Page 97 of Heartless Stepbrother

Thelockslidintoplace with a sharp click that felt far too loud for the trembling in my hands. I felt the vibration of it in my bones. My muscles quivered as if the sound had stolen something from me, and now my body scrambled to replace it.

Silence spilled into the space between us. A delicate, dangerous silence. It felt thin and breakable, a frozen surfacestretched across black water. One wrong step and I would fall through. One wrong breath and he would hear me drowning.

I pressed my forehead to the cool wood of the door. It smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and something metallic, almost electric. Ozone. The scent of money, of polished excess, of a life I had never touched until today.

His life.

Ours now. Shared.

That word slammed around inside my skull. Shared. This massive bathroom, cold and opulent, with its gleaming marble and gold fixtures that probably cost more than the house I grew up in, belonged to him. And for the first time, it also belonged to me. Not by choice. Never by choice. But shared all the same. The realization scraped over my nerves like gritty sand.

I jerked away from the door, heart stuttering. My fingers shot to the small metal switch fixed into the frame. I pushed it again. Another click. I pulled the handle. Still locked. I did it again. And again. My breath hitched with each repetition. It was useless, obsessive, childish, but I needed the confirmation because nothing else in this place felt within my control.

I imagined him on the other side, maybe shrugging off his tshirt and letting it fall wherever he pleased. Maybe thinking about more ways to destroy me. Or worse, just standing there with that unreadable expression, listening to me scramble for safety that did not exist.

The walls in this mansion were not walls. They were decorative suggestions. They let sound pass through like water through silk. Whoever designed this place cared about beauty, about openness, about showing everything. Privacy was an afterthought, if it was a thought at all. Every whisper echoed. Every breath carried. Every heartbeat felt amplified.

And I was the unwanted guest. The intruder. The girl trying not to be heard by the boy who already heard too much.

I stepped back from the door, slow, careful, trying not to let the soles of my feet betray me with a scuff or a tap. The marble was cool beneath me, almost icy. A shiver crept up my spine.

His cologne lingered everywhere. Clean and woodsy, something forested and sharp beneath the smoothness. It hung in the air as if he had painted the walls with it. I hated how it made my stomach twist. I hated that it made me feel hunted, watched, claimed.

I swallowed hard and shut my eyes.

For one desperate moment, I considered opening the tall cabinet beside me. I pictured myself pulling out one of those heavy towels, impossibly soft, absurdly white, and pressing it over my face. Letting the fabric smother the scent of him, the sound of him, the memory of the way his lips had touched my jawline earlier. Letting it muffle every thought that threatened to unravel me.

But I knew even that wouldn’t help. His presence clung to this place like steam to glass. There was no hiding from it.

A soft thump came from the other side of the door. Not loud. Not threatening. But enough to make my pulse spike.

I held my breath. My nails dug into my palms until they stung.

A tremble ran through me. Not from fear alone. Fear was simple. This was not.

I backed farther into the room, into the gleam and chill of marble and gold, into the space that now belonged to both of us whether I wanted it or not.

Focus. You need to focus.

My pulse thudded in my ears, quick and disjointed. I tried to inhale, but every breath felt thin, like it had to fight its way through the chokehold around my lungs.

Then, beneath all the panic and the pacing, I felt it. A soft vibration against my thigh. Small. Insistent. Barely a sound,barely more than a shiver of movement, but it sliced through the dread like a hidden blade.

I stopped so fast my breath caught.

My phone.

The message from the number I didn’t know.

I reached for it with a hand that barely obeyed me. The smooth glass felt different than it had an hour ago. Colder. Slicker. Like it sensed the desperation in my touch. I slid it free and held it close, though I did not dare lift it enough to see the screen.

My gaze flew instead to the door.

The one that led directly into Riley’s bedroom.

My heartbeat kicked hard against my ribs. Painfully. As if trying to escape.

I could not look at the message yet. Not with even the chance that he might hear the tremor in my breath when I read it. Not with the slim possibility that the lock might have shifted without me noticing.