My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 259

Chapter 259

Gianna

You ever have that one pathetic moment where your brain just glitches?

Where you decide to hit the rewind button on your own life and only play the highlight reel?

You sit there in the dark and trick yourself into believing that when you walked away from your shitty ex, you actually lost something precious. You let the “good memories” flood in, the way he smelled, the way he’d hold your hand in the car and suddenly, you’re convinced you made a huge mistake.

You start thinking you need him back. You start thinking that maybe, just maybe, the toxicity wasn’t that bad compared to the loneliness.

But then the night ends, and the morning light hits you like a slap to the face. The clarity comes in waves, cold and hard. You realize you didn’t actually want him. You just wanted a place to hide.

You were running from what happened with your stepbrother. You were running from that moment on the terrace, the one that had absolutely nothing to do with sex and everything to do with something deeper.

It was that soft, terrifying intimacy.

The way he looked at you like he could see the brain the world rejected you for. And the way he didn’t blink wrong when he saw the mess. It was pure, it was quiet, and it was the most dangerous thing you’ve ever felt. It made you panic. It made you feel small and exposed in a way you weren’t ready for.

And because you didn’t know what to do with that feeling, your brain searched for a file it already knew. It found the “moments” you had with Leone, moments that felt exactly the same on the surface. So, you felt rejected by the way Raphael went stiff, the way he turned into stone after you kissed his cheek, and you did what every scared girl does: you ran toward “safe familiarity.”

You told yourself Leone was the safe option. You told yourself that at least with him, you knew the rules. You knew the mansion, you knew the jewelry, you knew the “just stay quiet and be pretty” routine. It was comfortable.

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