SEVEN NIGHTS WITH MY STEPFATHER novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

We stayed tangled on the wide sectional, limbs heavy, hearts still racing. The fire had burned low, casting long golden flickers over Cassian’s back, the sweat cooling on my stomach, the faint stickiness where he had marked me. Neither of us had moved to clean up or cover ourselves. It felt too soon, too raw, like putting clothes on would break whatever fragile thing had just been born between us.

I stared at the ceiling beams and felt the words rise like bile.

“If Mom were still alive,” I whispered, voice hoarse, “she would hate me for this.”

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Cassian’s head rested on my breast, his breath warm against my skin. He didn’t answer right away, just traced idle circles around my navel with one fingertip.

“She would hate both of us,” I went on, tears suddenly burning behind my eyes. “She loved you so much. And I just let you… I let you inside me. I wanted it. God, this is all my fault.”

He lifted his head then, eyes soft in the firelight, and the laugh that came out of him was low,

almost sad.

“Your mother never hated anyone for long, Ivy. Except maybe herself.”

I frowned, confused. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He pushed up on one elbow, the muscles in his arm flexing as he looked down at me. For the first time since I had arrived, the mask slipped completely. No photographer, no predator, no billionaire-just a man carrying scars I had never been allowed to see.

“You want the truth?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, afraid to speak.

He exhaled, long and slow.

“Your mother wasn’t just my wife. She was my first muse. My best one. Those early black-and -whites everyone still talks about? That was her. Bound, blindfolded, suspended, dripping wax, begging-every frame that made my name. We met in a studio exactly like the one downstairs. She walked in for an open call, took one look at me, dropped her coat, and said, Do your worst.’ I did. And I fell so hard I couldn’t see straight.”

I swallowed, picturing a younger version of my mother-bold, fearless, alive in a way the cancer had stolen long before it killed her.

“We got married fast,” he continued. “I thought if I put a ring on her finger she’d only want my lens, my ropes, my bed. But she couldn’t stop. The high of being wanted, of being seen that way–it was a drug. Behind my back she kept shooting with other photographers. Men, women, sometimes both at once. Private sessions. Paid sessions. She hid the money in gambling accounts, which turned into the debt you’re paying now.”

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Chapter 15

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My breath caught.

“I found out the night I came home early and saw the proofs on her laptop,” he said, voice rough. “I lost my mind. Said things I can’t take back. She threw the divorce papers at me the next morning. I signed them without a fight because I was too proud to beg, and too angry to forgive. When it was final, I disappeared because staying would have killed us both. I was a bastard, Ivy. I cheated too, after her, trying to prove it didn’t hurt. But I never touched anyone else while we were married. That part she got wrong.

The room felt suddenly too small.

All those years Mom had cried and called him a monster, she had never told me her own role in the wreckage.

“I’m sorry I vanished on you,” he said, cupping my cheek, thumb wiping away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. “You were eighteen. I thought distance would protect you from the mess we made. I was wrong about that too.”

I stared at him, chest aching with too many things at once-grief, anger, relief, something dangerously close to understanding.

His eyes searched mine, ancient and tender.

“I’m not asking you to forgive either of us,” he whispered. “I’m just asking you to see me. The real me. Not the villain your mother needed me to be.”

The air between us shifted, heavy and electric again. I reached up, fingers trembling, and traced the line of his jaw.

He turned his face into my palm and kissed it, the same way he had hours ago, only this time there was no audience, no pretense.

I pulled him down and kissed him myself.

Deeper this time, slower, like we were learning a new language made of breath and forgiveness and want. His tongue slid against mine, gentle then hungry, hands cradling my face like I was something precious. I melted into it, legs parting so he could settle between them again, skin on skin, hearts hammering in the same broken rhythm.

We were lost in it, building toward something softer and more terrifying than lust, when his phone buzzed sharply on the coffee table.

He ignored it at first, mouth moving to my throat, but it buzzed again, insistent.

He cursed under his breath and reached for it.

The screen lit his face in cold blue.

“It’s tomorrow’s client,” he said, voice rough with reluctance. “They’re confirming arrival time.”

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Chapter 15

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Reality crashed back in.

Another shoot. Another stranger. Another day of pretending I was only the assistant.

He silenced the phone, tossed it aside, and looked at me, eyes dark with everything we had just confessed.

“I’ll take it outside,” he said, brushing one last kiss across my swollen lips. “Stay here. Stay

warm.”

He stood, gloriously naked, and walked out onto the darkened porch, closing the glass door behind him. His silhouette moved against the snow-lit night, phone to his ear, voice muffled but calm, professional.

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