Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 982

Chapter 982: In a Stranger’s Ears

Genevieve’s eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t speak. Just waited.

"I know how that sounds," Maya rushed on.

"You have no idea what I’m thinking right now," Genevieve said gently. "And none of it is judgment."

She pulled her legs up onto the couch, turned to face Maya completely. Not as a polite guest anymore.

But a woman who recognized the exact shape of a confession right before it hits the floor.

"Go on."

Maya took a breath. The moan that rolled through the wall this time was long, broken, Isabella’s voice splintering on Peter’s name like she was praying and cursing at the same time. Maya closed her eyes for half a second. When they opened again, the green in them had gone darker. Deeper.

"He’s my stepdad," she said, so quiet it almost disappeared. "Technically. That’s what he is. And I’ve been living in this... orbit of him for months. Hearing it. Watching my mom change—physically, emotionally, everything. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. More alive. More... herself. And I watch that happen every single day, and I—"

She stopped. Bit her lip so hard it went white. Her hands were locked together in her lap, knuckles bloodless.

"You have fantasies," Genevieve said. Not accusing. Not even surprised. Just naming the thing that was already sitting naked between them.

Maya’s head snapped up.

"It’s written all over your face, honey," Genevieve said, soft, not unkind. The way you talk to someone who’s finally stopped pretending the house isn’t on fire. "It was written all over your face in the hallway when you grabbed his shirt like it owed you money."

Maya went nuclear. Scarlet from collarbones to hairline. Her chest rose and fell faster, like her lungs had just remembered they were allowed to want air.

"I—"

"You don’t have to explain it to me," Genevieve cut in. "I spent years married to a man who made me feel like breathing too loud was an inconvenience. Then I met Eros for—what, two hours?—and one brush of his fingers while I handed him a glass of wine made me feel like the center of the goddamn universe. If I’d been living in the same house as that? Hearing it every night and morning? Watching my mother finally look like a woman instead of a ghost? Honey, I’d have a whole library of fantasies. I’d need a card catalog."

"Cum—inside me—fill this mother pussy—now—"

Isabella’s voice ripped through the wall like she was personally daring the neighbors to call the police.

Maya buried her face in her hands.

Genevieve reached over, gentle, and tugged one of Maya’s wrists down until their eyes met again.

"Hey," she said. "No one can blame you."

Maya looked at her—eyes glassy, walls trembling. The same walls she’d built at twelve, the ones that had kept everyone out until Cazzie showed up with blue hair and zero impulse control and a lollipop permanently glued to her tongue.

Those walls were cracking now, loud enough to hear.

"No one can blame you," Genevieve repeated. "Not for the fantasies. Not for the wanting. Not for any of it. You’re not broken. You’re not wrong. You’re just a girl stuck in an impossible situation with an impossible man, and your body figured out the truth before your brain got the memo."

Maya let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped since the divorce papers were signed. Shaky. Wet. She pulled her glasses off, pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until stars burst behind her lids, then slid the frames back on.

The lenses stayed fogged.

She didn’t bother wiping them.

"He kissed me once," she whispered. "My first kiss. Before all of this. Before Mom. Before... everything. And I’ve never—nothing has ever—"

"Come close?"

"Nothing has even been in the same zip code."

Genevieve nodded once. Slow. She understood. She’d known Peter for less than twenty-four hours and already every kiss that came before him felt like practice. Like someone trying to draw fire with a crayon.

Like the universe had been rehearsing for him and nobody told her until last night.

Maya had pieced the rest together in the quiet hours when the apartment finally slept. She’d seen Emma, Sarah, Madison, and Ashley out with Peter—had watched the way they orbited him like moons around a planet that didn’t obey normal gravity.

She knew the Peter from those nights was Madison’s fiancé.

Then she’d seen Madison kiss Eros.

Same jawline. Same dangerous ease.

Same eyes that seemed to see straight through skin to whatever stupid, secret thing you were trying to hide.

And her mother—right there in the next room, voice breaking on his name through these stupidly thin walls that shouldn’t be—always called him Peter.

Her first love. Her first kiss. The boy she’d never quite scraped off the bottom of her heart. Was the same man currently making her mother sob his name into a pillow like it was the only word she remembered.

Her stepdaddy.

"Everything." Genevieve didn’t flinch. "How you feel. What you want. He’s not the kind of man who misses a thing like that. Not even when he’s pretending not to notice."

"He knows," she said. Not asking anymore. Just naming it. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

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