My Mother's Husband's Son

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000156 EndHTML:0000109661 StartFragment:0000000469 EndFragment:0000109653 The glass walls of Kyson Holdings still smelled like her father’s cologne. Alana Kyson sat alone on the forty-second floor, the city glittering cold and distant beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was past midnight. The cleaning crews had come and gone. The only light left came from the single desk lamp she refused to turn off and the pale glow of her laptop screen. Six months. Six months since the call. Six months since the funeral. Six months since she had stood in this exact office and realized the chair behind the desk was now hers, whether she was ready or not. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of one hand, smearing what little mascara remained. Spreadsheets blurred. Contract language swam. She had read the same merger proposal three times and still couldn’t remember a single clause. Her temples throbbed. Her shoulders ached from being held too tight for too many weeks. Grief was supposed to get quieter. Everyone said so. Instead it had simply changed shape, settled into her bones like a second skeleton, heavier on the nights she stayed this late. A framed photograph sat at the corner of the desk: her father, mid-laugh, arm slung around a much younger Alana at some long-ago company picnic. She kept meaning to move it. She never did. Her phone lit up with a text from Heidi. *Still at the office? Go home. The company will still be standing in the morning.* Alana typed back a quick *On my way* that was a lie, then set the phone face-down. She wasn’t ready to go home to the empty estate. The silence there was worse. At least here the building still hummed with the ghost of her father’s presence, late-night strategy sessions, the low rumble of his voice on speakerphone, the way he used to loosen his tie at exactly 11:47 p.m. and declare the day officially over. She closed the laptop. For a moment she simply sat there in the half-dark, palms flat on the desk that had once been his. The wood was cool under her skin. She could almost pretend that if she stayed still enough, long enough, he might walk through the door and tell her she was doing fine. She wasn’t doing fine. The elevator chimed somewhere down the hall. Alana’s head snapped up. Security made rounds at one, but it was only 12:40. Footsteps, measured and male, moved along the executive corridor and then stopped. Her pulse jumped for no good reason. She waited, listening. Nothing. Whoever it was had probably turned back. Still, the interruption left her restless. She stood, smoothed the pencil skirt that had been wrinkled since noon, and walked to the windows. Forty-two stories below, traffic moved like slow red blood through the veins of the city. Somewhere out there people were living ordinary lives, eating takeout, arguing over Netflix, falling into bed with someone they were allowed to want. Alana pressed her fingertips to the cold glass. She had not been touched in a very long time. The thought arrived uninvited, sharp and unwelcome. She pushed it away the same way she pushed away every other dangerous thought that tried to surface after midnight. There was no room for want. Want was a liability. Want had almost ruined her once already, three years ago in a dark corridor that still lived under her skin no matter how hard she tried to scrub it out. She turned from the window, gathered her laptop and the slim folder of documents she would never actually read at home, and shut off the desk lamp. Darkness folded around the office. In the elevator she caught her reflection in the mirrored walls: dark hair pulled back too tightly, blouse still crisp, eyes that looked older than twenty-seven. She looked like a woman who had everything under control. She almost believed it. The private car was waiting at the curb. She slid into the back seat, gave the driver a quiet nod, and watched the tower shrink in the rear window as they pulled away. Kyson Holdings stayed lit on the upper floors like a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep. Her phone buzzed again. Heidi, persistent. *Seriously. Sleep.* Alana finally typed a real reply. *Heading home now.* She didn’t add the rest, that home felt like a museum of everything she had lost, or that sleep had become something she bargained with rather than surrendered to. Some nights she managed three hours. Some nights she managed less. Some nights she woke with the ghost of a man’s hand over her mouth and the memory of cold marble against her bare back, and she hated how wet she still got from a single reckless night that was never supposed to matter. The estate gates opened automatically. Gravel crunched under the tires. Every window of the main house was dark. Alana stepped out into the cool night air, thanked the driver, and let herself in through the side entrance so she wouldn’t wake the staff. Her heels clicked softly across marble. She slipped them off and carried them, moving through rooms that smelled of lemon polish and her mother’s expensive candles. Upstairs, she paused at the door to her father’s old study. Closed, the way it had been since the funeral. She didn’t go in. In her own bedroom she stripped out of the day’s armor, blouse, skirt, stockings, and stood under a scalding shower until her skin turned pink. When she finally slid between cool sheets, the clock on the nightstand read 1:27 a.m. She closed her eyes. Sleep did not come easily. When it did, it brought the corridor again. Champagne on her tongue. Ryder Owen’s voice low against her ear. The way he had looked at her like he already knew exactly how she would feel when he pushed inside. Alana turned her face into the pillow and willed the dream to leave her alone. It never did.