All Chapters of Home Alone With My Stepbrother: Chapter 41 - Chapter 45

Chapter 41Lila barely slept.Every time she closed her eyes she saw the red marks on Sophia’s hips, the bruise under Tyler’s jaw, the way his voice had cracked when he admitted what he’d done. He had fallen asleep eventually with his back to her, the space between them on the mattress feeling wider than the entire house. Lila stared at the ceiling until the first gray light of morning leaked through the curtains.She got up before anyone else and went downstairs for water. The house was still quiet. She stood at the kitchen sink drinking slowly, trying to force her thoughts into something useful.The side door to the garage opened.Damon stepped inside, already dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, hair still damp from a shower. He stopped when he saw her. For a second neither of them spoke. The air between them felt charged and familiar in the worst way.“You’re up early,” he said.“Couldn’t sleep.”He walked past her to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and leaned against t

Chapter 43The house felt different the moment Adrian’s name entered it.By the second day after the announcement, Damon had gone quiet in a way Lila hadn’t seen before. He still spoke when spoken to. He still answered his father with short, polite replies. But something in him had locked down. He spent longer hours outside the house, came back later, and barely looked at anyone during meals. Even Sophia seemed to notice the shift. She watched him more carefully now, like she was recalculating.Lila caught him alone only once that afternoon, in the upstairs hallway after his father had left for a meeting.“You’re acting like someone’s dying,” she said under her breath.Damon didn’t slow his pace. “My brother is coming home. Close enough.”“That bad?”He stopped walking and turned just enough to look at her. The expression on his face was colder than usual, stripped of the usual heat that always lived between them.“Adrian doesn’t arrive quietly. He walks in, smiles at everyone, and st

Chapter 45Adrian found me in the kitchen after dinner.I was putting the last of the glasses away when he walked in and stopped beside me, close enough that I felt the shift in the air. He didn’t pretend it was an accident.“You’ve been quiet since I got here,” he said.“Just adjusting.”“To me?”I kept my hands busy. “To another person in the house.”He turned toward me, one hip against the counter. “Damon already warned you about me, didn’t he?”“He mentioned you.”“Let me guess. He said I make things complicated.” Adrian’s mouth curved, slow and unapologetic. “He’s not wrong. I do. Especially when something interesting is already happening under the same roof.”The way he looked at me left no room for polite misunderstanding. It was direct. Intentional. The kind of look that made my stomach pull tight.“I don’t know what you mean.”“Yes you do.” His voice stayed low, almost conversational. “You’ve been watching me the same way I’ve been watching you. Difference is, I’m not wasting