CHAPTER ONE

My phone buzzed against the nightstand for the third time in as many minutes, and I stared at the ceiling like it had personally offended me."That is the same number," Priya said from the other side of the room without looking up from her laptop. She had the particular gift of noticing everything while appearing to notice nothing. "You have been ignoring it for two days straight. Who is it?""My mother."The typing stopped.Priya swiveled her chair around and looked at me the way she always did when she was deciding whether to say the gentle thing or the honest thing. After three years of friendship, I knew she almost always chose honest. It was one of the reasons I loved her and one of the reasons she occasionally drove me up a wall."Nora—""She has been calling for three days," I said, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. "Three days, Priya. Always the same message. She is changed, she is different, she wants us to reconnect, she misses me, she is sorry." I pi

Last Updated : 2026-03-10

CHAPTER TWO

The first thing I was aware of was pain.Not the gentle, manageable kind that faded with a glass of water and a few extra minutes of sleep — this was a full, relentless pounding behind my eyes that made the simple act of existing feel like a punishment. I lay completely still with my eyes shut, trying to piece together the previous night from the scattered fragments my brain was offering me, none of which were connecting in any way that made sense.The gala. The drink. The room tilting sideways beneath my feet.My eyes flew open.Someone had drugged me. That was the only explanation that fit — the sudden onset, the way the world had dissolved too quickly and too completely for anything else. My heart slammed against my ribs as I sat up and looked around the room, taking in the high ceilings, the floor-to-ceiling windows flooding the space with pale morning light, the unmistakable, infuriating luxury of a penthouse suite.I did not recognize it. I had absolutely no memory of arriving h

Last Updated : 2026-03-10

CHAPTER THREE

I could not move.I stood in the middle of my mother's living room with my feet rooted to the floor and my mind completely blank, staring at Damien Hale standing at the bottom of the staircase as though the universe had not already exhausted its entire quota of cruelty on me before noon.He looked just as frozen as I felt. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to know that he had not known either — that whatever this was, it had blindsided us both in equal measure.My mother stepped forward with a warm, oblivious smile, gesturing between us with the easy confidence of a woman who believed she was about to do something lovely."Nora, this is Damien — my stepson." She rested her hand briefly on my arm. "And Damien, this is my daughter. I have told you so much about her."The silence that followed that introduction was the loudest I had ever stood inside.Damien said nothing. I said nothing. My mother looked between us with the beginning of a small, uncertain frown forming at the ed

Last Updated : 2026-03-10

CHAPTER FOUR

He did not move from the spot where I had left him.I had taken maybe ten steps toward the gate when his voice reached me again, and something in the steadiness of it made my feet slow before my brain had given them permission to."I have no interest in hurting you again, Nora." He was not calling after me — his voice was measured and quiet, as though he was simply finishing a thought. "I want you to know that. Whatever you believe about me, that part is true."I stopped but I did not turn around."Today is not about me," he continued. "And it is not about the bond, or the academy, or any of the history sitting between us. Today is about your mother." A pause. "She has been preparing for your visit since yesterday morning. I watched her. She rearranged the flowers on the dining table three times because she could not decide which arrangement looked more welcoming. She changed the menu twice because she wanted to make sure she cooked something you liked." Another pause, quieter this ti

Last Updated : 2026-03-10

CHAPTER FIVE

I could not stop crying.That was the part that humiliated me most — not the firing, not the twenty-four hour deadline, not the image of Gerald Watts' cold, satisfied expression as I walked out of his office. It was the crying. I had spent years training myself out of it, years teaching myself that tears were something you saved for the truly private moments, and here I was, sitting on Priya's bed with my knees pulled to my chest and my face completely falling apart while she rubbed circles on my back and said nothing because there was nothing to say.Eventually she handed me a tissue and I pressed it against my eyes and breathed."We will figure this out," she said quietly. "I promise you, Nora — we will figure it out.""How?" I pulled the tissue away and looked at her, and I knew my face was a mess and I could not bring myself to care. "I have no savings, Priya. Every spare cent I have made for the past three years has gone toward paying off the debt I accumulated getting through sc

Last Updated : 2026-03-10

All Chapters of HIS TO CLAIM: Mated To My Cruel Stepbrother: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE