Page 31

The air leaves my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp.

Every memory from the last two encounters snaps into razor-sharp alignment. The six-foot-three height, the broad chest, the large hands with blunt-cut nails, the low, commanding timbre that resonated against my collarbone in the dark.

It was him. From the very first knock on Halloween night.

"Megan," Brock says quietly.

His voice is the exact same dark baritone that rasped Good girl into my ear while my thighs trembled around his hips. The sound sends an immediate, traitorous spike of heat through my veins, clashing violently with a wave of cold fury.

I stand frozen in the doorway, my fingers digging into the edge of the wood.

"You knew," I whisper, my voice shaking so hard I can barely push the words past my lips. "You knew the whole time."

Brock doesn't flinch. He doesn't look away or offer a hollow deflection.

"Yes," he says evenly. "I knew."

The directness of his admission lands like a physical blow to my chest.

I step back into the suite, shaking my head, my hand flying up to cover my mouth. "You saw my profile on that app. You recognized me before you ever arranged this meeting. And you still came to this room and let me believe you were a stranger."

Brock steps across the threshold, shutting the heavy door behind him with a quiet click. He doesn't advance toward me; he stands tall near the entryway, giving me space, his hands resting loose at his sides.

"I recognized you the night your profile went live," he says, his tone calm but heavy with emotion. "Before I sent the first message. Before I booked the room. And yes, I came here knowing exactly who you were."

"You knew who I was," I say, the anger rising fast and hot, cutting through my shock. "Did you ever intend to tell me, Brock? Or were you just going to let this go on indefinitely—playing the respectful parent in the hallway and coming here in a mask to take everything I gave you?"

Brock's jaw tightens, a muscle jumping along his cheek. He meets my gaze squarely, not flinching. "I didn't have a plan to tell you, Megan. Not unless you figured it out on your own. I told myself I was protecting you from the complications, but that was a lie. I was protecting myself from losing you before I ever had you." He exhales slowly, his rough baritone raw with regret. "I know that makes the deception worse. I know it does."

"It makes it sickening," my voice cracks with humiliation and outrage. "I went on that app specifically because it was anonymous. Because I wanted a completely separate space where nobody knew me, where there were no stakes, where I didn't have to carry the weight of my professional life or my reputation into the room. I wanted to explore what I craved without anyone in my real world ever knowing. And you took that choice from me before I even opened the door."

I gesture toward the bed, my throat tight, heat burning in my face.

"I am not ashamed of what I want," I tell him, my chest heaving. "I'm not ashamed of my desires, or what I like, or what I needed from you in the dark. But I am humiliated and exposed because you tricked me into giving all of it to you. I trusted an anonymous stranger with my body, my boundaries, my deepest insecurities, my loneliness, my need for control to be taken away. I used a private nickname with you that I have never whispered to another living soul. I gave all of that vulnerability to a man I thought was outside my everyday life."

Tears sting my eyes, hot and furious, but I refuse to let them fall.

"And you're not outside my life. You're Kayla's father. You're a trusted parent in my classroom. How am I supposed to stand at my door tomorrow morning and look you in the eye? How am I supposed to face you at drop-off or sit across from you at conferences knowing you've seen me stripped bare, begging for your praise, crying out under your hands?"

Brock stands rigid, absorbing every word like a physical blow. His hands clench at his sides, but he doesn't try to close the distance between us.

"And what cuts deepest," I continue, my voice trembling with an ache that runs far deeper than my fury, "is that for fourteen months, I respected you. I admired the kind of father you were. Every time you volunteered in our classroom, every time you dropped off extra supplies, sponsored field trips for kids whose families couldn't afford them, knelt down on the grass at field day to tie a first-grader's shoe... I thought you were just an exceptionally generous, devoted man. But now I have to stand here and wonder if any of that was real. Was it? Or was all of that kindness just a calculated performance to get close to me? Did you use your daughter's classroom to break down my defenses?"

For the first time, Brock flinches. A look of sharp, devastating pain crosses his features, his brown eyes darkening with an agony that isn't defensive—it's wounded to the bone.

He swallows hard, his throat working before he speaks. "Kayla is my daughter, Megan. Being her father, showing up for her school, making sure her classmates had what they needed—that is who I am. That was who I was long before I knew you, and it's who I'll be long after tonight. None of that was a performance. I would never use my child or those kids as a tactic."

He takes a slow, steadying breath, his voice dropping into a register of unvarnished honesty that clearly costs him.

"Did I look forward to seeing you? Yes. Did I volunteer for every single event because it meant I got to be in the same room with you, watch how patient and brilliant you were, and hear your voice? God help me, yes, I did. I welcomed every legitimate opportunity to see you. But the charity, the time with the kids, being there for Kayla—that was never a lie. Hearing you question that cuts deeper than anything else you could say. But I know my actions gave you every reason to doubt me, and that is entirely my fault."

His answer hits hard, but it doesn't erase the fire in my chest. If anything, it highlights how thoroughly he crossed the line.

"You still stripped away my consent, Brock," I say, my voice dropping to a fierce, shaking whisper. "You knew the professional context that made us impossible. You knew I would have put up every boundary I had if you came to me as Brock Rhodes. So you hid behind a mask and let me pour out my soul to you under false pretenses. You decided for me what I was ready to handle. You don't get to take away my ability to make an informed choice and then expect me to accept it because your feelings were genuine."

"You're right," Brock says simply, his voice thick with remorse. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I broke your trust, and I have no defense for it. I was selfish, and I wanted you so badly I convinced myself that having you in the dark was better than never having you at all."

He takes a single step back toward the door, his hand reaching for the brass handle.