My Stepfather, my Ruin
"This... this is wrong," she stuttered, trying not to meet his eyes. "You're my stepfather. Let's forget it ever happened."
"How can I forget it happened, Nicole?" He questioned, gripping her chin. "When the image of you whimpering for more replays in my head every fucking night?"
When one night of desperation turns into Nicole ending up in bed with a nameless stranger, she's almost shocked to death when she moves in with her mother's new husband to see that the nameless stranger is her new stepfather.
Tristan Michelson has always been in control of his emotions, but he can barely control himself when he realizes the masked stripper is his new stepdaughter.
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Chapter 3
Nicole Harper
~•~
The week passed by in a blur. I spent most of my time in front of my mirror. It didn't take long for me to move as fluidly as I used to back in my freshman year. Clara showed me a basic choreography which I learnt in no time.
On the night of the gig, I was pretty nervous, but Clara assured me that I'd be alright. Even if I wasn't dancing properly, as long as I seemed confident, I was okay apparently. I took her word for it.
I followed her to the club she worked for and we met with her boss and three other girls. I wasn't entirely sure what Clara said to her boss but I was the only new face and they weren't even scared I'd fuck it up. If this ended well, I'd owe her.
We got a whole speech about how we couldn't be forced to do anything and could say no if we weren't interested which reassured me that her boss genuinely cared about our safety. Then it was time to leave.
An SUV took us to the location. The girls chatted during the ride while I stayed quiet, looking out the window. They didn't seem anxious. Then again, it wasn't their first rodeo. I could only hope I didn't fuck this up for them.
The SUV pulled up behind a high-end apartment. It was in the area where all the buildings were tall. Six of us filed into the elevator; me, Clara, her boss, and the three other girls. All five of us girls were dressed in identical lace sets as well as lace masks that made it hard for anyone who didn't know us to recognize us later. The lingerie was covered with a long coat.
When I caught my reflection on the mirrored wall, I could barely recognize myself. My blonde hair was loose and had a wet-hair vibe. My lips were painted dark red. I looked like I belonged, like I'd been doing this for years. That made me a little more confident.
Clara bumped my shoulder slightly. "Breathe, Nicole. You've got this."
I nodded.
The elevator ride was quick and in no time, the doors opened into the penthouse. My eyes went straight to the round couches arranged over a raised platform with poles. Five poles to be precise.
The room was huge and dimly lit. Low laughter filled the air. Cigar smoke curled towards the ceiling. There were seven men. All in suits. Even if their backs were to us, they felt imposing already. It was obvious they heard us come in. It was hard not to, but they didn't bother to greet us.
David, Clara's boss, led us around them to a room directly beside the platform. There, we touched up our makeup and let go of our coats.
I waited for the girls to pick their poles before making do with the last one at the corner, right next to Clara. Standing in front of them was even more nerve-racking. The chatter had died down by now.
Unable to help it, my gaze ran through the semi-circle. Six out of seven of them were staring at us, waiting for us to start, but the one in the middle caught my attention immediately.
He sat dead center, legs spread, and arms draped over the back of the couch like he owned the space. Was he the groom? He didn't look up right away. He just stared at the platform, his jaw tight, his fingers drumming against the back of the couch.
Then his eyes lifted and locked on me like he knew I was already watching him.
I averted my gaze immediately.
Clara gave me one last nod, then the lights dimmed even further. The music shifted to something slower and much sultrier.
I started along with the other girls. We all rolled our hips, dropped low, parted our thighs, and rose again in a slow grind. Some of the men whistled. Bills fluttered onto the platform immediately. My lips almost broke into a smile. Was it that easy?
Having experience in both ballet and pole dancing, it wasn't hard for me to spin around the pole. I stopped thinking and let my body take over.
The man at the center never looked away. His eyes tracked my body like he had the right to. I caught his gaze through my mask. Being a lot more confident than when we first started, I held it for a while, then I smiled.
His jaw ticked.
I laughed to myself and continued dancing. There was something incredibly thrilling about making a man lose control. Especially the ones that appeared to be dark and brooding. Unlike his friends, he hasn't said anything since we stepped on stage, and that made me want to tease him even more.
One of his friends leaned in to tell him something, but he didn't respond. His friend merely hit his shoulder lightly and laughed. Not once did he take his eyes off me. Was he interested in me? Did he want more than a pole dance?
On the other hand, was I interested in him? I'd been staring at him since I started dancing and there was no way he didn't notice. Was he going to do anything about it? It was almost like the world blurred and it was just him and me in the room.
I'd never been attracted to older men, but there was something very hot about this man, who seemed at least fifteen years older, who looked like he was forced to be present.
There was something about him that made my thighs clench. I couldn't entirely tell if it was the song, the mood, or his intense gaze.
I watched him as he raised a finger. David ran straight to him. He said something to David while watching me and in the next second, David was walking straight to me.
My heart was pounding as I watched him approach me.
"He wants you," David said to me, his voice low. "Private."
I didn't even have to ask who.
Clara had told me I could refuse, but did I really want to?
My heart was in my hand as the boss led me to the room upstairs. "Remember, you don't have to do this," he said as we stopped in front of the door.
I nodded. I knew that, but there was no reason to decline. I'd had one-night stands before. This wasn't any different.
"Alright then. Since you're in, make sure you don't fuck it up, okay? We don't want to be on his bad side."
"Is he a regular?" I asked.
"It's his first time, but I'd like to make him a regular."
I chuckled, forgetting about my sweaty palms. It was crazy how easy it was to make money off men's desires.
The boss left me there and I took a deep breath before I entered the room. The room was big but only had a bed and a chair. I decided to sit on the bed and wait. Music was already playing from the speakers. I wasn't sure how long I waited for, but it felt like forever until the door was finally pushed open.
My breath hitched as he strode in. I stood up on instinct. He didn't utter a word as he walked toward the chair and sat on it, legs spread like they were earlier.
I could see him a lot better in this lighting. He had dirty brown hair with blonde roots. His brown eyes were so intense that I suspected he could see through me. His jaw was sharp enough to cut diamond and his face was something I wouldn't mind looking at all day.
He swiped out his tongue to wet his lips. Hunger was evident in his eyes. He didn't even try to hide it. Somehow that made me feel powerful.
"Are you going to take off the mask?"
My thighs clenched. His husky voice sent tingles straight to my core.
His lips curved only slightly. He definitely noticed.
I cleared my throat and shook my head. "That's not part of the agreement."
He didn't respond. He just let his gaze run across my body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Realizing that if I stood there and waited, he was going to have the upper hand, I decided to make the first move.
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8.1
Elinor's frail daughter, Cece, died in a sterile hospital room while waiting for her father to take her to Disney World.
But her billionaire husband, Derick, never showed up. At the exact moment Cece's heart monitor flatlined, the hospital TV broadcasted Derick affectionately holding the hand of his mistress and he has booked a clearance of the entire Disneyland to celebrate mistress's daughter's birthday!.
When Elinor confronted Derick with their daughter's ashes, he sneered and accused her of hiding the child just to get his attention. Elinor's heart was torn to shreds. How could a father be so blind and ruthless? Did Kamryn use his power to steal the very kidney that belonged to Cece? Why did her innocent baby have to die for their sick affair?
The suffocating grief inside Elinor finally crystallized into a sharp blade. She wiped the blood from her lips, canceled the simple divorce, and began her ruthless revenge.
9.2
For three years, Rachel lived in a marriage that almost no one knew existed.
To the outside world, Captain Jared Holland-the cold and powerful second son of the influential Holland family-was single.
Only a handful of people knew the truth: Rachel was his legal wife. Their marriage had begun because of a mistake and was bound by a prenuptial agreement that promised it would end quietly after three years.
And in Jared's heart, there had always been someone else-Olivia, his foster sister and first love.
When Rachel returns from a grueling flight and sees a video of Jared desperately carrying Olivia to the hospital, the last illusion she held onto finally shatters. That same night, she signs the divorce papers and walks away with nothing but a suitcase and her dignity.
But when the time comes to finalize the divorce, Jared refuses to sign-always finding excuses to delay it.
The woman he once ignored is now determined to leave.
And the man who never valued her is suddenly unwilling to let her go.
Rachel looked at the man in front of her and frowned: "Jared what are you playing? Sign the divorce papers."
Jared smiled, "Darling, I am sorry, I was wrong. Please, let's not get divorce."
9.0
Colette stepped out of the federal prison, finally breathing the air of freedom after two agonizing years.
But instead of a bus home, a black armored SUV blocked her path. Ferris Vance's men kidnapped her right at the gates. He forced her to sign a marriage certificate, threatening to completely destroy her father's legacy if she refused.
The nightmare had only just begun. She soon learned her father had been driven to suicide anyway. Dragged into the Vance estate, Colette was beaten bloody by the family of Ellie, the girl she supposedly wronged. Ferris paraded her in a pure white gown for the cameras, playing the fiercely devoted husband. But the second the lenses turned away, he forced her into a coarse maid's uniform, making her scrub the freezing marble floors on her hands and knees.
"Your life isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."
Ferris whispered those words as he threw his muddy boots at her bruised face. She was nothing but a piece of bleeding bait, a prop meant to lure his missing lover out of hiding. She was tortured and humiliated for a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with. The sheer injustice of paying the price for another woman's disappearance tore her soul apart.
When he cornered her in the bathroom, the last thread of Colette's sanity snapped. She hurled a bucket of filthy water right into his face, broke out of his grip, and threw herself out a window into a freezing storm. This time, she chose to escape, even if it meant death.
7.6
I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history.
But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me.
He swam past me.
He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water.
When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl.
"You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home."
Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her.
I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife."
He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps.
He was wrong.
While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room.
I was packing his ring into a cardboard box.
I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead.
By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.
8.3
On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news.
He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city.
The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.”
For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets.
My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me.
So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts.
He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked.
He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree.
He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.
9.3
After eight years in captivity, I was finally rescued. I thought it was the beginning of a new life with my mother.
But she didn't even look at me. She ran into the arms of a handsome stranger, her real husband, and I was treated like a dirty secret from her past.
They called me a contamination, a reminder of their trauma. My new stepsister set their Doberman on me, and as the dog's teeth sank into my arm, I looked up and saw my mother watching from the window.
She met my eyes for a second, then slowly closed the curtains.
In that moment, the last bit of hope I had died. The shallow bond of family was completely gone, and I finally gave up.
But they made one mistake. The family patriarch, suspicious after a car accident, ordered a secret DNA test.
The results came back on the day of my stepsister's birthday party, revealing a truth that would burn their perfect world to the ground.