Chapter 3: The Brother I Should Have Feared

(Keyla POV)

The phone lit up again at 11:47 p.m.
Adrian. Again. I’d stopped counting after the sixth call but apparently he hadn’t stopped trying. I looked at the notification without picking it up, and then the message came through underneath it.
Come downstairs. Don’t embarrass me.

I read it twice to make sure I wasn’t misreading the tone. I wasn’t.

Didn’t sound sorry. He sounded inconvenienced. Three words, and somehow they told me everything: don’t embarrass me. Like I was a PR problem he needed to manage before the appetizers got cold. Like the embarrassing thing happening tonight was me, standing in his brother’s suite with a torn veil and no ring, instead of him, half-dressed with another woman an hour before our wedding.

I set the phone face down on the table.

Draxler hadn’t moved from where he was standing near the window. Since I came back out of the bathroom, he’d kept enough distance for me to breathe and enough presence for me to feel him anyway. I was aware of him the way you’re aware of something that doesn’t make noise but still changes the air pressure.

“He wants me to come back down,” I said.
“I know.”
“He said—” I stopped. It felt humiliating to repeat it out loud. “He’s more worried about the guests than anything else.”

Draxler didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look much of anything, which should’ve been irritating but wasn’t. There was something almost steadying about the fact that he wasn’t treating this like a catastrophe that needed managing. He was just — watching. Waiting.

“Adrian always cared more about the picture than what was in it,” he said. Just that. No elaboration.

I looked at him across the room. I’d spent two years half-afraid of Draxler Churchill and not entirely sure why. Draxler didn’t need to raise his voice to make a room feel smaller. His danger was in the way he noticed things people hoped would stay hidden, and being near him made me feel exposed even when nothing was wrong.

It felt worse.

“Did you know?” I asked. “About Vivienne.”

A pause. Short, but real.
“I knew Adrian wasn’t ready to be someone’s husband,” he said. Which wasn’t an answer and also somehow was.

I picked up the phone again, not to call anyone — just to turn it completely off. Adrian’s name disappeared. The wedding planner’s texts disappeared. My mother’s three unanswered messages disappeared. The unknown number with its warning disappeared. The screen went black and the room got quieter.

“I’m not drunk,” I said.

Draxler looked at me.
“I want to say that clearly, before anything.” I put the phone down. “I had half a glass of champagne at six o’clock and nothing since. I’m not confused. I’m not in shock. I know exactly where I am and who you are.”

Something shifted in his expression — not surprise, more like attention sharpening.
“Okay,” he said.

“And I want to ask you something.” I crossed the room, not all the way, just enough that I wasn’t shouting across it. “If I stay tonight — do you want me, or do you want to take something from him?”

The silence that followed was long enough that I almost regretted asking. Then Draxler set down his glass, and when he spoke his voice was quieter than before.
“Those aren’t the same question,” he said.
“Answer both.”

He held my gaze. “I’ve wanted you since the first time Adrian brought you to a family dinner and you told my mother her centerpieces were beautiful and then spent the rest of the night ignoring them.” A pause. “And yes. Taking something from him is part of it. I’m not going to lie to you about that.”

It was the honesty that did it. Not the admission — the honesty. The fact that he didn’t dress it up or hand me a version of the truth that was easier to accept.

“Say my name,” I said.
He frowned, just slightly. “What?”
“Not Adrian’s fiancée. Not the bride. My name.”

He understood. I saw it happen.
“Keyla,” he said, and the way he said it — low, deliberate, like it meant something — was different from every time Adrian had ever said it. Adrian said my name like punctuation. Draxler said it like he’d thought about it.

“One more thing,” I said. “If I say stop, at any point—”
“Then we stop.” No hesitation. “Immediately.”

I reached up and pulled the remaining pins from my veil. It came loose and I set it on the chair behind me, the torn edge dragging across the armrest. The wedding dress zipper was at the back. I couldn’t reach it alone.

I didn’t have to ask. He crossed the room and stopped behind me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, and waited.
“Still your choice,” he said quietly. “Every step.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m making it.”

The zipper whispered down my spine, inch by inch, his knuckles brushing bare skin like he was unwrapping something fragile and forbidden at the same time. Cool air hit my back. Then his breath, warmer, slower, right against the nape of my neck. I shivered hard enough that he noticed.

“Keyla.” Again, that voice—rougher now, like my name cost him something. His palm settled flat on my lower back, not pushing, just resting there. Claiming the heat of my skin. The weight of it made my thighs press together.

I let the dress fall. Heavy silk pooled at my feet like surrendered armor. Stepping out of it felt like stepping out of the last version of myself that still belonged to Adrian. Naked except for the lace panties I’d chosen this morning thinking I’d wear them for my husband tonight. The irony burned low in my stomach.

Draxler’s hands found my waist, turning me slowly to face him. His eyes dragged over me—hungry, but not rushed. Like he was memorizing every tremble, every place my skin flushed under his stare. One thumb traced the underside of my breast, slow, deliberate, and I sucked in a sharp breath when his mouth followed, hot and open, tongue circling my nipple until my knees almost gave out.

I grabbed his shoulders, nails digging in. “Don’t be gentle,” I whispered, voice cracking. “Not tonight.”

Something dark flickered in his eyes. He lifted me like I weighed nothing, carrying me to the bed and laying me down. His shirt came off in one rough motion. The rest of his clothes followed, revealing the kind of body that spoke of control and restrained violence—broad chest, tight stomach, cock heavy and already leaking at the tip. The sight of it made my mouth go dry with a mix of want and guilt so sharp it hurt.

He crawled over me, caging me with his arms. When he kissed me this time it was deeper, slower, like he was trying to drink every sound I made. His hand slid between my legs, finding me soaked, and he groaned against my mouth—low, broken. Two fingers pushed inside me without warning, curling just right, and I arched hard, moaning into him.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he breathed against my throat. “So fucking wet for me already.”

I rocked against his hand, chasing the pressure, shame and pleasure twisting together until I couldn’t tell which was which. Every thrust of his fingers reminded me whose brother he was. Every gasp reminded me I was choosing this.

He pulled his fingers out, replaced them with the blunt head of his cock, rubbing it against my clit until I was shaking. “Look at me.”

I did. Eyes locked, he pushed in—slow, thick, stretching me open in one long stroke that stole my breath. The fullness was overwhelming. Perfect. Wrong in the best way. He stayed buried deep, forehead pressed to mine, breathing ragged.

“Say it again,” he demanded quietly, hips barely moving, torturing us both.

“Keyla,” I gasped. “I’m Keyla.”

He rewarded me with a deep thrust that made stars burst behind my eyes. Then another, and another—harder, faster, the slap of skin and broken moans filling the suite. One hand pinned my wrist above my head, the other gripped my thigh, spreading me wider so he could fuck me deeper. Possessive. Desperate. Like he’d been starving for this longer than he’d ever admit.

I came first, clenching around him so hard my vision blurred, his name ripping from my throat like a confession. He followed right after, burying himself to the hilt and spilling inside me with a guttural sound that sounded almost painful.

We stayed like that for a long time—sweaty, trembling, his weight pressing me into the mattress. He didn’t pull out immediately. Just kissed my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth, like he was afraid the moment would shatter if he moved too fast.

Keyla woke at 4:17 a.m.
She knew because the hotel clock on the nightstand said so, its numbers pale green in the dark. The curtains weren’t fully closed — a strip of city light cut across the floor near the foot of the bed.

Draxler was asleep beside her. On his back, one arm loose at his side, breathing slow and even. His face looked different without the controlled stillness he wore when he was awake. Younger, maybe. Or just — human. She looked at him for a moment longer than she should have, then looked away.

The wedding dress was on the chair. The torn veil had slipped to the floor.

And there, on the carpet near the nightstand, was his cufflink. Black, small, the letter D engraved into the face of it. It must have come off during the night. She picked it up and it sat heavy in her palm, heavier than something that small should feel.

She looked at Draxler again. Still asleep.

Keyla got up quietly. Found what she needed. Left the ring where she’d put it the night before — she wasn’t taking that. But the cufflink she closed her fingers around and kept.

She didn’t know why. Maybe she would mail it back. Maybe that was only the first lie she needed in order to keep moving — through the elevator, through the grey pre-dawn lobby, and into the first cab she flagged on the street outside.

By the time the city was behind her, she’d stopped explaining it to herself.
She just held onto it.