My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 618

Chapter 618

I pressed my forehead harder against the door, because inside the study, they kept talking about me.

“You need someone who challenges you.”

I waited for Raphael to say something, anything.

“You need someone who thinks the way you think.”

The floor seemed to disappear beneath my feet.

“You need someone who can stand beside you without you having to carry them.”

Something inside me cracked.

Carry them.

Carry…

Me.

Without meaning to, my eyes slowly dropped to the floor.

“Gianna needs someone patient enough to build his life around her weaknesses.”

Weaknesses.

The word hit harder than I expected.

Weaknesses, not dreams, not kindness, not love. Weaknesses.

I slowly closed my eyes.

Of course.

Of course.

I had always known. Raphael never said it. Claire never said it. Maddie never said it but everyone saw it.

Everyone.

The girl who couldn’t read fast enough. The girl who forgot things. The girl who needed help spelling simple words. The girl who cried too easily. The girl who trusted the wrong people. The girl who got kidnapped. The girl Raphael always had to save.

A small ache spread through my chest. Maybe they were right. My breathing became uneven.

I tried taking a slow breath.

It didn’t help.

“What happens the day she disappoints the part of you that demands everything be done perfectly?”

My heart seemed to stop.

Disappoint.

Raphael… disappointed in me.

I stared at the door without really seeing it anymore.

“What happens if one day you look at each other and realize love isn’t enough?”

Love…

Isn’t enough.

“Miss Gianna?” the nurse spoke but I raised my hand, telling her to shush by place a finger over my lips.

I needed to hear this.

“You’ll slow yourself down every single day just to keep her beside you.”

I felt something warm spill over my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

I knew what it felt like to slow people down.

Teachers.

Classmates.

Every time Leone laughed and reduced me to nothing more than a wife… a pretty face…. a body… never someone he believed could stand on her own.

The voices piled on top of each other until I couldn’t tell whose words belonged to whom anymore. They all blended together. They all sounded the same.

And now the Capones too?

Maybe… Maybe everyone had always seen me this way.

Maybe Raphael was simply the only one kind enough not to say it.

That thought hurt more than Mama D’s betrayal.

Because Denise had broken my trust.

This…

This broke my heart.

The voices inside the study faded, not because they had stopped talking but because I couldn’t hear them anymore. My ears rang so loudly that it swallowed everything else.

I took one slow step backward, the floor shifted beneath my feet. The hallway stretched strangely, growing longer for a second before snapping back into place.

My stomach rolled.

I reached blindly for the wall, my fingertips scraping against the wallpaper before I finally caught myself.

I couldn’t breathe.

It hurt.

God…

It hurt so much, not my head, not the stitches pulling every time I moved, not even the deep ache spreading through my skull.

It was my chest.

It felt like someone had reached inside me and squeezed until there was nothing left.

He needs someone who thinks the way he does….