I Can’t Be Yours, You’re My Sister’s Man

Liana's Pov Grief doesn’t hit all at once. It crawled in quietly, like smoke under a door, suffocating you slowly until you forget what it was like to breathe. Everyone kept telling me how strong I was. That I was handling Mom’s death with grace. But the truth was, I couldn’t even cry at her funeral. I stood there, cold, hollow, smiling when people squeezed my hand and whispered condolences like they knew her. Like they knew me. They didn’t. And maybe I didn’t either. My sister, Celeste, had turned her grief into perfection. Her hair was always neat. Her lipstick never smudged. She walked through the house like she was already some trophy wife, always planning, organizing, doing. Like that would bring Mom back. And Dad? Dad turned his pain into power. More rules. More control. More of his sharp, disappointed glances. “Don’t slouch, Liana.” “Don’t talk back.” “Try to be more like your sister.” Like I hadn’t just buried my mother. Like I was an embarrassment, he couldn’t scrub out. Once upon a time, I used to believe grief would make people softer. But in my house, it only made the walls colder. Stiffer. More polished. Like mourning could be wiped away with glass cleaner and arranged in the perfect centerpiece. “Keep your shoulders straight, Liana,” my father said, his voice sharp enough to cut. “Your mother wouldn’t want you slouching at her burial.” Sighing deeply, I looked to my side, hoping to see something or someone who wouldn't judge me for not looking wrecked at my mother's burial, only for me to swallow a deep, tired groan. Celeste smiled tightly. Everything about her was always tight. Her sleek chignon. Her waistline. Her emotional range. When she caught me looking, she lifted a perfectly groomed brow. “Fix your face, Liana.” There it was. The subtle reprimand. The way she talks to me like I was some emotional liability waiting to happen. I don’t belong in this house, not really. Not like she does. Celeste was made for this—eulogies and family fortunes, power, and pearls. Me? I was still trying to breathe. I escaped before the speeches began. Before my father could look at me again with that disapproving flicker in his eye. The mansion felt like a mausoleum now. White roses everywhere. Gold-rimmed portraits of my mother staring down at me from every room, too perfect to be real. It made me want to scream. Instead, I slipped on a coat over my black dress, walked past the guards who knew better than to question a grieving daughter, and kept walking until the air didn't feel like a cage anymore. I don’t have a destination. Just a need. An ache. My heels clicked against the pavement as I walked through the quieter side of the city, where grief doesn’t need to wear diamonds. Where no one knew who I was. No one cared who my father was. Eventually, I found a hotel bar. It was not one of those upscale rooftop lounges with curated playlists and i********: cocktails. This one was dim, quiet, and mercifully forgettable. It was perfect. I stepped inside and immediately felt the difference. The low hum of jazz, the scent of old leather, and something smoky. The kind of place where people came to be left alone. Or found, maybe. I slipped into a corner seat at the bar and ordered something I’d only ever heard about in movies. Bourbon. Neat. The bartender looked at me like he knew I didn’t belong, but he didn’t say anything. He just poured. I lifted the glass and took my first sip, and it just burned its way down my throat. The second was better. By the third, I felt warm again. Looser. Less like a girl trying to hold herself together with pins and tape. And that’s when I saw him. He was sitting two stools down. Dark suit, sleeves rolled just enough to reveal strong forearms. His tie was loose, one hand gripping a glass with the same liquid fire I was drinking. He wasn’t looking at me, but I felt him. Felt the heaviness in his posture. The way his jaw tightened every time he took a sip. He looked like a man who’d lost something too. I didn’t mean to stare, but somehow he noticed anyway. Our eyes met as I tried to look away, and my breath hitched. His eyes were a stormy kind of blue, too intense, too knowing. For a second, I thought he might say something rude. But instead, he gave me a nod. Simple and acknowledging. I nodded back, unable to form or react differently. And that should’ve been it. But grief makes you reckless. And loneliness? Loneliness was a cruel thing—it sometimes convinces you that even a stranger's gaze can feel like home. He slid over. Silently. Close enough that I could smell his cologne—something woodsy and expensive. “You don’t look old enough to be drinking that,” he murmured. I lifted my glass and met his eyes. “You don’t look miserable enough to be drinking alone.” A beat of silence. Then he laughed. Just once. Low and rough. “Touché,” he said. Finally, I looked at this man. Like really looked at him and then realized that not only was he handsome, he was also obviously older than me. But that wasn't the point here, right? We didn’t ask names. That was the first rule we never spoke aloud. I didn’t want him to know mine. And I sure as hell didn’t want to know his. We talked. About nothing. About everything. About loss, regret, how grief made people strangers to themselves. When the conversation fell quiet, he looked at me, long and thoughtful. “Sometimes,” he said, “pain makes people monsters.” I nodded, blinking fast. He gazed at me and asked, “You want to get out of here?” I paused at his question, weighing the pros and cons of falling into bed with a stranger, but as I continued to gaze into the eyes of his undeniably sexy man whose voice did funny things to my insides, I muttered to myself... “f**k it.” As if already gauging my response, he reached for my hand. I let him. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But for once, I wanted someone to look at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I wasn’t just the second daughter. The mistake. The girl with a mother in the ground and a father who couldn’t look her in the eye. When he touched me, I forgot all that. We left the bar in silence. The elevator ride was even quieter. His suite was on the top floor—penthouse, probably. I didn’t ask, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t here to be careful. The moment the door closed behind us, the air shifted. I moved first. I kissed him like I'd been waiting all my life to fall apart in someone's arms, and then he kissed me back like he’d been waiting just as long. His hand trembled slightly as he grabbed my hips and pulled my lower body closer to the bulge rising between his legs. “If you want to stop—” he whispered into my mouth. I silenced him with another kiss. “ I don't.” I pressed my lips to his again, swallowing his hesitation. He kissed me back like he was starving. Like I was not a stranger, but something he has been aching for longer than he can admit. His hands shook with need as they ran over my spine and traced the curve of my ass before he then grabbed one cheek possessively. I moaned into his mouth as he grinded the thick erection in his pants against my needy hot center. It was so hot and sexy that I almost felt like I was about to combust. Hot liquid heat filled my p***y and my n*****s hardened. God, I don't think I've ever felt this aroused with anyone. I wanted him to f**k me. Our clothes soon hit the floor like confessions we’d never say aloud. Like the names that we both never asked for. We don’t make promises. “Beautiful,” he said, like he couldn't believe it. He lifted me, carried me to the bed, laying me down gently before stripping off his shirt, pants, until all that pressed between us was skin and heat. When he settled over me, his weight pinning me deliciously, his eyes met mine again, stormy, dark. “This won't be gentle,” he warned. “I don't want to be gentle,” I whispered, wrapping my legs around him. And when he pushed inside me, it wasn't slow, wasn't tentative—it was desperate, deep, a claiming. A shared Ache. I gasped, hands clutching his back as he moved, each thrust pressing me deeper into the mattress, deeper into him. His mouth found mine again, devouring, tasting, breathing me in like a salvation. We moved together in a rhythm that wasn't about love, wasn't about forever. It was about forgetting. He drove into me harder, faster, until I shattered around him, until we both came to climax. When it was over, we lay tangled in the sheets, breathless, hollow, spent. Neither of us spoke. Because we both knew this wasn't an ending, it was just the beginning. One forgotten night between strangers drowning in sorrow. But nothing about that night would stay forgotten. Because fate? Fate has a twisted sense of humor…