My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 494

Chapter 494

Gianna blinked, then something softened in her face, “She’s okay.”

The pressure eased immediately.

Gianna looked down briefly, then back at me, “I waited.”

“Why.”

She shifted slightly on the trunk, fingers tightening around her arms, “You know why.”

My mind ran through possibilities. Logical ones. Practical ones. Patterns. But none of them matched the way she was sitting there, not leaving, not running away.

“You don’t get to just stand there and take it. You don’t get to let me say things like that and then disappear like it

didn’t matter.”

My fingers curled lightly at my side.

I didn’t understand what she meant by “matter” in the way she was using it. But I understood tone. I understood pressure in speech. I understood change in breathing.

She was not calm.

Neither was I.

“I am not mad at you,” I said.

Gianna let out a short, quiet laugh, “You should be. I was wrong,” she said finally. “About what I said. About how I said it.”

I nodded once.

Her voice dropped slightly, “I was angry. And I said things I shouldn’t have said.”

I studied her face, not in the way people usually mean. I noticed the small changes. Tightness around her eyes. The way her shoulders stayed tense even when she tried to look strong.

Gianna looked away for a second, then back at me again, like forcing herself to stay in place, “I didn’t mean everything I said,” she added, “I shouldn’t have said those things. I was angry. I was hurting. I wanted somebody else to hurt too. And you were standing there.”

I wasn’t sure what the correct response was. I didn’t want to mess up with her more than I already had.

She laughed weakly, “I think that’s the worst part. You didn’t even fight back.”

No. I hadn’t, because she was hurting and she needed someone, fighting back would have not improved the situation. So I hadn’t.

Gianna wiped quickly at her eyes, “I know you loved your mother. I shouldn’t have used that against you. I shouldn’t have taken the worst thing you’ve ever told me and thrown it back at you. I’m sorry.”

The words hit harder than the insult had because this time she wasn’t trying to hurt me, this time she meant them.

Then Gianna laughed nervously, “Can you please say something?”

I blinked, “Oh.”

Finally she groaned, “Raphael.”

And that sound did more for me than any amount of violence in the Hunt.

Because the problem had never been the noise in my head. The problem was sitting on the hood of my car.

Looking at me, breathing, existing,.occupying space.

My space.

The only space that seemed to matter anymore.

Gianna looked at me for another second then she slid off the hood of the car. My eyes followed the movement automatically. She landed lightly on the ground and started walking toward me.

My heartbeat started doing that strange thing again. The thing it always did around her. The thing I still couldn’t properly define.

She stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could smell her shampoo. Close enough that I could see the faint shadows beneath her eyes.

Her eyes were still swollen from crying.

And somehow she was still the most distracting thing I had ever encountered.

Then her hand lifted. Her palm settled against the center of my chest. Every muscle in my body immediately locked, not because I wanted to move away.

The exact opposite.

The warmth of her hand soaked through my shirt. My lungs forgot how to work for a second. Her hand moved slowly, sliding across my chest, then upward.

My eyes stayed on her face, he wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at her hand like she was trying to find the right words.