb shot through my temples. My past felt as though it were trapped behind a pane of frosted glass: shapes, silhouettes, but zero clarity. The only thing I clung to was my name. Summer. "You were in a car accident. A concussion caused temporary retrograde amnesia," Preston said, the words rattling off his tongue like a rehearsed deposition. His gaze drifted past my shoulder, carefully avoiding my eyes. "The neurologist said you might not even know your own identity." My fingers tightened around the rough cotton of the hospital blanket. "Then… who am I to you? What are we?" Watching my helplessness, something calculating crept into the corners of Preston’s eyes. A spark of pure, reckless opportunism. He cleared his throat, straightening his posture, and slipped on a veneer of grim gravity. "Listen to me closely, Summer. My name is Preston Mercer. I'm your brother-in-law." "My… brother-in-law?" I repeated, the syllables tasting entirely wrong on my tongue. "That's right." He swallowed hard, visibly congratulating himself on his own stroke of genius. "Your husband is my older brother, Harrison Mercer. CEO of the Mercer Group. Surely you remember the name? Well, never mind, you've got amnesia. All you need to remember is that you belong to him, not me. He’s tied up with board meetings, but he’s on his way to sign your discharge papers." My ears rang with a dull, hollow drone. My husband was Harrison Mercer? Why didn’t the name bring a single ripple of comfort to my mind? Looking at the man before me, the one claiming to be my husband’s younger brother, an instinctive alarm bell sounded in the back of my skull. Something was fundamentally fractured here, but I had no ground to stand on, no memories to weaponize. Before I could form another thought, the heavy wooden door of the suite clicked open. Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed across the polished floorboards, and a towering silhouette crossed the threshold. If Preston carried himself with the polished arrogance of a spoiled heir, the man who just entered moved with the absolute, quiet menace of an apex predator. He wore a bespoke black wool suit that accentuated his broad shoulders and lean waist. His features were cut from granite—deep-set eyes, an aristocratic nose, a sharp, unyielding jawline. But what struck me most was the permafrost settled across his brow. He was utterly, terrifyingly cold. The moment he stepped inside, the spacious executive suite felt suffocatingly small. The atmospheric pressure dropped until it became difficult to draw breath. 2 The moment Preston caught sight of him, he shrank like a cornered stray, standing at stiff attention. Guilt bled through his cracking voice. "H-Harrison. You’re here. She's awake, but the doctors say her memory's completely wiped." Harrison didn’t grant him so much as a glance. His dark eyes, deep and cold as a midwinter trench, locked onto me. Instinctively, I shrank beneath the duvet, pulling the fabric up to my chin. Yet I couldn't tear my gaze away. This… was my husband? The man was breathlessly striking, possessing a severe, classic elegance that made Hollywood leading men look like cheap imitations. But the sheer gravity of his presence made my skin prickle with terror. Seeing that Harrison offered no response, Preston checked his phone again with frantic urgency, rubbing his palms together. "Harrison, since you’re here, she’s all yours. I’ve got that overseas restructuring project—my flight boards in an hour. The tickets are already confirmed. I have to run!" He didn’t wait for Harrison’s permission. Like a man fleeing a burning building, Preston grabbed his coat, yanked open the door, and sprinted out into the corridor. From the hallway, a woman's honeyed, impatient voice drifted in through the crack: "Preston, finally! Let's go, TSA lines are insane today..." The door clicked shut, plunging the suite back into a tomb-like quiet. I stared at the closed door, a sudden, inexplicable ache twisting in my chest. But before I could parse the feeling, the heavy shadow of Harrison Mercer fell over the bed. He stood over me, looking down. In those obsidian depths swirled a tempest of emotions I was utterly unequipped to decipher: disbelief, restrained hunger, and something so dark it looked like grief. In that endless minute of silence, the tension stretched so tight I braced myself for him to order the nurses to throw me out on the street. "Husband…?" I ventured. The word left my mouth trembling, frail as a dried leaf. At that single syllable, Harrison’s pupils contracted violently. His hand, resting loosely at his side, curled into a tight, white-knuckled fist. His lips pressed into a razor-thin line, the muscles along his jaw ticking once, twice. "Yes," he answered. The single syllable was low, scraping against the back of his throat. He leaned down, his towering frame descending until his shadow completely enveloped me. Then, with an unexpected, almost reverent gentleness, his long, scarred fingers settled atop my crown, smoothing down a stray lock of hair. "Everything has been arranged at the estate," he murmured, his voice softer than I thought possible for a man carved of ice. "I'm taking you home." In that suspended second, meeting the quiet intensity of his gaze, the panic that had been rattling around my ribcage settled. The terror of waking up in a blank, nameless world simply dissolved. I nodded, resting my cheek subtly against the warmth of his palm, looking at him with naked trust. "Okay. Take me home." I didn’t catch the dark, possessive flare that sparked behind his eyes when I leaned into his touch—a flash of pure, obsessive hunger, terrifying in its quiet resolve. Harrison’s idea of "home" turned out to be an expansive, gated limestone manor nestled in the secluded hills above the city. As the Maybach glided through the wrought-iron gates, revealing rolling emerald lawns, a private putting green, and meticulously manicured rose gardens framing classic European architecture, I sat in the passenger seat, quietly stunned. It seemed my amnesia hadn't just handed me a terrifyingly gorgeous husband; it had dropped me into old-money royalty. Yet Harrison was an ascetic by nature. He spoke in sparse, measured sentences and moved with an untouchable distance, like a monk cloaked in Savile Row wool. The household staff treated him with reverent terror, lowering their voices whenever he entered a room. At first, faced with this sudden, amnesiac wife, he kept an excruciatingly polite perimeter between us. We slept in separate wings. He left for the corporate tower before sunrise and returned long after dark, often sequestering himself in his wood-paneled library until two in the morning. But as a woman who genuinely believed this man was the love of my life, how could I settle for a marriage of cold handshakes and empty hallways? If fate had wiped my slate clean and left me with this brooding, magnificent husband, I was damn well going to win him over. Thus began my self-assigned campaign of domestic seduction. The following morning, I set my alarm for six o'clock. Ignoring the dull ache behind my temples, I padded down the grand staircase, gently nudged the private chef away from the Viking range, and set about preparing a proper breakfast from scratch. When Harrison finally came down the stairs wearing a charcoal silk lounge robe, his damp dark hair falling slightly over his forehead, I was just placing a steaming terrine of slow-simmered seafood chowder—rich with sweet crab, fresh cream, and cracked pepper—onto the mahogany dining table. "Morning, honey," I beamed, giving him the warmest smile I could muster. "Come sit down. I’ve been simmering this for two hours." 3 Harrison froze at the foot of the stairs. He stared at me, his gaze lingering on the faded linen apron tied snugly around my waist, his expression caught in a rare, unguarded moment of disbelief. A faint crease formed between his brows as he walked toward the table, surveying the warm, fragrant spread. It wasn't the sterile, silver-domed presentation his kitchen staff usually served, but it smelled like pure comfort. "You made this?" he asked, his tone still holding that habitual chill. "Every bit of it. Taste it and tell me if it needs salt." I eagerly ladled a generous portion into an antique porcelain bowl and set it before him. He pulled out his chair and sat, his posture effortlessly straight. Picking up the silver spoon with long, aristocratic fingers, he lifted a small mouthful to his lips. I leaned over the table, watching the subtle movement of his throat as he swallowed, holding my breath like an amateur on opening night. "Well?" I prodded. "...It's good," he said softly. He lowered his lashes, casting dark shadows over his cheekbones and hiding whatever was moving behind those eyes. But I didn't miss the fact that he finished every last drop, his spoon scraping gently against the bottom of the bowl. Emboldened by my small victory, I pushed my boundaries further. The next morning, I stationed myself inside his cavernous walk-in closet, insisting on doing his tie. Harrison suffered from a notorious aversion to physical proximity; even the housekeepers were trained to keep a strict radius of clearance around him. When I stepped onto my tiptoes, looping the heavy mulberry silk around his neck, I felt every muscle in his chest lock rigid. His breathing grew noticeably shallow. "Summer, don't," he murmured, his hand coming up to encircle my wrist, intending to set me aside. Instead of backing away, I tightened my grip on the silk, tilting my chin up so my wide, unblinking eyes caught his. "I'm not playing around. Isn't a wife supposed to tie her husband's necktie? Or are you... disgusted by me?" By the end of the sentence, I let my lower lip tremble just enough, letting a sheen of hurt glaze my eyes. Harrison’s hand froze mid-air. He looked down at me. At this proximity, the clean, intoxicating scent of him filled my senses—crushed cedar, crisp bergamot, and the faint, bitter edge of expensive tobacco. It made my head spin. His gaze dropped slowly from my eyelashes to the seam of my lips. His throat bobbed once. Finally, with a silent, heavy sigh of surrender, he lowered his hands and bent his knees slightly, accommodating my height. "Go ahead," he rasped, his voice rougher around the edges. I bit back a triumphant grin. My fingers worked deftly, folding the silk into an immaculate full Windsor. As I slid the knot snug against his collar, my knuckles brushed against the hard ridge of his Adam’s apple. A sharp, electric shudder ran through his entire frame. I looked up, colliding head-on with a gaze as dark and turbulent as an open sea before a hurricane. There was a raw, unshielded fire in him that made my pulse violently spike. "All done," I whispered, pulling my hands back as if burned. My cheeks flushed crimson. Harrison held my gaze for three agonizingly long seconds, said nothing, and turned on his heel to leave the closet. I watched him go, noting with quiet delight that his usually measured, imperial stride was just a fraction out of rhythm. From that morning on, the permafrost encasing the Mercer estate began to thaw at an astonishing rate. Harrison started coming home before sundown, systematically canceling dinners with board members and foreign dignitaries. He began tolerating—and then silently encouraging—my presence in his sacred home office. While he conducted eight-figure video conferences with London and Tokyo, I would lounge on the deep leather sofa wearing one of his crisp white dress shirts that pooled past my knees, bare feet tucked under me, crunching on crisp Honeycrisp apples while playing mobile puzzle games. He never once reprimanded me. Instead, during pauses between agenda points, his eyes would drift toward the corner of the room, looking at me with a quiet, bottomless indulgence. Once, when the AC kicked on too hard, he muted his mic, walked over without a word, and draped a heavy cashmere throw over my bare shins. Thousands of miles away, Preston was living it up on Mercer family credit cards, but he couldn't resist calling via FaceTime every few days. His calls were never about family loyalty; he wanted to witness the wreckage. In Preston’s narrow mind, Harrison was an unfeeling, germophobic sociopath who lived only for balance sheets. Leaving a needy, traumatized "amnesiac" in Harrison’s care was supposed to result in absolute misery for both of us—with me locked away, sobbing into the carpets. "Hey, Harrison," Preston drawled into the screen, leaning back against a cabana in Maui. "How's the patient holding up? She hasn't driven you up the wall yet, has she? You know how hysterical she gets. Don't be too hard on her." 4 On the screen, Preston had his arm slung casually around Vivian, the golden Hawaiian sun bouncing off their designer sunglasses. He looked smug, thoroughly pleased with his own cleverness. Harrison was sitting on the sectional in the library, his laptop propped on his knees, while I was lying stretched across the cushions, my head resting comfortably in his lap as I swiped at my screen. Hearing his brother's grating voice, Harrison subtly angled the laptop screen so only his own impassive face was visible to the camera. Meanwhile, his long, warm fingers continued to drift lazily through my hair, gently brushing the strands behind my ear with the rhythmic, mesmerizing care one might give a cherished house cat. "She is doing exceptionally well," Harrison replied, his voice a flatline of cool indifference. His touch in my hair, however, was feather-light and protective. "You needn't concern yourself." "Come on, Harrison, you don't have to put on a brave face for me," Preston chuckled, utterly oblivious. "I know how Summer is. Needy, obsessive, completely suffocating. You must be counting down the days until she's out of your hair." A spike of irritation flared in my chest. Before Harrison could answer, I rolled over, popping my head directly into the frame. Leaning my chin against Harrison’s chest, I pulled a theatrical face at the lens. "Hey there, little brother!" I chimed, my voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. "Hope you're enjoying your little vacation! Harrison has been an absolute dream to me. Just yesterday, he had an entire private cove in the Caribbean christened after me. Did Vivian get an island, or just SPF 30?" Across the Pacific, Preston’s grin froze so violently it looked painful. His eyes locked onto the screen—taking in my head resting over his older brother's heart, Harrison’s thumb absently caressing my jawline, and the sheer lack of revulsion on a face that usually looked down on the world with clinical disdain. In fact, Harrison’s lips curved into the faintest, proudest hint of a smirk. "Harrison… you… what the hell is this?" Preston stammered. "Preston," Harrison cut in, his tone dropping an octave into pure, lethal command. "Mind your manners. And address her as your sister-in-law." With a sharp tap of his index finger, he terminated the call. The screen went black. Harrison looked down at me, the hard edges of his face softening entirely, melting into something that felt dangerously close to worship. "Are you still hungry?" he murmured, brushing his thumb across my lower lip. "I had a crate of Rainier cherries flown in from Washington this morning." "Starving," I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling myself up to press a quick, sweet kiss to the corner of his jaw. The illusion shattered—and rebuilt itself into something far more dangerous—two weeks later, on a night when the sky tore open. A severe coastal storm battered the hills. Violent gusts hurled sheets of rain against the library’s twenty-foot floor-to-ceiling windows, rattling the reinforced glass with terrifying force. Then, a jagged spear of violet lightning split the heavens, followed immediately by an earth-shaking crack of thunder. The lights inside the estate died instantly. Pitch blackness swallowed the room. The sound resonated in my bones. My nervous system violently short-circuited. The glass tumbler I was holding slipped through my fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor with a sharp, violent crash. A wave of suffocating, primal terror seized my lungs. I didn't understand the origin of the panic, but the suffocating dark and the violent noise triggered something visceral in my fractured brain. Fragmented, horrific images flashed behind my eyelids: metal twisting like paper, the metallic reek of fresh blood, the agonizing sensation of being pinned under a dashboard while gasoline leaked onto hot steel— "Harrison!" I screamed his name, stumbling blindly through the dark, my hands flailing against empty air. Cold sweat soaked through my silk pajamas in seconds; my knees trembled so violently they could barely hold my weight. "Harrison, where are you?!" Thud. I crashed headlong into a solid, warm wall of muscle. The familiar scent of cedar and mint enveloped me instantly. Two massive, unyielding arms locked around my waist, lifting me clear off the floor and hauling me flush against a thudding chest. "I'm here, Summer. I've got you. Look at me, I'm right here." His voice was laced with an uncharacteristic, raw desperation. "I can't breathe—please, don't leave me in the dark—" I sobbed, my fingers clawing into the fabric of his shirt as if he were the only solid object keeping me from drowning. "Don't leave me behind, please..." "Never," he swore against my temple, his voice vibrating with fierce conviction. "I will never leave you." He carried me into the master suite, laying me down on the vast mattress, and immediately followed me down. He pulled the heavy duvet over us, wrapping his broad frame completely around mine, using his own body heat to burn away the violent chills racking my limbs. His lips pressed against my forehead, my eyelids, my trembling cheeks, murmuring endless, quiet promises into the curve of my neck. BOOM. Another thunderclap detonated directly overhead. I cried out, burying my face into the hollow of his throat, wrapping my arms around his neck with bruising force. In my blind panic, my lips brushed against the warm, parted seam of his mouth. The world went dead silent. Outside, the storm raged, but within the perimeter of that bed, time stopped. I lifted my tear-streaked face. In the brief, silver flash of lightning illuminating the bedroom, I saw Harrison’s expression. The iron discipline that defined his life was splintering, crack by visible crack. "Summer," he rasped, his voice rough and dangerous, his chest heaving against mine. "Do you have any idea what you're doing to me right now?" "Harrison..." I whispered, lost in the dark, my fingers tracing the hard line of his jaw. "Just hold me. Please." That was the spark to the powder keg. A shuddering breath rattled through his chest, and whatever restraint he possessed shattered into dust. His hand slid into the back of my hair, tilting my head, and his mouth came down on mine with a fierce, starved intensity. It was a kiss born of years of buried longing—desperate, possessive, bordering on punishing. He tasted like rain and dark bourbon, parting my lips and claiming my mouth with an authority that left me gasping. There was nothing gentle about it; he held me as if he were trying to fuse our ribs together, trying to pull my very soul into his own chest. Dazed, overwhelmed, and drunk on the safety of his arms, I parted my lips and kissed him back. That small, hesitant surrender unhinged him completely. Harrison groaned deep in his chest, pulling me beneath him, his kisses trailing down my jaw to the sensitive hollow of my throat. He pressed his forehead against mine, his breath ragged and scorched with heat. "You did this, Summer," he whispered fiercely against my skin. "You chose this. Even when your mind comes back... even when you remember... I will never let you walk away from me."