Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
My voice is shaky, but I get the words out. “Do you know? About us, I mean?” I can’t bring myself to look at my dad, so I stare at the desktop, at the neat piles of legal pads and the antique letter opener shaped like a dagger.
Thomas is silent for a long moment. Then he says, “Andie asked me if I’d noticed. Weeks ago.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it, just a wry resignation. “She said the way you two look at each other, it’s like watching a meet-cute in slow motion, but with a lot more steam. She was mostly curious if I minded.”
Hunter crosses his arms, the move defensive, but his face doesn’t twitch. “And do you?” His voice is flat, no bravado.
Thomas takes a sip of his scotch, then sets it down so gently you barely hear the glass touch wood. “Not really. I’ve done worse in my life. So have you.”
Hunter gives a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah. I suppose so.”
My hands are fists at my sides. I take a step forward, voice loud again: “Do you think I’m a slut, then? For sleeping with my two step-uncles—one on each side of the fucking family?”
The sentence shatters the air, a stone through stained glass. Even Lachlan flinches.
My father’s expression doesn’t change, but his fingers turn the scotch glass, slow and deliberate. For a long beat, all you can hear is the tick of the clock, the thump of my heart in my ears, and the soft, shaky inhale as I wait for him to answer.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t look away. “No. I don’t think you’re a slut, Stella. I think you’re a grown woman who’s never been afraid to want what she wants.” He leans forward, the chair creaking. “Even when you were small, you always had a mind of your own.”
He pauses for a moment. “And let’s not pretend I’m the moral center of this family. When I met Andie, she didn’t know my name. We were strangers, and yet she let me ass-fuck her multiple times. Imagine that: allowing an anonymous dude to penetrate your asshole on the university campus. And I took full advantage of the opportunity too, so if anyone’s in a glass house here, it’s me.”
He stands, slow and unhurried, and smooths the front of his shirt. For a moment, he looks older than I’ve ever seen him—tired, maybe, or just ready to be done with it all. “I’m not going to judge you. Or Hunter. Or Lachlan.” He glances at the blond man, a ghost of a smile. “The three of you are adults. The world’s already hard enough without me making it worse.”
He moves toward the door, pausing in the frame. “If there’s one thing I do know,” he says, looking at me, “it’s that you’re not easily broken, Stella. And anyone who thinks you can be, doesn’t know you at all.” He nods once, sharp, then leaves, the door swinging wide behind him.
The air in the study feels different now, thinner and charged, like the aftermath of a storm.
For a long minute, we don’t move. Then Hunter stands, rolls his neck, and stretches, his silhouette huge against the lamp glow.
Lachlan sits forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. I sit, finally, in the third chair, my legs trembling so hard I almost miss the seat.
I stare at the scotch glass, still untouched, the liquid catching the light like gold.
“Well,” I say, my voice hoarse. “That went better than I thought.”
Hunter snorts. “He always was a cold bastard. But I’ll take it.”
Lachlan says nothing, but I see the lines in his forehead ease, just a little.
Outside, the clock keeps ticking. The moon rises in the sky. And somewhere upstairs, Andie throws up quietly into a bathroom sink, probably thinking about the new life forming in her own stomach.
The world spins, same as always.
But in the dark of the study, with the door wide open and the lamp burning, I feel—for the first time in months—like maybe it’s not spinning out of my control after all.
24
MAKING UP
Hunter
The hour after a confrontation is almost worse than the fight. Even if you win, the taste is copper and regrets. And if you lose, you walk away at least knowing what broke. But this—this is something else.
We left Thomas’s mansion with no words, no backward glances. The city felt drained by the time we crossed it, streets more empty than full, the puddles at the curb crusted in thin rime that was less ice and more the memory of a cold. The drive to O’Toole’s apartment was pure silence, three ghosts in the black of my Mercedes, windows up, heater rattling, not even a radio to fake a pulse. Stella in the passenger seat, arms folded so tight her shoulder blades could have cut glass. Lachlan in the back, jaw working, hands gripping his own knees.