All Chapters of Step Daddy's Lakeside Sin : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

(Millie POV)The call came while I was alone in the house.Richard had left an hour earlier to meet with someone about the Vermont property paperwork, utilities, the practical things we could no longer postpone. Adrianna was at her lawyer’s office again. The silence they both left behind felt heavier than usual. I was standing in the kitchen drinking lukewarm tea when my phone lit up with a number I didn’t recognize.I almost ignored it. Then something in my gut told me not to. I answered.“Hello, Millie.”The voice was smooth, cultured, and instantly familiar even though I had only heard it a few times before. My fingers tightened around the phone.“Vivienne.”“I was beginning to wonder if you would pick up,” she said. “You strike me as the type who screens unknown numbers. Especially lately.”I walked to the window and looked out at the empty driveway, as if she might be standing there. “How did you get this number?”“You’d be surprised how little effort it takes when a person decide

(Henrietta POV)I should have said something the moment his hand closed around my throat.We were in his apartment again. The same low lighting. The same music he always put on when he wanted the night to go a certain way. I had come over after a long day, still carrying the quiet ache of not knowing where I stood with Millie, and Henry had opened the door looking like the only solid thing left in my life. He kissed me the way he always did at first; deep, controlled, like he already knew how the night would end. I let myself fall into it. I always did. His hands slid under my dress, slow and deliberate, and for a while it felt like the version of him I had fallen for in the valley. Intense, hungry, and completely focused on me.Then the tone shifted.He turned me around and bent me over the arm of the couch without much warning. One hand pressed between my shoulder blades, keeping me there. The other dragged my panties down. I heard the sound of his belt, the low rasp of his zipper.

(Millie POV)The Vermont listing was still open on Richard’s laptop when I came downstairs. He sat at the kitchen island with a half-finished cup of coffee, scrolling through photos of the house he had bought years ago and never lived in. The place looked quiet in the pictures, white siding, dark shutters, a porch that faced a stretch of trees instead of neighbors. No shared walls. No guest rooms filled with locked doors. No history that belonged to anyone but us. I stopped behind him and rested my hands on his shoulders. He reached up immediately, covering one of my hands with his.“You’re up early,” he said.“Couldn’t sleep.” I nodded at the screen. “You’re looking at it again.”“I’ve been looking at it every morning since Vivienne called you.” His thumb moved slowly across my knuckles. “The more I stare at these pictures, the more I realize we should already be there.”I pulled out the stool beside him and sat. My body still felt heavy with the leftover fear from the last few days.

(Millie POV)The suitcase stayed half-open at the bottom of my closet for two days. I only added things when the house was quiet. A few shirts, the vitamins, the soft sweater Richard had bought me the week after we found out about the baby. Nothing that would make a sound if someone opened the door. Nothing that looked like leaving. Every time I slid the closet shut again, I stood there for a moment with my hand on the wood, listening for footsteps that never came.Richard moved with the same careful quiet. He had started transferring money into a separate account. He had called the caretaker of the Vermont house twice. He checked the weather up there every morning like the temperature might decide something for us. We barely spoke about it out loud during the day. The plan lived in the spaces between ordinary sentences.“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said one afternoon, keys already in his hand.I knew he was going to pick up the last of the documents for the property. I only nodded.

(Henrietta POV)I didn’t go to him that night. It felt maybe more like I didn't want too.The decision wasn’t dramatic. I simply didn’t answer the second message he sent, and then the third. I left my phone on the kitchen counter and took a long shower instead, standing under the water until my skin turned pink and the glass fogged over completely. When I finally stepped out, the apartment felt too still. I wrapped myself in a towel and stood in front of the mirror, looking at the faint shadows that still lingered on my hips from the last time we were together. They were almost gone, and that should have made me feel better, but It didn’t. I dressed in the softest clothes I owned and sat on the couch with my legs pulled up to my chest. The television stayed off. The only light came from the lamp in the corner. My phone screen lit up once more in the kitchen, then went dark again. Yet, I didn’t move to check it. It was strange how quickly the quiet started to feel like relief. For weeks