My Stepfather, My Ruin

9

Roxy

I didn’t come down for dinner.

I told myself it was exhaustion. It wasn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to sit across from my mother, watching her reach across the table to squeeze my hand the way she’d done my entire life.

Not without wondering, for the first time, if those affectionate gestures had ever meant what I’d always thought they meant.

Lying there in the dark, a memory came to me without warning.

I was eight years old. We’d lost power for three freezing days that winter. No heat, no lights, nothing. She’d bundled us both into her bed under every blanket we owned, whispering stories to me by phone light until I fell asleep against her shoulder.

In the morning, she’d skipped breakfast so there would be enough for me. I didn’t know that then. I only found out years later, by accident. That’s how you usually learn about the sacrifices your parents made for you. By the time you find out, it’s often too late to thank them properly.

I used to think that was proof. Not the big declarations or the “I love you” said out loud, but the quiet sacrifice of a woman going without so I wouldn’t have to.

Now I didn’t know if that had ever been about me at all, or if I’d just been the reason she couldn’t afford to fall apart.

I must have slept eventually because I woke to pale morning light and the sound of my own name.

“Roxy.” A soft, hesitant knock came at the door. “Are you awake, sweetie?”

I sat up, wiped my face, and forced my voice to stay even. “Yeah. Come in.”

She opened the door, carrying a breakfast tray with toast, fruit, and tea. She set it on my nightstand, and I watched her, searching her face for any trace of the cold, calculating woman I’d overheard on the patio yesterday.

I couldn’t find her.

That was the worst part.

She was so good at this that even knowing the truth, some desperate, childish part of me still wanted to believe the mother sitting in front of me.

“You didn’t come down last night,” she said. “I got worried.”

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Why?” She sat on the edge of the mattress and reached for my hand. I let her take it, hating myself a little for how badly I still craved the comfort of her touch. “Is it your exams? Or is it...” She hesitated, her eyes searching mine. “Is it Evander?”

His name landed like a heavy stone in the quiet of my room.

“I don’t know,” I said, and for once it wasn’t a lie.

“Tell me the truth, honey.” She squeezed my fingers. “Did you know him before? Or did something happen between the two of you?”

“No, Mom. Nothing happened. I didn’t even know him.”

“You’re my daughter,” she said, leaning closer. “If something is wrong, you know you can tell me anything.”

My daughter.

The words used to mean something solid. Now they felt strange in my chest.

“Thanks, Mom, but really... nothing happened,” I said, choosing the easy lie over the terrifying question sitting at the back of my mind.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask it: Do you actually love me, or are you just playing the role of a good mother because it keeps you rich?

Some cowardly part of me was terrified of hearing her answer out loud.

She kissed my forehead gently and left me to get ready. Long after the door clicked shut, I sat alone on the bed, staring blankly at the untouched breakfast tray.

Dorian was home when I finally made my way downstairs. I heard his voice before I saw him, low, smooth, and authoritative as he spoke into his phone about a delayed corporate shipment.

I froze. Apparently, eavesdropping had become second nature to me now.

“...no, push the arrival back a day. I want the house settled before he gets here, not scrambling.”

I backed away before he could notice me there, my pulse loud enough in my own ears that I was half-convinced he’d hear it too. I went to find something, anything, to occupy the rest of the morning so I wouldn’t have to think about either of them.

I ended up in the garden behind the east wing, a part of the estate I hadn’t bothered exploring in the weeks I’d lived here. It was quiet in a way the rest of the house never was. No staff drifting through the corners. No eyes I could feel on the back of my neck.

I sat on a stone bench and finally let myself cry. Not loudly, and not for long. Just enough to let out some of what had been sitting in my chest since the patio.

When it passed, I felt strangely empty. Clearer, almost.

Whatever my mother felt or didn’t feel toward me, I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t undo her marriage, make Liam answer her calls, or make Evander disappear.

What I could control was how I used what I knew.

I thought about that for a long time. I had something now. A secret bigger than the one Dorian was holding over me.

If it ever came down to it, if Dorian’s patience with me ever ran out, if the leash David had me on ever tightened beyond what I could bear, I wasn’t as powerless as I’d been telling myself I was.

The thought should have scared me. Instead, it steadied something inside me.

My phone suddenly buzzed against the stone bench. My mother’s caller ID flashed across the screen.

I stared at it for a few seconds before answering on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“In the east garden.”

“Come inside to the main living room. Right now.”

Before I could reply, the line went dead.

I stared at the black screen. I stood up, smoothed my clothes, and walked back toward the mansion. When I stepped into the living room, I found her and Dorian sitting together on the velvet sofa.

“You called for me, Mom?” I asked, stopping a few feet away.

“Your father wanted to speak with you about something,” she said smoothly, leaning into Dorian’s side and gently caressing his chest.

If I hadn’t overheard her desperate phone call yesterday, I would have sworn she was deeply in love with her new husband. The performance was flawless.

I took a seat in the armchair directly across from them, keeping my posture rigid.

Dorian leaned forward, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “Evander will be arriving tonight.”

“Tonight?” I repeated, keeping my voice calm.

That wasn’t what I’d heard him say. He’d asked for another day.

My stomach tightened.

Why the sudden change?

Had he seen me?

The thought crossed my mind, but I pushed it away. He hadn’t turned around while he was on the call.

But then, why tonight?

Unless he knew.

“You must be thrilled, right, dear?” my mother said, smiling at me.

Thrilled. Right.

If only they knew the boy walking through those doors was my ex-boyfriend, the same boy who had broken my heart.

“Yes,” I lied softly, forcing a smile. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“I’ve told him so much about you, Roxy,” Dorian said, a faint smile touching his lips. “In fact, he’s even more excited to meet you.”

Something in my chest dropped.

“What?”