Page 202 of Midnight Curfew

Setting my phone down, I peer around the doorframe, watching her come into view.

Her hair spills around her shoulders—out of her regular ponytails and braids—and she wears a white shirt buttoned to the neck. Her head is bowed, keeping her eyes out of view.

“Sophia?” I say again, trying to catch her gaze. “Are you okay?”

Unease curls its way through me. She was asleep when my father got home. He didn’t go into her room, did he?

The office is dark, but I don’t think she has on anything under the shirt. Maybe just underwear, but I can’t see any sleep shorts. Her shoulders are hunched, her hair in her face, and her fists clenched.

“You should put more clothes on,” I warn. “He’s home.”

He might not be in the house, but he’ll be back. I should call Ava as well. She’s not here, so that means she has no idea he is; otherwise she would’ve rushed back from wherever she’s traveling.

“I heard what he said,” she tells me, her voice shaky. “Will he take me away?”

She was awake? I rise, moving around the desk toward her. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

I take her arms in my hands, meeting her eyes.

“You can’t protect Dallas and me.” She shakes her head at me. “What if you have to choose?”

“I choose you.”

“But you love him,” she says.

I straighten, my face falling a little. I don’t love him.

She obviously knows we’re sleeping together, though. I keep forgetting she’s not a child. She’s an adult who can read between the lines, and even decipher our fucking twisted foreplay. Have my friends noticed?

Swallowing, I state, “I love you.”

She blinks, pain immediately etching across her brow. “Not like that.”

Does she think my loyalty to her isn’t as strong because I’m not fucking her? That’s all that’s between Dallas and me. My commitment to her is everything. We’re all we have.

“I love you as a sister,” I explain. “That’s more important.”

She’s a gorgeous young woman, and maybe she’s wondering why I don’t go after her like my father did, because he taught her to think sex is love. But I will never want her like that.

My devotion is just as strong, though.

“You never say I’m your sister.” She starts to cry, her chin trembling. “You say ‘step.’ You won’t call me Anna-Katherine.”

Her bottom lip juts out as she tries to keep the panic at bay.

“You like Sophia more,” she tells me. “Everyone likes Sophia more.”

Is that what she thinks? That’s not true. I…

Her words filter through my head, and I have no explanation or excuse. She’s right.

She calls me her brother. I’m not a real sibling, but to her, I am.

I guess I thought she was playing her part, a little kid with a big brother.

Or maybe I wanted to be tough. Put on the facade of someone who’s cold. Stone.

I lost everyone else I liked being close to. My mom. Dallas. Even Clay.