Page 25 of Make Me Your Hitta

He grunted in response, moving to the coffee pot with measured steps. The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I busied myself by preparing a light breakfast of scrambled eggs and buttered toast. I hadn’t been in the mood for the sausage gravy and fried potatoes the cooks made. Still, the simple movements were a poor distraction from the tension in the room.

Then, the air went cool, and I turned to see Adonis’s towering, six-foot-two frame filling the kitchen’s entrance. My traitorous heart skipped a beat, but I kept my eyes fixed on the eggs sizzling in the pan. My father’s gaze flickered between us, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

Adonis nodded a silent greeting, his presence adding another layer to the already complex atmosphere. I wondered, not for the first time, what went on behind his piercing eyes. Did he feel the weight of my father’s suspicion as intensely as I did?

As I plated the food, my mind wandered to darker places. How long could we keep up this charade? How long before my father’s business travels subsided and his overprotective nature turned into something more dangerous? How long before I confronted him about hiding the truth from me for all these years? The eggs suddenly looked unappetizing, a reminder of how quickly things could go from seemingly normal to nightmarish within these walls.

My stomach began a slushy churn, and in an instant, I didn’t know how to feel. I couldn’t shake that he’d known the truth about Adonis’s whereabouts all this time and chose to lie to me about it. I felt less and less like a part of the family and more likean heirloom that needed to be locked away in a vault—only to be seen and not heard.

Damara called back, my Bluetooth ringing in my AirPods as I answered it. If no one were going to carry on a conversation, I’d just talk to someone who brought me joy.

Her voice chirped in my ear, a constant lifeline to normalcy. “Rude to just hang up on me. So anyway, I told Christoper if he thinks he can just—”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, only half-listening as I maneuvered around the kitchen. I poured a cup of coffee while keeping an eye on my father’s brooding figure at the table. Multitasking was my superpower, born from years of walking on eggshells around everyone—everyone except Adonis.

I cleared my throat before tapping the mute button on my phone so that Damara wouldn’t hear me. “Would you like a plate, Daddy? There’s more than enough.”

He grunted again, this time with an accompanying nod.

“You too?” I asked, making brief eye contact with Adonis.

He dipped his chin, and I turned back to the stove, my heart palpitating.

“Did you hear me?” Damara’s voice chimed in my ears, bringing me back to our conversation.

I quickly unmuted the phone. “Sorry, girl. Say it again.”

I slid a plate in front of Papa, then Adonis. Our fingers brushed, sending a jolt through me. I yanked my hand back like I’d been burned.

“You gonna eat that phone for breakfast, Xenobia?” My father’s gruff voice cut through my thoughts.

I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see with my back turned to him. “No, Daddy. Just finishing up with Mara.”

As I served myself, I kept the chatter going with Damara as a thin veil of defiance. Letting my father think I was just a typical, phone-obsessed young woman was better than him guessing thetruth about the storm brewing in my heart every time Adonis was near.

I sat down, still yammering into the phone, but I felt my father’s eyes boring into me. His gaze flickered between me and Adonis like a pendulum of suspicion. The old man didn’t miss a fucking beat. I’d give him that. Every bite he took was calculated like a silent warning that he was always watching and would stay one step ahead. Adonis kept his head down, methodically working through his eggs and toast. But I caught the tension in his bearded jaw, the way his knuckles tightened around his fork. He felt it too.

“Listen, I really gotta go this time, girl,” I said, my appetite nonexistent.

“For real?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you later.”

I pressed the earpiece to disconnect, and the sudden silence was deafening. My father’s eyes never left me as I picked at my food, shoveling it into my mouth without tasting anything. I held my breath while trying to chew the food into small enough pieces to swallow without throwing up. My skin crawled under his scrutiny. I wanted to scream, to flip the table, to do anything to break the suffocating tension. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. That wasn’t how things worked in the Hawthorne family. We smiled, ate, and pretended everything was fine while the walls closed in around us.

I risked a glance at Adonis. His eyes met mine for a split second, and at that moment, I saw everything I felt reflected at me: the longing, the fear, the goddamn impossibility of it all. I looked away first, my heart pounding so loud I was sure they both could hear it. This thing between us—fierce and nameless—would get us both killed.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I shoved my chair back, the legs bunching up the rug that covered the hardwood floor. “Well, that was nice,” I muttered, desperate to escape.

But the universe had other plans. My foot caught on the edge of that stupid antique rug my father insisted on keeping. One second, I was upright. The next, the world was tilting sideways. My stomach lurched as I braced for impact. But it never came.

Instead, strong arms wrapped around me, catching me mid-fall. I found myself pressed against Adonis’s chiseled chest, his heart hammering against my ear. Time seemed to stop. His cologne filled my senses, and I wanted to bury my face in it. I felt the heat of his skin through his shirt and the strength in his arms as he held me. For a moment, just a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like if things were different. If we weren’t who we were.

But we were who we were. And this—whatever this was—between us was a death sentence waiting to happen. My father would sooner kill Adonis than give his blessing for me to marry the son of his enemy.

I pulled away, my legs shaky. “Thanks,” I said, not meeting his eyes. I felt my father’s gaze burning into us, assessing what had unfolded right before his eyes.

Adonis’s voice was low, meant only for me. “Careful, Xenobia. These floors can be treacherous.”

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