My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 429

Chapter 429

The pressure built and built until it felt impossible to breathe. I pressed my hand against my mouth, tried to hold it together, tried to keep everything locked inside but I couldn’t.

A broken sound escaped me and then the tears came. I bent forward suddenly and covered my face. My shoulders shook. I hated feeling weak but the hurt had been building for too long.

Weeks.

Months.

Maybe longer.

And now it was spilling out of me whether I wanted it to or not.

“Gianna?”

I immediately pulled her into my arms hard, almost desperately. I wrapped both arms around her little body and buried my face against the top of her head.

She smelled like strawberries.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I whispered, “I really didn’t.”

Jules slowly hugged me back.

“I tried not to. I kept telling myself it wasn’t real.”

Jules just listened.

“I thought I could control it.”

I laughed weakly, a horrible little laugh. The kind that comes right before another wave of tears.

“I thought I was smarter than this.”

Jules’ small hand rubbed my back and the gesture nearly destroyed me. Because somehow my little sister was comforting me, not the other way around.

“I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for it. I tried so hard not to but… I fell in love with him anyway.”

The confession left me shaking.

“I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it happened slowly.”

I remembered his office.

The little fights we had.

When he stole my grilled cheese sandwich.

The motorcycle rides.

The woods.

The way he always looked for me in crowded rooms.

The way he bought Claire’s painting before I even had the chance to tell him how badly I wanted it.

The way he listened when nobody else did.

The way he found out about my dyslexia and didn’t treat me differently afterward. No sympathy. No awkward looks. No disappointment. He just accepted it and carried on like it changed absolutely nothing about me.

The way he took my pain personally, and the way those men at the gas station paid for it.

The way he made me feel safe.

And completely unsafe at the same time.

“Maybe it happened from the very beginning. I don’t know.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify