Page 15 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
Derek.
He steps inside like he owns the place. Like we’re the trespassers. His eyes sweep the room, wine glasses, her bare feet, the space between our bodies. My hand still slightly raised.
A smirk curves his mouth, cruel and triumphant. “Well,” he drawls. “Isn’t this cozy.”
I rise slowly, ready for whatever comes next. Ivy stands too, wine glass in hand. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hide. But her voice catches.
“Derek, what are you doing here?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze flicks between us. Narrowing. With eerie calm, he shuts the door behind him. The soft click lands louder than any slam. It’s a declaration, unspoken but clear. A warning dressed as civility. A line crossed that neither of us can uncross, and the way it lands? It sounds a lot like war.
9
IVY
The warmth of his mouth is still on mine when the door flies open, jarring and invasive, like a spotlight cutting through the dark. My heart jumps, not from guilt, but from rage. The moment fractures instantly, and the air turns electric with the sting of intrusion.
Derek steps inside with the smug entitlement of a man who’s forgotten how many times he’s already shattered the trust between us. He walks in like betrayal belongs to him, like every threshold he crosses is still his, like he still has the right to be anywhere I am. My fingers tighten around the stem of my wine glass until it threatens to crack. I don’t move. I’m too stunned, too angry, too caught between disbelief and fury to speak first.
He lets the silence stretch, his presence alone a provocation. He doesn’t have to say anything yet, because the tension is already creeping in, quiet and obvious, like heat rising in a room no one’s admitting is on fire.
His gaze flicks from Jack to me, landing like accusations. The bottle of wine sits half-finished on the counter, an unspoken witness to the shift in atmosphere. The space between Jack and me is still charged, too close to be accidental. I’m barefoot,unguarded in every possible way, and painfully aware of how exposed that makes me feel. Jack’s hand still hovers like it had been on my skin.
“Well,” Derek says, the word slicing the air. “This explains a lot.”
Jack straightens, his shoulders a slow rise of tension. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you,” Derek snaps. “But here we all are.”
My voice is brittle when I finally speak. “What the hell are you doing here, Derek?”
“I was just in the building,” he says, too casually to be believable. “Figured I’d drop by, see how you were settling in. Didn’t expect to find this.”
“There’s nothing to walk in on,” I say. The words land too fast, too defensive.
Jack doesn’t look at me. He’s staring at Derek like he’s two seconds away from losing whatever grip he has left on his temper.
Derek steps back toward the door. “Don’t worry. I won’t stay.” He lingers a second too long, then adds, “Careful, Ivy. History tends to repeat itself. And Jack? He’s got more secrets than I ever did.”
Then he’s gone, leaving the air thick with the weight of his hypocrisy and all the things he pretends not to be. The silence he leaves behind doesn’t settle, it stretches, taut and breathless. I set the wine glass down carefully on the counter, and when I finally look at Jack, he’s already watching me.
His expression has shifted completely. It’s softer now, stripped of all his usual restraint, open in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
He takes a small step toward me. "Are you okay?"
I nod, but it’s not convincing.
Jack runs a hand through his hair and exhales like he’s been holding his breath since Derek walked in.
"I didn’t want that for you," he says quietly. "Any of it. The lies, the way he blindsided you... you didn’t deserve any of it."
The words catch something raw in my chest. My throat tightens, but I swallow it down. I walk past him toward the sink, the ache of unshed tears pulsing behind my eyes. I need something to do with my hands, something that isn’t trembling. I rinse my glass slowly, watching the wine swirl down the drain like the moment that had just unraveled.
“I’m not sorry it happened.”
He doesn’t look away. “Me too. Not even a little.”
And suddenly I want to cry, not because I regret it, but because I don’t. Because the moment Derek left, Jack didn’t pull back. He stepped in. Because something real is forming in the silence between us, and I don’t know how to protect it, let alone stop it.
