Not That Girl

I woke up already listening for footsteps.

The bed was too soft. The sheets were too clean. The silence was the kind that existed in houses where no one worried about being heard. For a few seconds I laid still, waiting to see if it would feel like safety.

It didn’t. It felt like a countdown.

I sat up. The short black slip I’d slept in had ridden high on my thighs. I didn’t pull it down. In the mirror across the room I looked exactly like what I needed them to see for a little while longer—soft, slightly lost—except my eyes were already clear.

Calculation had settled in before the sleep even left my body. I was inside the house. That was the only fact that mattered.

I showered in the marble-tiled bathroom, used products that looked like they cost more than my weekly grocery budget, and chose my clothes with deliberate care. Another short dress—burgundy. Thin straps. No bra. A hem high enough to make a point without trying too hard.

I left my hair down and kept my expression soft. Nothing too deliberate. Nothing that would make them wonder whether the girl standing in front of them had any idea what she was doing.

I needed them to see someone they could protect. Someone they would never think to fear.

Downstairs, the kitchen already held two of them. Jakob stood at the window with a black coffee cup, sleeves rolled to the elbows. The right-sleeve tattoo was more visible in the morning light, dark ink wrapping around muscle and the pale ridges of old scars.

His green eyes lifted when I entered. They dropped once—quick, instinctive—to the hem of my dress, lingered on the bare skin of my thighs, then returned to my face as if the glance had never happened. The control in that tiny movement made something low in my stomach pull tight.

Owen sat at the long table. He went completely still when he saw me. His coffee was untouched. His mouth parted slightly. He looked at me like he’d forgotten what he was doing. His hands went over his face and through his dark hair, like he was trying to wipe something away.

“Morning,” I said, keeping my voice soft.

Jakob’s reply was flat. “Sit. Eat.”

I sat.

The air felt thick. Owen kept glancing at me like he couldn’t help it and hated himself for it. Jakob watched both of us without comment, the way a man watches something he hasn’t decided how to handle yet.

Then Damon walked in. He stopped in the doorway the second he saw me. Owen’s twin, he had the same face but colder eyes—the same ugly smile I still carried under my ribs.

“Well, shit,” he said. “Look who actually crawled back.”

I didn’t answer. I continued to make my coffee and took a sip as if he wasn’t there. He came closer anyway, leaning a hip against the counter near my stool. His voice dropped into something intimate and rotten.

“Didn’t think you’d have the nerve to show your face here again. Not after what you did to me.”

My mind fogged. “What I did to you?”

“Oh c’mon Rhea. Quit acting like you don’t remember how you seduced me out by the pool house. Everybody knows you came onto me first.”

“Are you stupid?” The word came out low and sharp.

He blinked, then laughed under his breath like I was still the same girl he could shove against a wall and walk away from. He reached out to touch my hair.

I raised my hand before I could even think and I slapped him hard enough that the sound cracked through the kitchen.

Damon’s head snapped to the side. For one pure second, shock wiped the smirk clean off his face. Then anger flooded in, dark and immediate. He turned back toward me with his hand half-raised.

Jakob’s voice cut across the room, quiet and controlled. “Enough.”

Damon froze. Jakob set his coffee cup down slowly and turned fully toward his son.

“You don’t touch her. You don’t speak to her like that. Not in this house. Not anywhere near her. Do you understand me?”

Silence stretched. Damon stared at his father, jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. Then he looked back at me, like he couldn’t believe that the girl he remembered as easy prey had slapped him in front of everyone.

I held his gaze and didn’t blink.

Jakob’s voice dropped even lower. “Get out.”

Damon left. The door swung shut harder than necessary. The sound echoed. Then Jakob turned to me.

His eyes moved over my face, searching for God knew what. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m okay.”

He studied me for a long moment, then gave a short nod like a decision had been locked into place.

“He won’t try that again.”

It wasn’t comfort. It was an assurance. A statement of fact from a man who expected the world to rearrange itself around his word.

Something in my chest shifted. I had planned for protection as a useful tool. It was working. A tiny smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth before I could stop it. I wiped it away instantly, before anyone could catch it.

Owen was still staring at me from across the table. When I finally looked at him, the guilt and the want were both right there on the surface, raw and unguarded. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then closed it again without making a sound.

“Coward.” I said quietly under my breath, just loud enough for Owen to hear.

For one second, I forgot the role I was supposed to be playing. The slap had been too instinctive, too sharp. I softened my expression and lowered my eyes, forcing myself back into the girl they expected to see.

I felt the balance in the room change. I finished my coffee and was headed back to my room when Owen found me in the hallway near the stairs. He stopped a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders tight.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He took a step closer.

The air between us pulled taut—the same unfinished want that had lived under my skin for years, complicated now by the knowledge that he had once chosen his father’s approval over me.

I could smell his cologne. I could see the exact place on his throat where his pulse was jumping.

“Rhea—”

Footsteps sounded at the far end of the hall. We both stepped back at the same time, the space between us suddenly too small and too obvious.

Jakob appeared around the corner. He looked from Owen to me, then settled fully on my face. The weight of his attention felt like a hand on the back of my neck.

Then he spoke, his voice low. “You’re not as fragile as you’re pretending.”

The words sent a strange tension through me, and I wondered how much of me Jakob Prescott could actually see.

He didn’t wait for a reply. He simply held my gaze one second longer, then turned and walked toward his study.

I stood there with Owen’s eyes on the side of my face and Jakob’s voice still echoing in my head.