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Alle Kapitel von Stuck Between Two Hotties: My Stepbrother Stole My Christmas: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

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CHAPTER ELEVEN:LENA Pov;The house felt different after Bryce stormed out.Not quieter.Not calmer.Just... held in place.Like the walls themselves were waitingto see if I'd break, to see if Cassian would snap, to see if Bryce would come back fighting.Christmas music hummed softly from the speakers, but even that felt out of place. Too cheerful. Too fake. Too loud against the tension clinging to my skin like static.I slipped away from the living room and climbed the stairs slowly, needing space to breathe, to think, to feel without the weight of everyone watching.Halfway up the steps, Cassian appeared at the top landing.I didn't hear him approach. He always moved like a shadow, silent, sharp, impossible to detect until he wanted you to.His eyes locked onto me instantly."You okay?" he asked quietly."I don't know," I whispered.He didn't move at first. Didn't force a conversation. Didn't try to comfort me with meaningless words.He just watched.Carefully.Thoughtfully.Like h

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CHAPTER TWELVE:LENA Pov;I didn't sleep.Not really.I lay awake for hours with the soft glow of the hallway spilling under my bedroom door, proof that Cassian was there leaning against the wall, guarding me like some dark, quiet sentinel.Every time the house creaked, every time the wind howled, I waited for the sound of Bryce creeping back up the stairs.But every sound that came after was steady... controlled... deliberate.Cassian.The thought alone warmed something inside me I didn't know how to name.By the time dawn touched the edges of my curtains, exhaustion dragged me into a light sleep. Not deep. Not peaceful. But safe enough.I woke to a soft knock."Lena?"Cassian's voice.Quiet.Low.Too gentle for someone who always walked like a storm.I pushed myself up, heart fluttering as I opened the door.He stood there still in the clothes from last night, same black henley, same dark jeans but his hair was slightly messier, like he'd run a hand through it one too many times. Or

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LENA Pov;Dinner that night tasted like metal.No matter what I ate the roasted chicken, the perfect mashed potatoes, the warm rolls everything felt cold, heavy, wrong. The entire table was quiet, tension layered so thick I could feel it in my teeth.My mother talked the most, babbling about recipes and shopping lists and “holiday spirit,” pretending nothing had happened earlier. Senator Ward contributed polite responses. Cassian barely touched his food.And Bryce…Bryce kept staring at me like he was trying to memorize the version of me that used to love him.I couldn’t look at him.Not when Cassian’s confession from earlier still echoed in my head.Because she matters.Those words had cracked something inside me. I didn’t know what to do with them.I didn't know how to hold them.I didn't know how to ignore them.Every time my gaze drifted to Cassian just for a second my stomach twisted.“Lena,” my mother said suddenly. “Can you pass the salad?”I jumped slightly. “Oh yeah. Sorry.”

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CASSIAN Pov;I didn’t plan to lose my temper.I didn’t plan to say anything that hinted at what I felt what I shouldn’t feel what I’d been trying like hell to lock away since the moment Lena Hale stepped into this house in her soft sweater and trembling smile.But Bryce pushed.He always pushed.And tonight… he pushed too far.The moment Lena’s bedroom door clicked shut upstairs, I turned back toward Bryce. He stood there at the foot of the staircase, chest rising and falling too fast, hands shaking with a mixture of rage and heartbreak.He wasn’t my enemy.He was my blood.But that didn’t matter right now.“You think you’re the hero here?” Bryce spat, trying to rearrange his emotions into something resembling confidence. “You think she wants you?”I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck, grounding myself. “This isn’t about what I want.”“It’s always about what you want,” Bryce fired back. “You’ve lived your whole life shutting people out. Now suddenly you’re the noble protector?”

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LENA Pov;I woke before the sun.The house was still quite unnatural. No humming from the kitchen. No muffled footsteps. No doors opening and closing. Not even the soft creak of pipes warming behind the walls.Just stillness.My heart beat a little too fast as I pulled on a sweater and crept into the hallway. For the first time since coming home, Cassian wasn’t outside my door.I didn’t know if that meant he’d slept, or if he’d spent the rest of the night avoiding me after what he'd said.“Because I don’t know how not to.”The memory wrapped around my ribs and squeezed until breathing hurt.Downstairs, the lights were off except for the soft golden glow of the Christmas tree. I curled up on the couch, hugging my knees, staring at ornaments reflecting tiny distorted versions of myself.I didn’t hear him walk in.“Couldn’t sleep?”Cassian’s voice reached me before his footsteps did.Low. Rough. Like he hadn’t rested either.I looked up. He stood in the doorway in grey sweats and a black

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CASSIAN Pov;I should’ve walked away.I should’ve put space between us the moment she stepped closer when her voice softened, when her eyes lifted, when those words I wasn’t supposed to want to hear left her mouth.“Maybe I want it too.”Those words hit harder than Bryce’s accusations.Harder than Lena walking away from the restaurant with her heart in pieces.Harder than anything I’d tried to bury.I should’ve left the room should’ve run but I didn’t.I stayed.And she stayed.Looking at me like I was something worth choosing.I drew in a slow breath, forcing myself to look away before I lost the last thread of control I had left. “Lena… you don’t know what you’re saying.”“Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”“Emotions are messy right now. You’ve been hurt ”“And you think that makes me too fragile to know what I want?”“I think you’re vulnerable,” I said quietly. “And I’m… not safe.”She stepped too close. “You haven’t hurt me.”“Not yet.”Her breath caught, and that alone nearly undid me.

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LENA Pov;Cassian didn’t sleep in the house that night.I knew without asking. I felt it the way someone feels a missing tooth with their tongue, an absence you can’t stop noticing. His presence had become a kind of gravity in this place, quiet but constant.And suddenly… it was gone.His door stayed open and dark. His boots weren’t by the staircase. The air didn’t hum with the tension he carried everywhere he went.My mother thought nothing of it.Senator Ward assumed he’d taken a walk.Bryce pretended he didn’t notice, though the flicker of relief in his face was too obvious to miss.I noticed.God, did I notice.By morning, I knew exactly what Cassian was doing.Putting distance between us.Trying to force himself back into control.Trying to undo the moment in the hallway where he’d said too much without saying it“I don’t know how to stop.”I wrapped my arms around myself and headed downstairs. The house was bright and warm, but it all felt muted somehow, muffled by the weight of

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LENA Pov;Bryce’s question hung in the cold air like frost on glass fragile, lingering, impossible to ignore.“What is going on between you two?”Cassian didn’t move.Didn’t flinch.Didn’t offer a lie to make this easier.And maybe that was what scared Bryce the most.He stared at us with a look I’d never seen on him before, not anger, not heartbreak, not jealousy.Fear.“Bryce,” I said softly, “let’s not do this outside. It’s freezing.”“You’re avoiding the question,” he shot back.Cassian’s jaw tightened. “Leave it alone.”“No,” Bryce said, stepping onto the porch. “Not this time. I need to know.”I inhaled shakily. “Bryce”He looked at Cassian, voice breaking. “You told me you didn’t want her.”Cassian finally turned his head. “I said it didn’t matter what I wanted.”“That’s the same thing,” Bryce snapped.Cassian stepped forward not threatening, but controlled, steady, like he was trying to prevent a fire before it caught.“Bryce. Go inside.”“No.” Bryce’s voice cracked on the sin

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CASSIAN Pov;The moment we stepped back inside the house, I felt the shift.Not in the room.Not in the air.In them.The adults.My father stood near the fireplace with a stiff posture he only used during political dinners. My aunt sat on the couch pretending to scroll through her phone, though her eyes kept flicking toward us. And my stepmother Lena’s mother watched us with a look that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.Suspicion.Concern.Recognition.Something had changed in her gaze. She was finally seeing what had been simmering under her roof.And that meant trouble.“Come here, you two,” Lena’s mother said, her tone deceptively light. “We need to talk.”Hell.Lena froze beside me.Her fingers brushed mine not intentionally, not consciously but enough to shoot heat up my arm.I moved them apart quickly. Too quickly.My father raised an eyebrow at that, and the suspicion sharpened.Lena’s mother gestured toward the living room. “Sit.”I didn’t sit.I stood behind Lena’s

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LENA Pov;Dinner never happened.Not really.My mother reheated food three times, pacing the kitchen like a pendulum. Senator Ward kept checking his emails, pretending to be calm. My aunt retreated to the guest room with a headache. No one sat together. No one spoke more than necessary.And Cassian didn’t come out of his room.Not once.Not for food.Not for water.Not even when my mother knocked twice and he responded with a curt, “I’m fine.”He wasn’t fine.And neither was I.I kept pacing the hallway, hovering between my door and his. Every time I got close to knocking, fear froze my hand.Fear of pushing him.Fear of hurting him.Fear of the truth between us.But mostly?Fear that he meant what he’d said earlier.“Now I try to stay away from you.”By the time the clock struck eleven, the house was finally quiet. I stepped into the hallway, heart pounding, fingers trembling.One step.Two steps.Three.Cassian’s door came into view.I raised my hand“Lena?”I flinched.My mother st

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