《The Playboy Stepbrother's Rules》全部章節：第 71 章 - 第 80 章

Silas called them in at six.Alex was already in the house. Bridget had been quiet all afternoon. Troy arrived at five-fifty, driven by Paxton as far as the corner and walking the last stretch alone with his jaw set and his hands empty. Bridget opened the door. For a second she only looked at him—her son, the suitcase, the week of absence—then stepped aside without a greeting soft enough to be called welcome.They sat in the living room. Silas stood.Alex on the sofa. Bridget in the armchair. Troy in the hard chair nearest the door, as if the exit were still part of the furniture. No one pretended this was ordinary.“I’ll be brief,” Silas said. “The current arrangement is not sustainable. Bridget has made that clear. The scheduled calls are a stopgap, not a household. I have reassessed again.”Alex’s pulse climbed. Troy didn’t move.“Troy will return to this house,” Silas continued. “His room. His place at the table. The exile ends effective tonight.”Bridget’s eyes closed for half a

The second day held until evening.They repeated the choreography: staggered showers, separate work zones, civil sentences at meals with Silas’s attention sitting over the table like a weight. Bridget watched them with the expression of someone counting the hours until something gave. Nothing gave in public. Troy passed Alex in the upstairs hall once and said “Excuse me” like a stranger, and Alex stepped aside and hated how natural the sidestep had already become.After dinner Silas announced an unexpected call with the West Coast office and shut himself in the study. Bridget, exhausted, went up early with a migraine tablet and a plea that they “just not invent trouble for one night.” The house settled into half-dark and the low murmur of Silas’s voice behind the study door.Alex lasted forty minutes in his room.He told himself he was going downstairs for water. He told himself the kitchen was neutral territory. He did not tell himself the truth until he found Troy already there, sta

Silas came home earlier than he said he would.Alex heard the car at four-ten and felt the study kiss flash through him like guilt with a pulse. He saved the document he hadn’t been reading, left his door open, and went downstairs with a face arranged into something ordinary. Troy was already in the kitchen pouring water, posture careful, the map back in place as if noon had never happened.Silas set his keys in the bowl and looked at both of them for a long second.“You’re both here,” he said.“Where else,” Troy answered, dry enough to pass for civility.Silas’s gaze moved from Troy’s damp hairline to Alex’s too-steady hands and back again. He didn’t accuse. He only said, “Dinner at six. I’ll be in the study until then. I expect the house to sound like a house, not a holding pattern.”He walked down the hall. The study door closed. Alex and Troy stood in the kitchen without looking at each other until the silence became its own admission.“He doesn’t know,” Alex said under his breath

The house emptied on schedule.Silas to the office. Bridget to a charity board lunch that would run long. Separate reminders on the way out: different floors or public space; noon check-in; no atmospheric surprises. Alex said *understood* from the stairs. Troy said nothing from the study doorway, only nodded once, already holding his keys.They didn’t leave together. Alex took the train. Troy took the car and parked three blocks from Fifth. By the time Alex walked into the coffee place, Troy was at the same back table with two cups, neither of them a prop this time.Alex sat. “You ordered.”“You take it with too much sugar. It’s wrong. Drink it anyway.”Alex almost smiled. He wrapped his hands around the cup and let the noise of the room settle over them—the shield of strangers, the daylight, the thin safety of not being under Silas’s ceiling.“I counted the hours,” Alex said.“So did I.” Troy’s eyes moved over his face like he was checking for damage. “You look like you’re sleeping i

Friday morning under the Morrison roof felt ordinary in the way a held breath can look ordinary. Silas left early with a reminder about floors and public space. Bridget lingered in the kitchen long enough to study Alex’s face, then Troy’s, as if the week’s shift had a colour she could name if she stared hard enough. She didn’t ask. She only said, “Be careful,” to the room at large, and took her bag. Alex waited twenty minutes after her car disappeared before he texted Kevin a single line from the upstairs landing. **Alex:** Today. Lease. You still in. **Kevin:** Send the address. I’ll meet you there. Troy was already gone—work, on paper. Alex took the train with his bag over one shoulder and the knowledge that the next few hours would turn the exit from a decision into a set of keys. --- The building was plain on the outside: brick, a buzzer panel, no family name anywhere in the entry. Troy stood in the lobby with a manila envelope and an expression that tightened when Ale