Chapter Three: Rules of the House
900 Words
I woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of Marcus arguing with someone on the phone about a construction permit.
For a moment, lying there in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, I forgot where I was.
Then I remembered.
I live here now.
I found him in the kitchen twenty minutes later, phone abandoned on the counter, sleeves rolled up, frowning at a pan like it had personally offended him.
"Please tell me you're not trying to cook," I said.
He glanced up. "I'm an excellent cook."
"You're burning eggs."
"I'm seasoning them aggressively."
I laughed before I could stop myself, and something in his face softened at the sound of it, quick and unguarded, gone before I could be sure I'd really seen it.
"Sit," he said. "I'll make you something that isn't a crime against breakfast."
I sat.
He moved around the kitchen like he'd been doing it for years — he probably had, alone, in this too-big house, cooking for one because that's how he liked it, or how he'd convinced himself he liked it. I watched him crack eggs one-handed and thought about how easy it would be to fall into this. Mornings. Coffee. The domestic hum of two people existing in the same space.
Too easy.
"House rules," he said, sliding a plate in front of me. "Now that this is your home.”
"There are rules?"
"Three." He held up a finger. "One — you don't have to ask before you eat anything in this house. It's yours as much as mine now."
I nodded, throat tight for reasons I didn't examine too closely.
"Two." Another finger. "Housekeeper comes Tuesdays and Fridays. Stay out of her way or she'll put you to work."
"Noted."
"Three." He paused, and something in his voice changed — quieter, more deliberate. "If something's wrong. Anything. You come to me. Not your father, not your mother, halfway across the world worrying about you. Me. Understood?"
I looked up at him.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
"Understood," I said.
He held my gaze a beat longer than the moment required, and I felt it everywhere — that same charge I'd been trying to convince myself I imagined for six years, sitting there in his kitchen at eight in the morning like it was nothing.
Then he cleared his throat, looked away first, and the moment folded itself back up like it had never happened.
"Eat your eggs, Reyes."
I ate my eggs.
But I kept thinking about a birthday party four years ago, and a hallway, and the last time Marcus Whitfield had looked at me like that and then pretended he hadn't.
I'd buried that memory so deep I almost believed it myself.
Almost.
That evening, I found him on the back terrace, tie loosened, a glass of something amber in his hand, staring out at nothing in particular.
"Long day?" I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"Client wants a glass staircase that defies physics and my budget." He didn't look at me. "How was unpacking?"
"Done. Mostly." I hesitated, then stepped out onto the terrace anyway. "Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
"Why haven't you ever gotten married?"
The question hung there in the cooling air. I watched his jaw tighten, just slightly.
"Never met anyone worth the trouble," he said, too smooth, too rehearsed — an answer he'd given a hundred times before, to a hundred people who'd asked.
"That's not an answer."
He looked at me then. Really looked, the way he had at the door yesterday, that flicker of something crossing his face before he could smooth it away.
"No," he said slowly. "I suppose it isn't."
He didn't explain further.
I didn't push.
He looked away first, lifting the glass to his lips as though the conversation had suddenly become too heavy to carry.
"Get some rest," he said after a moment. "You start classes on Monday."
"You sound like my dad."
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
"I've known your father for over twenty years. Some habits are contagious."
Despite myself, I smiled.
"Good night, Marcus."
"Good night, Reyes."
I turned and headed inside.
Halfway up the staircase, my phone buzzed.
Dad.
"How's my favorite girl? Settling in okay?"
A smile tugged at my lips.
"I'm okay. Marcus has been taking good care of me."
The reply came almost instantly.
"I knew he would."
"There's no one in this world I trust more than Marcus Whitfield."
I stared at the message for several long seconds.
My father trusted him with everything.
His friendship.
His home.
His daughter.
If only he knew the truth.
If only he knew that every smile Marcus gave me made my heart race.
That every conversation felt dangerously intimate.
That living under the same roof as him was making it harder—not easier—to forget the feelings I'd spent years trying to bury.
I locked my phone and looked toward the end of the hallway.
A thin line of light glowed beneath Marcus's office door.
He was still awake.
Working...
Or maybe just avoiding sleep.
For one reckless second, I wondered if he was thinking about our conversation.
If he'd thought about me at all.
I forced myself to look away.
Because hope was a dangerous thing.
And loving Marcus Whitfield...
Might be the most dangerous thing I had ever done.
- Writer
