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Chapter eighty seven:

Author: Betty Johnson
last update Petsa ng paglalathala: 2026-07-11 17:37:40

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Aria

He had champagne.

Not wine. Not the good scotch he kept for significant moments. Actual champagne, already cold, sitting on the kitchen counter when I walked through the door at one fifteen, which meant he’d gone out and bought it between my call and my arrival and had been home the whole morning which meant he’d planned ahead.

Of course he had.

He was Caden.

He came out of the study when he heard the door, still in his work clothes, jacket off, sleeves rolled, and he looked at m
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  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and ten:

    The Day BeforeAriaEleanor and James arrived on the fifteenth.Sophie picked them up from the airport because she had a rental car and hadn’t been at the house when the arrival texts started coming through — she’d been at the site with David, walking through it with the camera, capturing what the building looked like the day before everything.Eleanor came through the door with two bags, which was significant restraint by Eleanor standards, and looked at the house with the immediate assessor’s eye she brought everywhere.“The flowers need replacing,” she said.“Hello Eleanor,” I said.“Hello darling, you look wonderful, the flowers need replacing.” She set her bag down. “Where’s William.”“Study,” I said. “With Caden.”“Of course he is,” she said. “James, put the bags somewhere.”“Where,” James said.“Somewhere,” she said. “Use your judgment.”James looked at me.“Guest rooms,” I said. “Second floor. Your usual rooms.”He took both bags up without being asked to take both bags, whic

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and nine:

    Spring ArrivesAriaSpring arrived in Minneapolis the way spring always arrived — not all at once, not dramatically, but in accumulated increments that you only noticed when you compared today to a week ago and found the air had shifted.The trees were doing something.Not full yet. Not committed. Just that specific early stage where you could see what was coming in the shape of things before the shape fully arrived.I noticed it on a Monday morning walking to Rachel’s office.Stopped on the pavement.Looked at the trees.Texted Caden.The trees are starting.His response — I know. I noticed Saturday.You noticed and didn’t tell me, I sent.I was waiting for you to notice yourself, he sent. You notice things better when you find them.I stared at that message on the pavement.Then I kept walking.Because what else do you do when the man you married says exactly the right thing at eight forty in the morning on a Monday.Rachel’s session that week was different from the ones before the

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and eight:

    March MovesCadenMarch moved the way March moved in Minnesota.Uncertain. Not committed to anything yet. A month that couldn’t decide whether it was still winter or beginning to be something else, which produced the specific quality of days that started cold and occasionally surprised you by afternoon.I’d lived in Minnesota my whole life and had stopped noticing March specifically.This March I noticed.Partly because the centre was getting closer. Partly because legislative adoption was moving through its process with the momentum of something that had been given a genuine recommendation. Partly because William called every Tuesday and occasionally mentioned the Edinburgh light in a way that made me think about August with the specific anticipation of someone who had been promised something good.Mostly because this was the first March of everything that came after.The first March married.The first March where the year had this shape instead of the previous one.Tuesday the fift

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and seven:

    After ThursdayAriaWe went to David’s place after.Not planned — just where we ended up, the way things ended up at David’s, because his apartment was the place where significant things got processed properly over good coffee and the specific calm of his tidy, considered space.He’d watched the testimony on the livestream the committee provided.He’d been sitting at his kitchen table when we arrived, coffee already made, the specific David posture of someone who had been very still for a long time and was still inside whatever the last ninety minutes had produced.He stood when I came in.Looked at me.“The full legislative adoption,” he said.“The full legislative adoption,” I confirmed.He nodded.Then he hugged me.The solid, quiet David hug that had been getting less awkward and more natural every time since the first one at his apartment door months ago.I hugged him back.When we stepped apart his expression had done the thing it did when he was feeling something he wasn’t goin

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and six:

    ThursdayCadenAria woke at seven without the alarm.I was already awake — I’d been awake since six, the specific alertness of someone who had somewhere to be that mattered, except it wasn’t my somewhere, it was hers, which turned out to produce a different quality of alert than the kind I was used to.I’d spent forty-two years being alert for my own significant moments.Being alert for someone else’s was different.More acute somehow.She lay there for a moment after waking, doing the thing she did — taking stock, arriving at the day, the specific internal orientation before she moved.Then she looked at the ceiling.“Thursday,” she said.“Thursday,” I confirmed.She turned to look at me.“You’ve been awake,” she said.“For a while,” I said.“Since when,” she said.“Six,” I said.She looked at me.“You’ve been lying here since six being alert for me,” she said.“I’ve been lying here since six,” I said. “However you want to characterize it.”“Caden,” she said.“Aria,” I said.She pres

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one hundred and five:

    Wednesday NightAriaThe testimony was Thursday.Which meant Wednesday night was the night I couldn’t sleep.Not from fear — I’d established that. Not from doubt about the framework or the enforcement section or the true version versus the professional version. Just from the specific alertness of someone whose body had decided tomorrow was significant and was going to make sure I knew it regardless of whether I needed the reminder.I lay in the dark at midnight and stared at the ceiling.Caden was asleep.Actually, genuinely, completely asleep beside me, which was either proof that he trusted me completely or evidence that a man who had been managing crises for forty-two years had simply developed the ability to sleep before other people’s significant days.Probably both.I turned over.Looked at him.Hair slightly mussed. Jaw relaxed. The full off-duty version that I still found more devastating than the boardroom version because it was real in a way the boardroom version wasn’t tryi

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter two

    AriaI stared at that message for a solid four minutes.Then I typed back: Who is this?Three dots appeared immediately. Like he’d been waiting.You know who this is.I put the phone face down on the nightstand and pressed both hands over my face and just laid there in the dark doing absolutely no

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter one:

    ARIAMoving back in with my mother was already humiliating enoughAdd her rich, terrifyingly attractive husband into the equation and what you get is me, standing outside a mansion in Minnesota at four in the afternoon, suitcase in hand, seriously reconsidering every life choice that led to this mo

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter five

    CadenI’ve destroyed men for less.Built empires from nothing, buried competitors without blinking, sat across boardroom tables from men twice my age and made them sweat through their suits just by staying quiet. I have never in forty-two years of living lost control of myself. Not once. Not over a

  • RUINED BY DADDY: defiled by my stepdad.   Chapter four

    AriaThe lock clicked.Loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life.I stepped back from the door, heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat, and waited. One second. Two. The towel was wrapped tight around my chest and my hair was dripping onto my shoulders and every single nerve ending I had

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