Semua Bab SEVEN NIGHTS WITH MY STEPFATHER: Bab 61 - Bab 70

IVY I was sitting on the terrace with my knees pulled to my chest, staring at the ocean without really seeing it, when my phone buzzed against the glass tabletop. The screen lit up with Sarah’s name. I almost let it go to voicemail—my head was too full of noise—but something in the way the phone vibrated felt urgent, like it knew I needed the distraction.I answered.“Hey,” I said, trying to sound lighter than I felt.There was a pause on the other end, just long enough for me to hear her breathing unevenly. Then her voice came through, small and cracked.“Ivy… when are you coming home?”My stomach dropped. Sarah never sounded like that. Not even when her mom was in the hospital last year.“Soon,” I said quickly. “Tomorrow, probably. What’s wrong?”Another silence. Longer this time. I could picture her sitting on her couch, knees tucked up, chewing her thumbnail the way she did when she was trying not to cry.“I just… I really need you here,” she whispered. “I can’t do this alone.”“

I finally made it back to my apartment just after nine that night. The hallway light flickered like it always did, the key stuck a little in the lock like it always did, and when the door swung open the familiar smell of coffee grounds and laundry detergent hit me like a hug I didn’t know I needed. I dropped my suitcase inside the door, kicked it shut with my heel, and leaned against the wall for a second just to breathe.Sarah had cried herself out around six. We’d sat on her couch with mugs of chamomile tea going cold, tissues piling up on the coffee table, and she’d told me everything—every lie, every excuse, every time she’d convinced herself the late nights and “business trips” were innocent. When she finally ran out of words, she’d looked at me with those swollen, exhausted eyes and whispered, “I’m scared I’ll never feel safe again.”I’d held her until she fell asleep on the couch, then covered her with the throw blanket she loved, kissed her forehead, and left a note on the tab

The apartment kitchen smelled like garlic and fresh herbs, the sizzle of shrimp in the pan mixing with the low hum of the city outside the open window. Cassian moved around the stove with that easy confidence he always had when he cooked—shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark hair still damp from his own shower, a glass of white wine in one hand while he stirred with the other. He’d insisted on making dinner tonight, said he wanted to spoil me after everything, and I hadn’t argued. The domesticity of it felt almost surreal after Hawaii, after Noah, after the storm of emotions that had nearly torn me apart.I’d just stepped out of the shower, skin warm and pink, hair dripping down my back, wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel knotted loosely above my breasts. The bathroom door was still open, steam curling into the bedroom, when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.I glanced at it.Noah.A photo.Him on the beach at sunset, shirtless, board shorts slung low on his hips, water dr

I didn’t even know why the words “I love you” had slipped out so easily that night.They’d felt true in the moment—raw, desperate, spilling from some hidden place inside me while Cassian was buried deep, his eyes locked on mine, his voice rough with need. But the second the pleasure faded and the room grew quiet, doubt crept in like cold air through a cracked window. I lay there beside him, listening to his steady breathing, and wondered if what I felt was love at all, or just the afterglow of being wanted so completely by someone who’d spent years pretending he didn’t.A few days passed in a strange, suspended haze.I went back to the library.The familiar smell of old paper and polished wood should have grounded me, but instead it made everything feel surreal. I moved through my shifts on autopilot—reshelving returns, helping students find obscure articles, smiling at patrons like nothing had changed. But everything had.I was different.I could feel it in the way my body still ca

I couldn’t sleep that night, no matter how hard I tried. The apartment was quiet, the kind of quiet that presses in on you when your thoughts won’t shut up. I tossed and turned, the sheets tangling around my legs, my mind replaying everything on an endless loop. Noah’s easy smile on the beach, the way his hands had felt gentle but sure. Cassian’s intense gaze through the camera lens, the way he’d made me feel like I was the only woman in the world when he was inside me. And then the guilt—thick, heavy, suffocating. How could I want both of them? How could I feel so pulled in two completely different directions?Noah felt real. Simple. Like a breath of fresh air after being underwater too long. With him, everything flowed—no games, no secrets, just laughter and touch and the kind of connection that made me forget all the complications. He made me feel light, like I could just be me without all the baggage.Cassian was the opposite. He was fire and storm and everything intense. Hot, wil