My Forbidden Step-Uncle

THE AFFAIR IX: The Penthouse

|CIRCE|

Sleep was a luxury I could not afford. The night stretched into an endless loop of shadows on my ceiling and his words replaying in my head like a song stuck on repeat.

My penthouse. Tomorrow. Ten AM. Don’t be late.

The bravado that had fueled my defiant text evaporated within minutes of his reply, leaving behind something cold and heavy in my chest. What had I done? I had poked a predator and expected him to flinch. Instead, he had invited me to his den.

By the time pale morning light crept into my room, a grim resolve had settled over me like a second skin. I could not back out now. If I showed up trembling, if I let him see how terrified I was, he would own me completely. I had to go. I had to try, however foolishly, to remind him that I was still a person and not just a game he was winning.

I stood in front of my closet for a long time, searching for armor. Not the conservative costume from the family dinner, and not the reckless dress from the club. I needed something that felt like me, whatever was left of me after he had chipped away at everything.

I chose dark fitted jeans, low-heeled leather boots that could run if necessary, and a sharp black blazer over a simple white shirt. It was not much, but it was mine. It was my pathetic attempt to meet him on ground that belonged entirely to him.

The address led me to a part of the city I had only ever seen in magazines. The buildings grew taller and sleeker, their glass faces reflecting nothing but themselves. His building was a monument of steel and sharp angles, a tower that seemed designed to keep ordinary people like me at a distance. I handed my car keys to a valet who looked like he modeled on weekends and walked into the lobby.

The space was vast and silent, all marble and chrome and carefully placed light. It felt less like a home and more like a museum dedicated to money.

A concierge with a polished smile greeted me before I could speak.

“He’s expecting you, miss. Private elevator at the end of the hall.”

The elevator had only one button. PH.

As it rose, the pressure built in my ears and the city fell away beneath me. I watched the floors blur past and tried to breathe. It felt like being delivered somewhere I might not return from.

The doors opened directly into the penthouse, and for a moment I forgot to breathe for an entirely different reason. The space was enormous, all concrete and glass and sharp edges. One entire wall was a window overlooking the entire city spread out like a map below.

The furniture was minimal and severe. A black leather sofa, a glass table, a single painting that looked like it cost more than my education. It was cold and controlled and utterly empty of warmth. It was him, distilled into architecture.

He stood by the window with his back to me, looking down at the city as if he owned every inch of it. Dark sweatpants hung low, and his bare back was still slick with sweat, muscles flexing subtly as he moved. He ran a towel slowly over the back of his neck, then draped it over one shoulder without turning around. The gesture was unhurried, dismissive, like my arrival wasn’t worth stopping for.

Every drop of sweat on his skin was an accusation. He hadn’t cleaned up for me. He hadn’t changed. He had simply let me in, mid-workout, because I mattered so little that basic modesty wasn’t worth the effort. Or because he knew exactly what this version of him would do to me.

Either way, it worked.

He turned slowly, and my mouth went dry. The hard planes of his abdomen gleamed under the light. His eyes found mine across the vast room with no surprise, only a calm, patient waiting. He had known I would come. He had never doubted it.

I forced myself to walk toward him instead of waiting to be called. It was a small thing, a tiny act of rebellion, but it made my heart hammer against my ribs. I stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the faint shadow along his jaw, far enough to pretend I had some control.

He spoke first, low and quiet in the cavernous space. “I have to admit, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had the spine to walk through that door alone.”

I gripped my purse strap like it might anchor me. “Save your games. I’m just here to talk.”

His mouth curved slightly. “And I granted you an audience. So here you are. Speak.”

I swallowed the anger that threatened to spill out. I had prepared a speech on the drive over, practiced it in my head a dozen times. Now the words felt small and useless, but I said them anyway.

“I came here to set ground rules. If I have to take this internship, fine. But that is where I draw the line. Outside the office, you stay away from me. You do not touch me. You do not corner me. You treat me like Delson’s stepdaughter and nothing more.”

He listened with his head tilted slightly, as if I were a child explaining why the sky was blue. When I finished, he did not respond immediately. Instead, he began to walk, slowly circling me like I was something he was considering from every angle.

“You seem to believe you have leverage here,” he said finally. “You don’t. You never did.”

I turned to keep him in sight, refusing to let him approach from behind. “I have the same leverage you do. I can tell them everything.”

He stopped in front of me, so close that I could feel the warmth of his freshly worked body seeping through the small space between us.

The scent of him—that same expensive cologne from the motel, now mixed with clean sweat—filled my lungs and made it impossible to think. A drop of moisture traced a slow path down his neck, disappearing into the sweatpants riding low on his hips, and I hated that I noticed.

“Tell them what? That you spread your legs for a stranger in a cheap room? That you climbed into his car barely even knowing his name? That you came apart so beautifully under his hands?”

My face burned, but I held his gaze.

He continued, mercilessly. “You tell them, and you destroy your mother. You shatter her happiness, her new marriage, her perfect future. Delson would be devastated, and he would never forgive you. And me? He would be disappointed, perhaps. Angry for a time. But I am his brother. His blood. He would forgive me eventually. Who would forgive you?”

The truth of it landed like a blow to my chest. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

He raised his hand then, slowly, giving me time to pull away. I did not move. His fingers brushed against my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with a tenderness that felt more terrifying than violence. My skin ignited under his touch.

“That is the part you cannot seem to accept,” he murmured. “Your mind can make all the rules it wants. You can hate me, fear me, wish me dead. But your body remembers. It responded to me then, and it is responding to me now.”

I wanted to deny it, but my traitorous pulse was hammering in my throat, and the heat pooling low in my belly was impossible to ignore. He saw it. Of course he saw it.

“So here are my terms.” His fingers found my chin, tilting my face up to meet his. “You will take the internship. You will be brilliant and dedicated and perfect. At family dinners, you will smile and laugh and play the adoring niece. You will give them no reason to doubt, no reason to look too closely.”

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle over me.

“And in private, you will be mine. When I call, you will answer. When I summon you, you will come. There are no more rules, Circe. There is only what I command and what you will do.”

My breath came in shallow gasps. Everything in me wanted to scream, to fight, to claw at that beautiful cruel face. But beneath the fury, beneath the despair, something else stirred. Something I refused to name. He was right about my body, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

His eyes dropped to my lips, then back to meet my gaze.

“Your mouth says you want this to end. But your body has been screaming a different answer since the moment you walked in. The question is, which one are you going to listen to?”