My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 324

Chapter 324

“You hurt me,” he said bluntly.

The honesty of it made me flinch harder than shouting would have.

His eyes darkened at the reaction, “But not because of the slap.”

A shaky breath escaped me, his face moved closer, not enough to kiss me, just enough that I could feel the warmth/ of his breath against my cold skin.

“It was hearing you think so little of me,” he said quietly, “Like I would ever use you when you were falling apart in front of me.”

My throat tightened so painfully I could barely breathe. Shame crawled through every inch of my body.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, my voice breaking completely this time.

Raphael stared at me silently. Then finally, very slowly, he let go of my face but the heat of his hand stayed burned against my skin. He took half a step back, enough to give me room to breathe again, but not enough to feel far

away.

The weak dawn light catching the silver watch around his wrist as he flexed his hand once at his side.

I wiped at my face quickly with my sleeve, embarrassed by how badly I was falling apart in front of him but another tear slipped down anyway, then another.

God.

I looked away instantly, “I didn’t mean any of it,” I whispered hoarsely, “I just… everything got too loud.”

A tiny flicker crossed Raphael’s face. Understanding settled over his expression slowly, “You were overwhelmed,” he said softly.

Heat flooded my face immediately. I hated that he had seen that. Hated that he had witnessed the ugliest parts of me laid open on the closet floor like some pathetic confession.

“And then I touched you. I shouldn’t have reached for you that fast,” he admitted quietly.

My head snapped up instantly, “No-”

His eyes stopped me, “I know what panic looks like.”

A strange silence settled between us. Raphael looked away briefly, dragging a hand over the back of his neck like the next words physically irritated him then his gaze returned to mine..

“I think…” he paused once. “I think you needed somewhere for all that pain to go. Whatever that pain… is.”

My lips parted shakily.

“And this morning,” he said quietly, “it landed on me.”

Emotion climbed painfully into my throat.

Raphael’s jaw flexed once before he continued, “I can handle that.”

My chin trembled harder, “I still shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered.

A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, soft in a way I had never seen from him before. He shook his head

1/2

+15 Batas

once like he had already accepted something I was still fighting against. Then he looked away from me, his gaze drifting toward the massive iron gates standing in the distance beyond the driveway.

The cold morning wind moved lightly through his messy hair. My chest pulled painfully tight. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I didn’t think I had ever truly looked at him before this moment, not really. I had seen the expensive suits. The predator in the night. The sharp tongue. The control.

But this…

This felt different.

There was something unbelievably lonely about him standing there with his hands in his pockets.

My eyes moved over him slowly. The hard line of his jaw. The faint marks I had left on his neck last night.

A horrible ache bloomed in the center of my chest. No one had ever handled me the way Raphael just had, not my mother, not my father, not Leone.

Most people either treated me like I was too much or not enough.

But Raphael had stood there and looked directly at the ugliest parts of me without flinching once. He hadn’t tried to shame me. Hadn’t tried to fix me. Hadn’t looked disgusted.

He had just…

Stayed.

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