My Stepfather, My Ruin

17

Roxy

“What are you two doing?”

Dorian’s voice cut through the room, calm and level, and I scrambled backward so fast my head spun.

“Dad, I can explain—” The words were out before I could stop them. I clapped a hand over my own mouth.

I’d been seconds from kissing my stepbrother in his father’s house, and my first instinct was still to confess it to the man standing in the doorway.

Evander stood up calmly, tapping my shoulder as if nothing had happened. “What is there to explain, Roxy?”

My pulse hammered in my throat. He couldn’t possibly be about to bring up our history now, in front of him.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on in here?” Dorian’s eyes moved between my face and Evander’s blank one. For a split second, something dark moved behind them, not anger exactly, something colder and more interested than that.

I braced myself for being thrown out. Getting thrown out in disgrace wasn’t how I had planned to leave this house.

“Dad, relax.” Evander stepped between us. “I’m helping my sister study.”

“Is that so?” Dorian’s eyes went past him, landing on me instead.

“What else would we be doing?” Evander’s tone stayed smooth, polite, mockery running just under the surface of it. Only a fool would buy it.

He let the silence stretch long enough to hurt before he let it go. “If you say you’re tutoring her, then that’s what you’re doing.”

“Why are you here, Dad?”

“To see Roxy.”

Evander’s eyebrow rose. “You came to your stepdaughter’s bedroom without knocking? What if she’d been undressed?”

Something close to amusement flickered across Dorian’s mouth before he smoothed it away. I caught it anyway.

“My mistake.” He turned the correction into something almost gracious. “My apologies, Roxy.”

“It’s alright, Dad,” I managed, keeping my voice from shaking.

“Good timing, actually, Evander.” His attention swung fully onto his son. “Saves me the trouble of finding you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sinclair Enterprises.” Dorian’s voice stayed light and deliberate. “I’ve decided to transfer a block of company shares into Roxy’s name.”

The room went completely still. Neither of us breathed.

My mother’s voice came from the hallway before the silence could break.

“Did I hear that right, darling?” She slid into the room, one hand settling on Dorian’s shoulder like she owned the moment. “You’re giving Roxy shares?”

Dorian looked at me, unreadable. “Yes, honey.” He took her hand and pressed a slow kiss to her knuckles. “She deserves the same as Evander. They’re both my children.”

My mother threw her arms around him. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it, Clara.” He held her, his eyes still fixed on Evander and me over her shoulder. “There’ll be more where that came from.”

“I love you,” she said, kissing his cheek without shame. “Best husband alive.”

Rage was coming off Evander in waves I could feel from three feet away. My stomach turned.

I thought about what he had just told me. He wasn’t the noble patriarch he pretended to be. He was cruel. Watching them now, I understood that I had just become a weapon in whatever war existed between them. I hadn’t asked for any part of it.

“What do you think, son?”

“Roxy’s family now.” Evander’s voice stayed level despite everything in his posture saying otherwise. “She deserves everything the name offers.”

“Then it’s settled.” Dorian took my mother’s hand. “Let’s go, darling.”

I stood frozen on the floor, still catching up to what had just happened.

Dorian paused at the door. “What are you still doing in here, Evander?”

“I told you I’m helping Roxy study.”

“Right. I forgot. I already hired her a tutor.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Dad—”

“That’s all, son. Best tutor in the city. Out.”

Evander held my eyes for one long, unreadable second before he turned and left. Dorian and my mother followed, and the door shut behind them.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, finally able to breathe. He had caught us. Whatever this was, punishment, jealousy, or some move in a game I didn’t understand, it had landed on Evander like a verdict, and I still didn’t know what it meant for me.

I went over the whole scene again, trying to figure out if Dorian really knew what he had walked in on.

His face gave nothing away that I could point to, no flicker of real fury, nothing that looked like a man who’d caught his stepdaughter about to kiss his son.

If he knew, he was better at hiding it than anyone I had ever met. If he didn’t, then the shares meant something else entirely.

Maybe they were a reward, a warning, or simply Dorian doing what Dorian always did, moving things around because he liked the way everything looked this way.

Either answer left me exactly as unsettled as the other.

The days after blurred together.

The tutor he hired was good, very good, and by the time my last exam was over, I could barely remember the two weeks it had taken to get there.

But Evander had gone quiet. He wasn’t exactly avoiding me, but it felt like something kept pulling him away from me.

Every time he got close in the hallway, Dorian appeared out of nowhere, as if he had somehow tagged me.

I checked my clothes, my bag, and my shoes, running my fingers along every seam, looking for something that didn’t belong there. Nothing. And still, Dorian always seemed to know exactly where we were.

I started to wonder if it wasn’t a device at all. Maybe it was simpler than that: someone nearby, watching us and telling Dorian where we were.

I thought of Mary more than once, standing quietly in doorways, always somewhere nearby. I told myself I was being paranoid, but I didn’t fully believe it.

“Roxy!” My mother’s voice came from the hallway before she pushed my door open, flushed with excitement.

“Mom.” I set my phone face-down on the bed.

“Dorian confirmed it.” She sat beside me. “He’s transferring the shares on your graduation day.”

“You mean…”

She pulled me into a hug. “Three days, sweetie, and you’ll be the youngest multi-millionaire in the entire circle. I am so proud of you.”

Anyone watching would have thought the fortune was hers.

I pulled back. “Mom, do you actually think this is right?”

Her smile slipped. “What do you mean?”

“Those shares are Evander’s. Not mine.”

“Those shares belong to whoever holds the title.” Her warmth vanished instantly. “If you think you’re stealing something, you’re being foolish.”

“What?” I stared at her.

She grabbed my hand, her nails digging into my skin. “You deserve all of it, Roxy. This house, this money, every cent the Sinclair name is worth.”

“I am not a Sinclair.”

“If it’s the name bothering you, I’ll have Dorian adopt you properly.”

I pulled free and got off the bed. “Stop it, Mom. Just stop.”

“Do you have any idea how much those shares are worth?” She stood, raising her voice. “I’m securing your entire future, and you’re standing here throwing a tantrum.”

I walked to the door, pulled it open, and looked her dead in the eye. “Get out.”

“You’re ordering your mother out of your own room?”

“You heard me.”

She stepped closer and pointed her finger at my chest. “Don’t you dare turn those shares down at that party.” Her voice dropped. “If you ruin this for us, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life.”

She turned and swept into the hall.

I slammed the door, threw the deadbolt, and slid down against it until I hit the floor.

Evander.

I hadn’t asked for any of this. Not the shares, not his inheritance, not a place in whatever war this family was fighting with itself.

I hadn’t asked for a fortune I didn’t want, especially if it meant taking away the one thing that had always belonged to him.

If I told him the truth now, he wouldn’t believe me. He had already decided who I was, standing in that room.

His father’s new favourite, his replacement, one more thing Dorian had taken from him without asking. Nothing I said would change that.