We scramble apart. I yank down my shirt with shaking hands, my face burning with humiliation. Derek looks guilty, his face pale, his chest still heaving from what we were doing seconds ago.
Zack sets down his briefcase with deliberate care, crosses to the bar, pours a whiskey, and downs it in one swallow. The glass hits the counter harder than necessary.
"Go to your room," he says to Derek, not turning around. "Now."
"Dad, I can explain—"
"I said now, Derek."
Derek hesitates, his eyes finding mine. An apology lives in his expression, mixed with frustration and something else I can't read. He opens his mouth to protest again, but Zack finally turns, and whatever Derek sees in his father's face kills the words before they form.
He rises slowly, runs a hand through his disheveled curls, and walks toward the door. As he passes me, his fingers brush against mine—a stolen touch, a silent promise that this conversation isn't over.
Then he's gone, and I'm alone with Zack.
I move to follow, assuming the dismissal includes me. I'm halfway to the door when Zack's voice stops me cold.
"Not you, Ellie."
Three words, and my feet turn to stone. The doorway looms ahead of me—escape, safety, the chance to hide in my room and pretend the last hour never happened.
But Zack's voice roots me in place, a command wrapped in velvet that my body obeys before my mind can protest.
I turn slowly. He stands at the bar with his back to me, shoulders rigid beneath his tailored shirt, one hand still wrapped around the empty whiskey glass. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
"Close the door," he commands.
I hesitate. Every instinct screams at me to run—up the stairs, into my room, away from this man and the weight of his gaze that I can feel even when he's not looking at me.
"Ellie." The way he says my name—low, deliberate—makes my stomach drop. "Close the door."
I should refuse. I should walk out and lock myself in my room and pretend the last ten minutes never happened. Yet, my hand finds the handle. The click of the latch sounds obscenely loud in the silence.
He pours another whiskey. The amber liquid catches the dim light as it splashes into the glass, and I watch his hands—steady, controlled, and I hate that I notice them.
Hate that I'm cataloging the way his fingers wrap around the crystal when my pulse is still racing from his sons' mouths on my skin.
"Sit down."
"I'd rather stand."
He turns then, finally, and I understand immediately why people do what he says. Those steel-gray eyes don't just look at me—they dissect me.
I watch him take inventory: my swollen lips, my disheveled hair, the flush that still heats my skin from Derek's touch.
He's seeing everything I can't hide, and the shame of it burns through me.
"That wasn't a request."
I lift my chin. "And I'm not a child you can order around."
"No." He moves toward me, each step measured. Unhurried. Like he has all the time in the world and I'm not going anywhere.
He's right. I'm not.
The distance between us shrinks, and my body registers it before my brain catches up—the way my breath shortens, the way I have to fight the urge to step back.
He stops an arm's length away. Close enough that he's all I can see. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
"What were you thinking?" The question comes out low, controlled. "Derek doesn't know what he wants. He's twenty-three years old with a savior complex." His eyes bore into mine. "He saw a sad, beautiful girl and convinced himself he could be her hero."
So he thinks I'm beautiful?
"Or maybe you don't know your son." The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, defensive and sharp.
"You cannot do this with my son. Not in my house. Not under my roof."
I stare at him, genuinely stunned into silence.
Who does he think he is?
I've seen this man exactly four times. At the funeral, in the car, at breakfast, and now—looming over me like he has the right to dictate how I live my life.
"I'm an adult." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Derek's an adult. What we do is none of your business."
"Everything that happens in this house is my business." He takes another step closer. "I invited you here. I opened my home to you. And this is how you repay that kindness?"
The accusation ignites something hot and ugly in my chest. "Kindness? You think I owe you something because you took pity on the poor orphan?"
"That's not what I said."
"It's what you meant." I'm shaking now, trembling with rage. "You swoop in at my parents' funeral, play the hero, bring me to your palace—and now I'm supposed to be grateful? Obedient? Stay in my room like a good little charity case?"
His jaw tightens. "You're twisting my words."
"Am I?" I step toward him now, eliminating what little distance remains. "Or are you just angry that I didn't fall in line? That I dared to want something for myself instead of sitting around waiting for you to decide what scraps to throw me?"
"That's enough."
"It's not nearly enough." The words pour out of me, scalding and unstoppable. "You don't get to control me. You're not my father. You're not even really my uncle—you're a stranger who knew my dad for a few years before he ran away from your family too."
It seems pain now flickers in his eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then tell me." I'm close enough now to see the pulse jumping in his throat. "Tell me why my father never mentioned you. Tell me why he left and never looked back. Tell me what's so broken about this family that everyone keeps running."
"Ellie." My name sounds like the last exit before a highway with no turnoffs.
"What happened to your wife, Zack? Why did she leave? Why does Tyler hate everyone who gets close? Why does Derek try so goddamn hard to be perfect?"
The questions pour out of me like I've uncorked something rotten, and I know I should stop. I know this is the conversational equivalent of poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick.
"What the hell is wrong with you all?" I shout.
"Stop."
"Make me."
Well, that was spectacularly stupid.
But I don't take the words back. Can't. Because some suicidal part of me wants to see what happens when Zack McKinney loses control.
His breathing changes. I notice because I'm watching him too closely, cataloging every micro-expression like my life depends on reading him right. Maybe it does.
His chest rises and falls faster beneath that expensive shirt, and I can almost see it—the iron grip he keeps on himself, slipping. Cracking.
I did that.
"You don't know what you're asking for." His voice has dropped to a rasp that scrapes down my spine.
He's right. I don't know. That's the problem. That's also, inexplicably, the appeal.
"Maybe I do," I whisper.
"You're grieving. You're vulnerable. You're looking for something to make the pain stop, and I won't—" He cuts himself off, runs a hand through his hair, and for the first time since I met him, Zack McKinney looks undone. "I won't be that for you."
"Why not?"
His eyes snap to mine, and what I see there steals my breath—hunger, barely leashed, burning behind the steel.
And if I push just a little bit further...
"Well, maybe you're just a coward." I watch the impact of my words register across his features, and a strange thrill runs through me.
Did I really just say that?
I've never talked to anyone like this. Never challenged, never provoked, never pushed back against people who could crush me.
But something about this man—this house, this night, the taste of his son still lingering on my lips—has cracked open a door I didn't know existed. And behind it lives a version of me I've never met. A version who bites.
I don't know if I like her yet. But I don't hate her either.
His hand shoots out, gripping my chin, forcing my gaze to his. My lips part. My breath stutters. His eyes track the movement, darkening.
His thumb traces the line of my cheekbone, and my head tilts back without permission, offering him more access, more skin.
His gaze drops to my throat, to the pulse hammering visibly beneath the surface.
"This can't happen." His hand drops away, and my body screams at the absence. "You understand that, don't you?"
No, I don't.
I rise on my toes and press my mouth to his.
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