Page 94 of Heartless Stepbrother

I stared at the second door and felt my stomach dip, as if the floor had shifted an inch lower beneath me.

He could be right there.

At any time.

One door away.

A breath shuddered out of me, too quick, too shallow, scraping the inside of my chest like sandpaper. The air in the bathroom felt thinner, tighter, as if the marble walls had leaned closer just to hear my panic.

The realization wasn’t loud.

It was quiet.

Quiet and devastating.

I wasn’t safe in here.

Not from him.

Not from myself.

My hands started to tremble. I curled my fingers into a fist, nails biting my palm, trying to ground the shaking into something I could hide.

But Riley saw it.

His eyes flicked down to my trembling fingers, then up to my face, catching every unguarded flicker of fear with a slow, knowing satisfaction that struck like a gentle blade.

And that was the worst part.

How much he enjoyed seeing the truth unravel in me.

His head tilted slightly toward the connecting door.

“Now you know,” he said softly. “If you open that door…” a pause, intimate and charged, “…you’ll be in my room.”

Riley brushed a knuckle lightly against the marble as he walked away from me, heading toward the his door.

“Welcome home, Luna,” he said without looking back. “And welcome to the one place in this house where you can’t ignore me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RILEY

Thepolishedbrassofthe doorknob was cool beneath my palm, a quiet luxury that mirrored everything about this house, cold, expensive, precise. I turned it slowly, feeling the subtle shift of the latch disengaging, a soft mechanical sigh that was almost human in its obedience.

Then I stepped into my own room.

The transition was immediate, almost violent. From the closeness of our bathroom, where the air had been thick with her scent, to the vast, sterile calm of my bedroom. The difference was like stepping from fever into frost. I closed the connecting door with deliberate care, pressing the edge until it clicked into place. That sound, clean, final, irrevocable, satisfied something dark and deep inside me.

I waited a few seconds, breathing evenly. Then I heard the faint click of the lock.

She had locked me out.

A slow smile unfurled across my mouth, the kind that never reached my eyes. She had locked me out as if it meant something. As if a lock could keep me out and undo what I had already done to her mind.

Her panic still lingered in the air, clinging like the ghost of heat after a storm. I could taste it if I breathed deeply enough, the acrid, electric scent of adrenaline and fear, tangled with the faint sweetness of her perfume. It was defiance laced with terror. My favorite blend.

I stood there for a moment, letting the silence expand. The house around me was quiet, except for the low hum of the air conditioning and the faint, distant echo of the trees outside. But even in that silence, I could hear her. I could hear the soft, broken rhythm of her breathing through the wall. The way she must have pressed her back against the locked door, convincing herself she’d built a fortress.