Page 70 of Heartless Stepbrother

My breath returned in a jagged rush. My body moved before my mind caught up, dropping to my knees on the warm stone tiles, hands shaking as I began shoving stray pieces of my life back into the gaping carcass of my suitcase. Silk, cotton, lace, even a lone sock. I stuffed them in blindly, instinctually, as if gathering pieces of myself that had burst out on impact.

My fingers fumbled, clumsy with adrenaline. Every movement was frantic, graceless. I hated that he saw it.

Riley sank down beside me again with a slow, predatory ease, as though he had all the time in the world. His movements contrasted mine in a way designed to humiliate: unhurried, precise, almost elegant. His long fingers brushed mine again and again, each accidental touch somehow intentional, each one sparking fresh humiliation under my skin.

The air smelled like hibiscus and motor oil and my own humiliation burning through me.

“Careful, princess,” he murmured, his voice a lazy ribbon of heat sliding along my spine. He leaned just close enough that his breath grazed my cheek. “Don’t rush it. You don’t want to rip something else.”

I froze for half a second, then shoved a folded sundress into the mangled suitcase with enough force to strain the stitching again. My jaw tightened until it ached. I wanted to spit venom. I wanted to snarl. But my throat was tight, raw, a battlefield swallowing its own screams.

I dragged the zipper across the seam, forcing it shut. It groaned in protest, the metal teeth straining, snagging, fighting me. When it finally sealed, the bag felt volatile, a ticking bomb barely holding its shape.

Just like me.

Riley rose first, his shadow falling over me. Then his hand closed around the handle of my suitcase. A simple gesture. A small thing. But this time, I didn’t fight him.

I hated myself for the stillness that followed.

For the surrender built not from softness but from exhaustion.

He had won this round, decisively, with surgical precision and a smile.

He loaded the bags into the trunk as if nothing destructive or intimate had just occurred. Then he opened the back door of the sleek sedan, his head tilted slightly, his expression unreadable but dripping with authority.

“After you.”

I stepped inside, the blast of cool air from the vents hitting my overheated skin like a slap. The interior was spacious, upholstered in soft black leather, but the moment I sat down, the illusion of space evaporated. Riley slid in right after me, settling so close our shoulders nearly brushed. His presence filled the car like a rising tide, swallowing oxygen, swallowing logic.

The driver closed his door. The world outside dimmed. A soft click of the privacy glass rising.

And then we were moving.

The resort’s manicured gardens fell away behind us, the palm trees and bright flowers blurring into streaks of color. A place of safety and witnesses shrinking in the rearview mirror.

A place where someone might have helped me if I screamed.

The farther we drove, the more the truth clawed up through the panic.

I was alone with him.

Not just for the drive.

Not just for the flight.

Two weeks.

Two weeks in a house he commanded.

Two weeks without my mother.

Two weeks where the only boundaries between us would be the ones strong enough for me to hold.

I pressed my forehead lightly against the cool window and watched the ocean slip out of sight, replaced by highway and volcanic cliffs. Every mile put more distance between me and safety. Between me and anyone who knew how to read the tremor in my voice.

Riley didn’t speak at first. He didn’t need to. His silence was a presence. A pressure. A hand at the base of my throat guiding me gently toward the truth I refused to admit.

He had a piece of me in his pocket. A souvenir. A claim.