Inicio / Romance / CAN I RIDE YOU, SIR? Seducing my ex stepfather / Capítulo 51 - Capítulo 60

Todos los capítulos de CAN I RIDE YOU, SIR? Seducing my ex stepfather : Capítulo 51 - Capítulo 60

97 Capítulos

51

Governor Richard HaleThe hour ended exactly when they said it would.No dramatic countdown. No warning knock. The door simply opened, and the same higher-ranking official walked back in with two silent men behind him. He did not sit this time. He remained standing at the end of the table, hands resting loosely on the top of the chair, looking down at me as if the clock itself had already made the decision.“Well?” he asked.I stared at the metal surface between us. The cuffs had left dull marks around my wrists. My throat was dry. For three days I had denied everything, demanded lawyers, threatened careers, and waited for a rescue that never came. All it had earned me was the slow realization that the old machinery no longer answered to my name.“I did it,” I said.The room did not react with shock. These men had already known. What they wanted was the admission in a form they could use.The official tilted his head slightly.“Be specific.”I let out a short, bitter breath.“The loan

52

Liliana MillerWe landed just as the sky over Monaco began turning a softer shade of gold.The private transfer from the jet was quiet and smooth. By the time we reached the house, the air already felt different from the city we had left behind — lighter, salt-edged, warmer. The villa sat above the coastline like it had been carved into the hillside, all pale stone, wide glass, and open terraces that looked straight out over the water.We freshened up first.I washed the travel off my skin, changed into something lighter, and barely gave Grey time to finish buttoning a clean shirt before curiosity pulled me out of the room. I wanted to see everything.The house was beautiful.Not cold or museum-still the way some expensive places felt. It was open. Soft rugs. Wide hallways. A kitchen that caught the light. A living room that opened completely into a terrace, where the sea stretched out so far it made my chest feel strangely full. I walked through it with my phone in hand, taking pictu

53

Frederico Grey VolkovMorning light moved slowly across the bed.I woke before her, the way I often did, and for a while I did nothing except look at her. Liliana was still asleep on her side, one hand resting near her face, the sheets pushed low around her waist. The diamond on her finger caught a thin line of light every time her hand shifted. My ring. My woman. My child already growing quietly inside her.It still did not feel ordinary.I had lived most of my adult life believing certain things were closed to me. Soft mornings. A body I could reach for without calculation. A future that included someone else’s breathing in the same room. Yet here she was, warm beside me in a rented villa above the sea, carrying a life we had only just begun to name.I reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. She made a small sound but did not wake. My hand lowered to her bare shoulder, then down the line of her arm, then over the curve of her waist. When my palm finally settled on h

54

Governor Richard HaleThe transfer vehicle stopped twice before it reached the final gate. The first stop was administrative. The second was security. By the time the rear doors opened and the officers guided me out, the building in front of us looked nothing like the temporary holding rooms from the first days. This place was quieter, harder, and built for people who were no longer expected to leave quickly.They took me in through a side entrance. No raised voices. No audience. Just scanners, corridors, and the repeated sound of doors locking behind me. Intake was stripped of every courtesy. A nurse checked my blood pressure without interest. A clerk logged what little property still remained under my name. New photographs were taken. Fingerprints were collected again. Someone told me to remove my jacket. Someone else told me where to stand, what to sign, and when to keep silent.No one called me Governor.When processing was finished, they walked me down a narrower hallway and plac

55

Governor Richard HaleBy the third night, my body had started turning against the place.Not in any dramatic way. Just enough to make everything feel off. My ribs still hurt from the beating in the bathing block, and the cut at the corner of my mouth pulled every time I chewed. I ate anyway. Around me, men talked, laughed, and threw remarks in my direction like they were testing whether I still had a temper worth poking.“Governor of nothing.”“Look at him chewing like the rest of us.”I ignored them. There was no point answering men whose only power was noise.A guard stopped at the table as I finished.“Hale. Visitor.”“Who?”“Your wife.”That got through.I followed the escort through two controlled doors and into the visiting room. Glass partition. Scratched surface. Phones on either side. She was already seated when I arrived, hands folded over a thin folder, posture perfect in the way she always managed when she had already decided something important.I sat down and picked up t

56

Liliana MillerI had been thinking of ways to make Grey happy, but every idea felt small in comparison to the way he handled life. He fixed things before I noticed them. He arranged days before I asked. He protected me so thoroughly that even my attempts to give something back felt almost childish. Still, that morning in Monaco, I wanted to do one ordinary thing myself.So I went into the kitchen.The villa was already bright with sea light. Somewhere beyond the open windows, water moved against the rocks in a soft, steady rhythm. The house staff had not fully taken over the morning yet, and for a short while the kitchen felt like it belonged only to me. I filled a pot with water, set it on the stove, and reached for the spaghetti. Nothing impressive. Nothing expensive. Just breakfast made with my own hands.I liked the simplicity of it.I was reaching for the salt when my phone rang on the counter.I wiped my hands on a towel and answered without checking the screen.“Hello?”There w

57

RheaThe house always smelled like damp walls and old grease.Even when nobody was cooking, even when the windows were open, that smell stayed trapped in the paint and the carpet and the cracked kitchen tiles. It was the smell of a place that had given up on becoming better.I had lived inside it long enough to stop noticing it most days, until something small made me aware again — a stack of unpaid envelopes on the counter, a syringe cap under the couch, one of my brothers cursing at the television because the signal kept dying.We were five.Three boys. Two girls.That was the whole of us, and somehow that still felt like too many people for a house that never had enough of anything. Not money. Not quiet. Not clean space. Not parents who stayed sober long enough to act like parents.Ma was either sleeping, high, or talking too loud at someone who wasn’t there. Dad drifted in and out like a man who only remembered he had children when he needed money or a place to crash.The boys lea

58

Chapter 58RheaI did not wait for a perfect moment.In a house like ours, perfect moments never came. If you wanted people in one place, you forced it. You raised your voice. You stood in the middle of the mess until everybody stopped moving long enough to hear you.That evening I called them all into the living room.Ma was on the recliner in a thin housedress, hair flattened on one side from sleep. The boys came in one after the other smelling of smoke and outside air. The youngest still had his phone in his hand. The middle one leaned against the wall like he was only half interested. The oldest dropped onto the arm of the couch and looked at me as if whatever I had to say better be worth interrupting his day.I held up the phone with the photo already open.“Look at this.”The youngest took it first. He frowned, zoomed in, then let out a short laugh.“No way.”“What?” Ma asked, suddenly more awake.“It’s Mara,” I said.The room changed at once.The middle brother grabbed the phon

59

RheaI did not sleep after the fight in the living room.The house eventually went quiet in the false way it always did — not peaceful, just exhausted. Doors closed. Voices dropped. Somebody turned a television on low in another room and left it there. I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hands and Mara’s new face saved in too many photos.Liliana Miller.Even the name sounded scrubbed clean.I waited until after midnight before I called. Not because I was unsure. Because I wanted my voice steady. I wanted her to hear a woman, not a wound.The line rang a few times before she picked up.“Hello?”That soft, careful voice was enough to tighten my grip on the phone.“Hello, Mara.”Silence.It was only a second, maybe less, but I heard the break in it. The tiny pause of somebody’s whole body going still.“You have the wrong number,” she said quickly.I almost laughed.“No, I don’t. I’ve seen the photos. The videos. You look different, but not that different. Money cleaned you u

60

Liliana MillerBy the time we returned to the villa, my smile had started to hurt.I had kept it in place through the drive, through Grey’s hand on my thigh, through the soft way he asked if I wanted the windows down. I nodded. I answered. I even laughed once when he made a dry comment about the burnt breakfast from earlier. From the outside, I must have looked fine.Inside, I was already unraveling.The call had not just frightened me. It had rearranged every soft thing I had started building with him. One voice on the other end of the phone, one forbidden name, and suddenly the engagement ring on my finger felt less like a promise and more like evidence. If they came for me publicly, people would not only drag my image through the dirt.They would drag his.That was what I could not stand.I left Grey speaking with one of his men near the entrance and went into the kitchen alone under the excuse of wanting fruit. I needed my hands busy. I needed something ordinary enough to stop the

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