CHAPTER 46: A NIGHT STAY...

"Stay tonight, Alex. Please." Her eyes shone with hope, her hand brushing his arm.

Alex leaned back in his chair, his lips curving into a teasing smile. "With Sophia here? You sure that’s wise, love?" His tone was light, but his gaze flicked toward Sophia, testing the air.

Victoria’s laugh was quick, dismissive.

"She’s fine with us now. She said so herself. Don’t worry." Her confidence was unshaken, her trust in Sophia’s apology absolute.

Sophia overheard, her heart tightening like a vise. Her mother’s blind faith stung, but it was Alex’s voice... calm, controlled... that sparked something deeper.

Sophia had murmured her goodnights, her voice soft but her eyes sharp, lingering on Alex before she ascended the grand staircase to her room. The door clicked shut, leaving Victoria and Alex alone in the dining room’s fading glow.

The air was thick with unspoken promises, the weight of the evening’s warmth pressing against them.

Victoria gazed into Alex’s eyes, her fingers trembling as they brushed his hand. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice barely audible, thick with emotion.

"For what?" Alex asked, his tone low, a teasing edge to it as he leaned closer, his breath warm against her cheek.

"For forgiving Sophia," she confessed, her voice catching as she pressed herself against him, her hands clinging to his shoulders. "For giving us a chance to be... whole again."

Alex’s lips curved into a slow, knowing smile, his eyes glinting with something darker, more calculated. Without a word, he lifted her effortlessly, his arms strong and sure, carrying her toward the staircase.

Victoria’s heart raced, her body pressed against his, the heat of his touch igniting a fire she’d long suppressed. But as they reached her bedroom door, she hesitated, her fingers tightening on his shirt.

"No... not here," she whispered, her lips brushing his ear, her voice shy but laced with a daring edge. "Please, take me to James’s bedroom tonight. I want to erase every memory of him. I want your touch to overwrite his. I want to feel you in the very place where he once claimed me."

Alex’s eyes darkened, a flicker of amusement crossing his face as he registered the audacity of her request.

"You’re sure?" he murmured, his voice a velvet challenge, his hands tightening on her waist. "You want to burn it all down?"

"Yes," Victoria breathed, her eyes blazing with defiance. "Make it mine again. Make it ours."

He didn’t hesitate. Carrying her down the hall, he pushed open the door to James’s bedroom, the heavy wood swinging wide to reveal the sanctum of her past.

The room was a monument to her old life... polished mahogany, the sprawling bed with its burgundy linens, the faint scent of James’s cologne lingering like a ghost.

Alex set her down, but his hands didn’t leave her, guiding her toward the bed with a commanding certainty that made her pulse race.

Victoria’s breath hitched as she sank onto the bed, the linens cool against her skin, a stark contrast to the heat building within her.

Alex loomed over her, his shirt half-unbuttoned, the moonlight catching the hard lines of his chest. "This is where he thought he owned you," Alex said, his voice low, mocking, as he leaned down, his lips brushing her neck. "But you’re not his anymore, are you?"

"No," Victoria whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of rebellion and desire. "I’m yours."

Her hands reached for him, pulling him closer, her fingers fumbling with the last buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against hers.

Their lips crashed together, a fierce collision of need and defiance. Victoria arched into him, her body yielding to his touch, each kiss a reclaiming of her power.

Alex’s hands were sure, possessive, sliding down her curves with a deliberate slowness that made her gasp.

The bed creaked beneath them, the sound a quiet rebellion against the memories it held. Victoria’s whispers grew louder, her voice raw, unguarded, as she surrendered to the thrill of being in this forbidden space with him.

"You think James ever made you feel like this?" Alex murmured, his tone sharp, taunting, as his hands guided her, his touch igniting sparks across her skin.

"He never deserved you." His words were a blade, cutting through the ghosts of her past, and Victoria’s response was a soft moan, her body trembling with the intensity of her liberation.

The air was thick with their shared defiance, the room alive with the pulse of their connection.

Victoria felt every moment as a victory, her heart pounding as she erased James’s shadow with Alex’s presence.

Her voice rose, a cry of triumph and surrender, carrying through the walls, a testament to her reclaiming of herself.

_______

Sophia sat rigid on the edge of her bed, the sheets twisted in her fists, each of Victoria’s cries a needle piercing the floorboards.

The mansion’s silence amplified every sound... her mother’s laughter, light and bubbling, a sound Sophia hadn’t heard since before the family fractured.

It pricked at her like a thorn, stirring a sharp irritation.

"How could she sound so carefree after betraying me?" Her nails dug deeper into the silk, anchoring her against the rising tide of bitterness.

This was her night to plot, to hone her revenge after the calculated apology at dinner. But the sounds evolved... Victoria’s voice softening into gasps, raw and unguarded, laced with a pleasure that cut through the walls.

Sophia’s breath caught, disgust surging like bile. Her mother, surrendering to him.. Alex, the trash she’d discarded.. was revolting, a betrayal of dignity as much as family.

Her cheeks flushed with rage, her heart pounding so hard it drowned out her thoughts.

She wanted to storm downstairs, to scream and shatter their moment, to remind them she was the one wronged. But envy crept in, insidious, a shadow lengthening across her chest.

Why did Victoria get this? This ecstasy, this freedom to be desired, seen? The ache deepened, twisting into a gnawing hunger for what her mother had... joy Sophia’s hollow nights with Marcus and her shallow friends could never match.

As Victoria’s cries rose, calling Alex’s name with desperate abandon, Sophia’s body betrayed her.

A traitorous warmth coiled low in her belly, her skin prickling with goosebumps, her thighs pressing together.

She remembered Alex’s touch from before... hesitant then, but with an intensity she’d secretly craved, even as she’d mocked him.

Back then, his clumsy kisses had sparked something she’d laughed off, buried under her cruelty, but now it haunted her, magnified by his transformation.

The arousal hit like a wave, shameful and unwanted, her stomach churning with self-loathing.

How could she feel this for him? The man who’d humiliated her, stolen her mother’s loyalty? It was a crack in the armor she’d forged in her apartment’s despair, a betrayal of her vow to destroy them.

Guilt flickered, sharp and brief... not just for wanting him, but for betraying the daughter she’d sworn to be hours ago at dinner.

Torn between fleeing and confronting the noise, Sophia rose, her bare feet silent on the hardwood.

She stopped at her door, the question lingering like a splinter: revenge or desire? It burned because it exposed her...a Blackwood, undone by her own hunger.

Compelled by a mix of rage and curiosity, she crept downstairs, drawn to the open door of James’s bedroom, left wide like an invitation to her torment. She paused at the threshold, heart hammering, and peeked inside.

The moonlight spilled across the mahogany, illuminating Victoria’s arched form on the burgundy linens, her face alight with ecstasy, Alex’s silhouette commanding, his hands claiming her with a certainty that seared Sophia’s vision.

The sight was a blade... Victoria’s joy, Alex’s dominance... cutting deeper than the sounds alone.

Envy surged, raw and choking, laced with a forbidden heat that made her fingers tremble against the doorframe.

She hated them, hated herself, but couldn’t look away, her breath shallow as desire clashed with disgust.

Doubt seeded itself, a quiet whisper: Did she want to steal Alex to break Victoria, or to reclaim that fire for herself? The conflict churned... revenge screamed for schemes to seduce and shatter. Desire murmured for possession, for his touch without her past cruelty.

She hated the question... it meant she wasn’t as certain as she’d sworn to be.

Retreating to the top of the stairs, her emotions were a storm: rage the thunder, envy the lightning, desire the rain, doubt the wind. But clarity reformed, cold and precise: these weren’t weaknesses; they were weapons.

The bedroom door creaked louder below, and Alex emerged, his shirt clinging to sweat-dampened skin, his posture predatory yet relaxed. Sophia froze in the shadows, her silk nightgown catching the moonlight, but she didn’t retreat. Their eyes locked, and her voice emerged, velvet-wrapped steel, a taunt masking her turmoil. "Good night, Alex. Don’t get too comfortable." The words dripped with false sweetness, low and intimate, edged with venom.

Her faint, enigmatic smile hid the storm... fury harnessed, envy swallowed, desire twisted into a tool. "Comfortable’s not my style, Sophia," he replied, his smirk deepening, a challenge met. She was saying she wasn’t done... not broken, not retreating... and the game he thought he was winning had just escalated.