Marked By My Best Friend's Dad

037

~ Eunice

I didn’t need secrets to want Iris.

I never did.

People liked to dress it up as jealousy. As rivalry. As some warped extension of my relationship with my brother. They were wrong.

I wanted Iris because she didn’t belong to anyone.

Not truly.

Yes, she was tangled up with my niece now.Emotionally, messily, dangerously.But even that didn’t cage her. Iris moved through this place like her body was her own jurisdiction. Like her defiance wasn’t borrowed. Like permission was something she granted, not something others assumed.

That kind of autonomy unsettled people.

It unsettled me.

I’d spent my life in rooms where power was inherited, enforced, expected. Where omegas lowered their eyes and waited to be told what they were worth. Iris never did that. Not once. Not even when she should have.

Especially not when she should have.

I watched her from my office window more than I cared to admit. Watched her cross the courtyard with her head high, laughter careless, posture loose. She didn’t flinch when people stared. Didn’t soften herself to be palatable.

She existed.

And that was the problem.

I had always been good at identifying fractures,who would bend, who would break, who could be reshaped if pressure was applied correctly. Iris didn’t bend easily. That made her interesting. Dangerous. Addictive.

My brother didn’t understand that kind of hunger.

Duncan saw the world in absolutes. Protect. Control. Preserve. He believed order was something you maintained with distance and discipline.

I believed order was something you touched.

I believed in proximity.

That was why his warning amused me more than it frightened me.

Don’t go near Iris.

As if desire worked that way.

As if interest could be switched off like a light.

As if I hadn’t already been near her long before he ever noticed.

I leaned back in my chair, tapping a pen against the desk, replaying our last interaction in my mind. The way she’d said no to me.clear, sharp, unafraid. The way her pulse had jumped beneath her skin anyway. She was braver than most, but bravery didn’t cancel reaction.

She wasn’t indifferent.

That mattered.

I wasn’t in love with her. I wasn’t delusional.

What I wanted was simpler. Cruder. I wanted to disrupt her certainty. To see what she looked like when her confidence shook. To know whether that autonomy held when desire wasn’t clean or safe or wrapped in romance.

I wanted to be the question she couldn’t answer easily.

The fact that she was involved with Alice only sharpened that desire.

My niece had always been protected. Cushioned. Loved fiercely by a father who believed shielding her from darkness would keep her pure. Duncan didn’t understand that darkness wasn’t something you avoided.

It was something you encountered.

And Iris, reckless, emotional, bruised Iris,was exactly the kind of person who could introduce Alice to parts of herself she didn’t yet know existed.

That worried me.

Not because I cared about Alice’s innocence.

But because I understood escalation.

Relationships like theirs didn’t stay quiet forever. They drew attention. They created leverage. And leverage, if left unused, went stale.

I wasn’t planning anything yet.

That was the part people misunderstood about me.

I didn’t rush.

I watched. I waited. I learned patterns.

I noticed when Iris started moving differently,quieter, less certain. When she stopped laughing as loudly. When she began spending time with Ky instead of Alice. When her eyes carried exhaustion instead of fire.

Something had already touched her.

Not me.

That annoyed me more than it should have.

I flipped through reports on my desk, skimming without reading. My thoughts kept circling back to her. To how quickly confidence could erode when the right pressure was applied. To how fragile self-definition became when love, guilt, and confusion collided.

I didn’t need to expose her.

I didn’t need to threaten her.

Not yet.

All I needed was proximity and timing.

I poured myself a drink and let my thoughts wander freely. no restraint, no excuses.

I didn’t want to own Iris.

I wanted her to choose me.

I wanted the moment where her defiance faltered,not because I forced it, but because her body betrayed her first. Because desire always speaks louder than morals.

The next time I saw her, it was in the corridor near the archives. She was alone this time, distracted, fingers scrolling through her phone as she walked.

I stepped into her path deliberately.

She stopped short, eyes flashing up.

“Excuse me,” she said coldly, already preparing to move around me.

“Always in a hurry,” I replied lightly. “Running from something?”

Her jaw tightened. “Move.”

I smiled. “You don’t talk to me like that, Iris.”

She laughed.short, humorless. “I do. And I just did.”

Gods, I liked her mouth.

I stepped closer, invading her space just enough to feel the heat of her skin. She didn’t step back. Didn’t step forward either.

Balance. Control.

“You pretend you’re not curious,” I murmured.

“But you are.”

“I’m not,” she snapped.

“Then why does your pulse jump when I get this close?”

Her breath caught.

Just barely.

There it was.

I leaned in, my voice low, not threatening.intimate. “I don’t want to hurt you, Iris. I want to just. You know…

Her eyes burned with fury. “You don’t know what you want.”

“Oh, I do,” I said calmly. “I want you under me, angry and honest, finally stopping the performance.”

She shoved me then, hands pressing against my chest.

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again.”

I stepped back, surprised,then amused.

“Or what?” I asked softly.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Exactly.

I straightened, smoothing my jacket. “Relax. If I wanted to take you, I would.”

Her eyes darkened. “You’re disgusting.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. “But you thought about it.”

I walked past her, leaving her standing there, shaking.not with fear, but something far more interesting.

Desire always masquerades as anger first.

I didn’t know what storms were gathering around Iris.

I didn’t know who was pulling strings elsewhere.

I didn’t care who she loved or trusted or leaned on.

All I knew was this:

Sooner or later, she would be alone with me in a room.

And when that happened, Iris wouldn’t be able to lie to herself anymore.

Neither would I.