My Stepfather, My Ruin

Roxy The first thing I noticed about my new home was how much it felt like a place I didn’t belong. The iron gates opened slowly as the car approached, revealing an estate so vast that I forgot, for a second, to breathe. I pressed my palm to the cool glass. A long driveway stretched ahead, lined with trees clipped into identical shapes and stone lanterns spaced as though someone had measured every inch. At the end stood a house that looked less like a home and more like a royal palace. “This is where he lives?” I asked quietly. My mother smiled beside me, her eyes bright. “This is where we live now.” I turned to look at her. She looked happier than I’d seen her in years. That should have been enough to settle me. Instead, something low and wordless sat in my stomach, refusing to move. “You really think this is going to work?” Her smile softened. “I do.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Dorian’s given us a chance at a completely different life. All I’m asking is that you give him one too.” Dorian. Even in my head, the name felt strange. Too formal for a man I was apparently supposed to start calling family. I’d seen his face in magazines and headlines. A stranger with too many zeroes next to his name. I hadn’t expected to ever stand in his driveway, let alone move into whatever came after it. The car stopped at the base of the marble steps. Before the driver had even reached my side, the mansion’s double doors opened. Dorian stepped out. He was older than the men I usually found myself around, but there was nothing soft about him. His black suit fit him perfectly, silver touching his temples—the only sign that time had ever found him. My mother unbuckled and hurried out of the car. “Dorian.” Whatever composed distance he’d held at the doorway disappeared the moment he looked at her. He came down to meet her, pulled her into his arms, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. I looked away, giving them a moment. Then I felt it. Someone was watching me. I turned. Dorian’s eyes were already on me. He didn’t look away. His gaze moved over me slowly, not openly inappropriate, but not quite the way a man should look at his new stepdaughter either. I suddenly became aware of my dress, my hands, the way I was sitting. I straightened. “Roxy,” he said. His voice was deep, smooth, and commanding. I forced myself out of the car and met his gaze. “Mr. Sinclair.” A faint smile touched the corner of his lips. “Dad.” The word landed strangely. I didn’t move for a second. Dad. I had one of those once, a long time ago, in a small apartment with a radiator that clanked all winter. A man I still thought about at odd hours, whose face I was starting to lose the exact shape of. This was not that. This was a stranger in a suit that cost more than a year of our old rent, standing in front of me and handing me a word as if it already belonged to him. “...Dad,” I forced out. “Good.” Something about the quiet satisfaction in his voice made me uneasy. He stepped aside and gestured toward the open doors. “Welcome home.” “Thank you.” I started up the steps after my mother, but his voice stopped me. “One thing before we go in.” Dorian’s expression was calm, almost friendly. “This house has rules, Roxy. Most of them exist to keep everyone comfortable. You’ll learn them as you go.” “What kind of rules?” “The kind you don’t need to worry about,” he said, “as long as you don’t go looking for reasons to test them.” It wasn’t a threat. Not exactly. But something about the way he held my gaze made me feel as though there was more behind those words than he was saying. My mother laughed—a quick, nervous sound—and hooked her arm through mine. “Oh, Dorian, don’t scare her in her first five minutes here. She’s going to be on her best behavior. Right, sweetie?” I held his gaze a second longer than I should have. “Sure.” He held it right back. Then he took my mother’s hand, lacing his fingers through hers, and led her inside. I followed a few paces behind them, my heart hammering against my ribs. The foyer alone could have swallowed our old apartment twice over. A row of staff stood waiting in the entryway, backs straight, heads bowing in unison. “Welcome home, Mrs. Sinclair. Welcome home, young miss.” Young miss. No one had ever called me that before. My mother’s hand rose to her chest, her breath catching, and I watched twenty years of double shifts and worn shoe soles dissolve into something like disbelief. “Thank you for your warm welcome,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. Dorian turned her gently to face him, one arm settling around her waist. “From today,” he said to the room, his voice carrying easily across the marble, “she is the lady of this house. My wife.” She pressed her face into his chest. He stroked her hair once, slowly. Seeing her so happy in his arms, the tightness in my shoulders eased a little. “Mary.” He didn’t raise his voice, yet a woman stepped forward instantly, head bowed. “Sir.” “This is Roxy,” he said, his gaze shifting back to me. “She’ll need attending to.” I blinked, surprised to have been remembered at all. “Thank you, Dad.” The word came easier the second time. That somehow unsettled me more than the first. “Take her up,” Dorian said to Mary, already turning back to my mother. I followed Mary up the staircase, past hallways lined with art I didn’t recognize and couldn’t have priced if I tried. My bags were already waiting outside a set of double doors halfway down the hall. I didn’t ask how they’d gotten there before me. “Your room, Miss,” Mary said, setting the bags by the closet. “Ring the bell if you need anything.” “Thank you.” The door clicked shut behind her, and only then did the air in my chest let go. The room was done in soft blush and cream, furnished the way a magazine spread is furnished. Nothing was out of place. Nothing looked lived in. It didn’t feel like mine. I crossed to the window and pressed my fingers to the glass. Outside, the gates had already closed behind us. I thought about Dorian’s words. This house has rules. I didn’t know what those rules were. I didn’t know how far Dorian’s version of comfortable actually reached, or what happened to someone who crossed a line he hadn’t bothered to draw yet. His tone had been polite, almost kind. But standing there, I understood one thing clearly. I’d just been warned. And I was already wondering how long it would take before I broke one anyway.