It Always Rains
Ihad tried to enjoy ‘Kate’s day of fun’ but I just kept getting a niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach, I wasn’t sure if it was because Dean had been so cold towards me or maybe it was that I cared.
Look, I was doing it again, making a man the centre of my universe, except this time the man wasn’t even mine.
I wouldn’t let another man break me—I swore to myself. I would do the summer as his assistant, and then I’d walk away. It was the best way for everyone.
Kate never suspected that I wasn’t enjoying myself. I had gotten used to faking smiles to hide my sadness.
It’s funny, isn’t it, what you do for others to make them feel comfortable all the while inside you’re just screaming except nobody can hear you?
It’s strictly business, so why, when I find my way back at his house to get ready for the evening’s festivities, why do I find myself searching for him.
“Who you looking for?”
“Nobody.” I’m not sure she believes me because she smiles.
“Daddy won’t be here yet, all business that one—unless it’s really pleasure.” She winks.
Great, now I was having visions of him pleasuring some made-up girl in my head, thanks, Kate.
I laugh, but it comes out brittle, breaking at the edges. “Right. All business.”
She doesn’t notice. She’s already flitting across the room, talking about cocktails and music and the endless list of people she wants to introduce me to tonight, like I’m not still bleeding inside from the way her father walked away from me on that damn boat.
I shouldn’t care. I keep telling myself that—I shouldn’t care if he’s cold or distracted or buried in his work.
I shouldn’t want him to look at me the way he did in the kitchen, against the wall, with his mouth on mine and his cock splitting me open.
I shouldn’t crave that version of him when all I’m supposed to be here is his assistant.
But the lie sits heavy in my throat, choking me.
Kate hums while she does her makeup, the music from her speaker rattling the mirror. I sit on the edge of the bed, pretending to scroll through my phone, when really my eyes keep flicking to the clock on the nightstand. Counting the minutes. Waiting for the sound of his car on the drive.
Pathetic.
I should be dreading it, terrified he’ll look through me again like I’m nothing, like I was just a body he used to scratch an itch. That’s what this should be. Just sex. Just a mistake.
So why does my heart stutter every time the floor creaks in the hallway? Why does my pulse trip when the front door slams shut and the low sound of his voice carries up the stairs?
Kate doesn’t hear it. She’s too busy singing into a mascara wand. But I hear it. I feel it.
He’s home.
And no amount of cocktails or fake smiles or Kate’s careless laughter is going to drown out the truth pressing against my ribs.
I want him.
I want him even when he’s cold.
I want him even when it feels like it might ruin me.
Especially then.
“Brook?” Kate’s voice cuts into the storm in my head, and I snap my gaze up. She grins at me, oblivious. “Ready?”
I force a smile. “Yeah. Ready.”
But as we walk out of the room together, heels clicking down the stairs, I can feel it—the weight of his gaze. Heavy. Claiming. Hidden somewhere in the shadows of his house.
And I know—no matter how many times I tell myself I won’t let another man break me—Dean Walker is already doing it.
Kate chatters the whole way down the stairs, but I barely hear her. My head is pounding with everything I don’t want to admit—that I care he was cold, that I care he brushed me off like I meant nothing after taking what he wanted.
It makes me sick.
I should hate him.
Hell, I do hate him.
I hate the way he pretends it didn’t happen, like I’m just some stupid girl playing dress-up in his world. I hate he can touch me like that, own me like that, and then vanish behind his walls of money and power and control.
I hate he left me aching and then sat across from me on that fucking yacht like I was invisible.
And I hate myself more because even while my chest is burning with anger, I still want him to look at me. Just once. Just to prove I wasn’t a mistake.
Kate pushes through the door first, laughing, and I follow, the air in the hallway thickening like smoke. He’s there. Leaning against the wall, sleeves rolled up, glass in his hand. Casual, like nothing in the world could touch him.
His eyes flick to me for the briefest second. I know that look. Cold. Detached. Dismissing me as if I’m no more important than the wallpaper.
Something in me snaps.
I brush past him hard enough for my shoulder to catch his arm, pretending it’s an accident but making sure he feels it. Kate doesn’t notice—she’s already gone, humming down the hall.
I don’t stop. I don’t look back. I throw my bag onto the counter, grab the nearest bottle of wine, and pour until the glass is nearly overflowing. My hands are shaking, but not from nerves—from rage.
“Brooklyn.” His voice is low, warning.
I whip around, wine glass trembling in my hand. “Don’t.”
His brows lift just slightly, like I’ve amused him. Like I’m a joke. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say my name like that. Like you have the right. Like you didn’t—” My voice breaks and I swallow hard, forcing it steady. “Like you didn’t use me and then act like I was nothing.”
His jaw clenches, the muscle ticking, but his face stays unreadable. That only pisses me off more.
“Do you get off on it?” I demand, stepping closer, my heels clicking against the marble. “On making me feel like I’m going insane? One minute you can’t keep your hands off me, the next I don’t even exist.”
“Careful,” he warns, but his voice is rougher now, strained, like the mask is cracking.
“No.” I shove the glass down on the counter, liquid spilling over the rim. “You don’t get to do this, Dean. You don’t get to fuck me against your wall and then sit there like I disgust you. You don’t get to have it both ways.”
For the first time, his composure slips. His eyes darken, his chest rising faster, his glass lowering slowly to the table beside him.
“Go on then,” I spat, daring him. “Say it. Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me you regret it. At least then I’ll know where I stand.”
The silence stretches. His gaze burns into mine like fire, and my chest heaves with every angry breath.
But he doesn’t say it.
He just stalks closer, so close I can feel the heat of him again, the dangerous press of his presence crowding me against the counter.
“You really want to know where you stand?” His voice is a growl now, low and vicious. He leans in, lips brushing my ear. “Right fucking here. On your knees. Mine.”
My whole body betrays me, shivering under his words, even as rage burns in my veins. I want to slap him. I want to kiss him. I want to ruin him as badly as he ruins me.
And God help me, I don’t know which one I’ll choose.
His words coil around me like barbed wire. On your knees. Mine.
My body shivers, but it’s not surrender—it’s fury.
I laugh, sharp and ugly. “There it is. The big bad Mr Walker. That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it? Orders. Demands. You think everyone just falls at your feet because you snap your fingers?”
His eyes narrow, the corner of his jaw tightening. “Watch yourself, Brooklyn.”
“Or what?” I bite out, stepping right into his space, chin tilted high even though he towers over me.
I don’t retreat even though my chest is practically pressed to his, and heat rolls off him in waves.
“You’ll throw me against another wall and use me like you did the other night?
Congratulations—you got what you wanted.
What’s the plan now? Pretend I don’t exist until your dick twitches again? ”
His hand slams against the counter beside my head, the glass rattling. My heart jumps, but my mouth doesn’t stop.
“You think you scare me?” I whisper, even though my pulse is rioting in my throat. “You think I’ll just roll over and be your little secret while you go back to playing the respectable father for Kate?”
His nostrils flare. He leans down so close his breath scorches my lips. “Careful, sweetheart. You’re playing with fire.”
“Maybe I want to burn.” The words come out in a hiss, reckless and trembling. My hand shoves at his chest, not enough to move him, just enough to remind him I’m not backing down. “But don’t you dare think you’re the only one holding the match.”
His gaze drags over me, dark and blistering, and I see it—the battle tearing him in two. Control versus desire. The predator and the man.
“You talk too much,” he growls.
A grin stretches across my face as my legs threaten to give out. “Maybe I wouldn’t if you fucked me hard enough to shut me up.”
The silence between us crackles like a live wire. His fingers twitch against the counter. My lips part, breathless, angry, aching.
For a second I think he’s going to do it—drag me down, tear me apart, punish me for every word I just spat at him.
Instead, he steps back. Just enough to put space between us, but not nearly enough to cool the heat.
“Careful what you wish for, little girl,” he says, voice dark silk. “Because if I give you what you’re begging for, you won’t survive it.”
And then he turns his back on me.
Walks away.
Like I’m nothing.
Again.
My nails bite into my palms as rage floods my chest. I want to scream, to throw the glass, to tear this whole perfect house down brick by brick. Instead, I grab the abandoned wine bottle, tip it straight to my lips, and drink until the burn claws my throat raw.
If he wants a war, he’s fucking got one.
Kate bursts into the kitchen like nothing’s wrong, cheeks flushed with excitement, her heels already dangling from her fingers. “Brook, hurry—we’re going out. Daddy’s working late, so it’s just us girls.”
My head whips toward her. Just us girls. A safe night, away from him. For once.
Except I can feel his eyes on me from across the room, and my chest burns because he’s still standing there, glass in hand, pretending to be unaffected while I’m unravelling.
Kate beams. “Go change. I want you dripping hot—we’re not drinking cheap cocktails at some dive, we’re going to Paradise.”
I force a laugh and slip upstairs, my hands shaking as I pull open Kate’s closet. Paradise isn’t a place you fade into the background. If you walk in, you’re either prey or predator, and I’m tired of being prey.
So I strip down and slide into the tightest black dress I can find. Low back. Deep plunge. Hem so short it’s a threat. It hugs every curve I usually try to hide, and when I turn in the mirror, I almost don’t recognise myself.
Good. Maybe tonight I can be someone else. Someone who doesn’t ache for her best friend’s dad.
“Holy shit, Brook,” Kate gasps when I step back into her room. She whistles, tossing me a pair of red heels. “That is… wow. My dad’s going to shit himself when he sees you.”
“Kate—”
“I’m kidding!” she laughs. “He doesn’t notice stuff like that. You could wear a potato sack and he’d still call you cute.”
My stomach twists, but I say nothing.
We’re halfway down the stairs when I hear his voice. “Brooklyn.”
I freeze. Kate doesn’t. She’s already clattering ahead, rummaging in her bag. But I turn, and he’s there in the hallway, leaning against the banister, sleeves rolled, watching me like a storm cloud about to break.
His gaze drags down my body slowly—too slowly—pausing at my thighs, lingering at the swell of my breasts. By the time his eyes find mine again, I’m on fire.
“What?” I snap, heat rising in my cheeks.
His jaw tightens. “Change.”
I laugh—sharp, cruel. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” His voice is low, dangerous, but Kate’s only a few feet away, humming to herself, oblivious. “You’re not leaving this house dressed like that.”
Rage flares through me. “You don’t get to tell me what to wear. You don’t get to tell me anything.”
His hand curls around the banister like he’s seconds from breaking it in two. His eyes burn holes through me. “Brooklyn—”
“No,” I cut him off, stepping closer so only he can hear. “You don’t get to fuck me against your wall and then play daddy now. Not with me. Not when your daughter is downstairs waiting for us.”
His nostrils flare, his whole body coiled like he’s about to snap. For a moment, I almost want him to. Almost want him to drag me back upstairs and show me just how much he cares that I’m wearing this for other men to see.
But Kate calls from the doorway, “Come on, Brook!”
I flash him a smile, vicious and sweet. “Guess you’ll just have to sit here and think about it.”
And then I walk out the door on unsteady legs, his gaze scorching every inch of my bare skin, daring him to stop me.