Page 4 of The Unexpected

He’s going to be sleeping down the hall from me for two weeks.

I can’t think. I force myself upstairs, purse forgotten, and shut the door to my room. I kick off my shoes and drop to the bed, face first, the duvet cool and powdery under my cheek. My body feels restless, electric, like my skin is made of raw silk and lightning. My nipples are tight as I clench my thighs together. I can’t stop thinking about what he looked like, what he must feel like, how easy it would be to crawl into his lap and straddle him, let his hands close around my waist and guide me until I can’t breathe.

I don’t let myself touch, not yet.

Instead, I bury my face in the pillow and scream, once, just to get the sound out. The echo bounces back at me, soft and thin. Down the hall, no one is home, not even a ghost.

He’ll be here Saturday.

I start to count down the hours.

2

THE FIRST NIGHT ALONE

Stella

Iget up after an hour or so. Then, I wander the halls of the mansion like a ghost. The only sound is the tiny, persistent echo of my own footsteps—soft against the imported marble in the foyer, a little more muffled once I hit the Persian runner on the staircase. Even with all the lights on, the place feels dim. Not gloomy, exactly, but lit in a way that suggests no one’s ever meant to get truly comfortable here.

I have the run of the place now, a castle abandoned by its king and would-be queen. My father and Andie are probably already halfway to the airport, winding through the darkness on some icy highway, arguing about podcasts or whether Andie remembered to pack the monogrammed bath towels. I imagine the hush in their SUV, Thomas’s tight-lipped silences and Andie filling them with stories about her day, pausing to gently correct his driving. I envy them, for about half a second. Then I remember: I am alone, and there’s not a soul to say what I can or can’t do for the next forty-eight hours. The feeling is like standing at the top of a rollercoaster, right before the drop. Equal parts terror and possibility.

I wander through the formal dining room, pausing to run my fingers over the long, polished table that looks like it belongs in an embassy. The room still smells faintly of last week’s catered dinner—candle wax and truffle oil and the metallic tang of expensive red wine. I touch the back of a chair and it wobbles just a little, a reminder that even the most perfect surfaces have their weak points.

Next, the kitchen, cavernous and gleaming, all cold white granite and brushed steel. It smells sharply of lemon oil and something sterile underneath, a scent that hovers in the air and dares you to get comfortable. The SubZero fridge hums in the corner, packed with fancy foods: jars of imported olives, five different types of hummus, artisanal yogurt. I dig through the cheese drawer and extract a hunk of Manchego, cutting a slice with my finger and thumb and eating it standing up, leaning against the island. For some reason, this makes me feel illicit.

A white envelope with my name on it, written in Thomas’s precision-engineered handwriting, sits on the counter. I pick it up, weighing it like a bomb. Inside is a single check (“for emergencies, not parties”), a backup credit card, and a note so brief it could be mistaken for a post-it: STELLA—Back before the 8th. Call if you need anything. HUNTER ARRIVES SATURDAY. Please try to get along. Love, Dad.

I stare at the “Love,” tacked on at the end like a legal disclaimer. Then I crumple the envelope and toss it into the recycling, right on top of a spent bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Champagne: Andie’s preferred flavor of fun. A good idea, actually. I rifle through the lower cabinets until I find the hidden stash, because in this house, there’s always a hidden stash.

I take the bottle, still cold, and a single glass, and head for the study. The door is heavy, solid oak, and it groans as I push through. I take a perverse pleasure in sinking into my father’s leather desk chair, spinning it halfway around so I can look out the window at the empty lawn and the black, bone-bare trees. I pour myself a glass of champagne, watching the little bubbles rise and pop, and wonder if this is what adulthood is supposed to feel like: borrowed, a little too big, and faintly ridiculous.

The house is so quiet, the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner sounds like a gunshot. I finish the first glass in two gulps, refill, then move on. Past the pointless sitting room with its untouched velvet drapes, down the hall lined with framed family photos—Thomas with presidents and mayors, a few of me at various ages, always in the same forced-smile pose, and then one of the two of us. At the end of the hall, the media room: a ridiculous, stadium-seated cavern with a sectional so huge you could host a sleepover for a football team. I collapse sideways onto the velvet cushions, letting my hair spill everywhere, and thumb my phone awake.

The group chat is silent for once, which feels ominous. I start a new message: Alive, barely. Pls send memes or sedatives. Then, on a whim, I call Kayleigh and Mary Kate. I switch to video, and it rings exactly twice before both faces appear, illuminated by the glow of their own screens.

“Stellllllla!” Kayleigh squeals, her face instantly crowding the frame. In the background, I see the blurry outline of Trevor, her hunky boyfriend/stepbrother, hunched over a bowl of ramen.

“Hey,” I say, “who let you two freaks have dinner unsupervised?”

“It’s after midnight here,” Mary Kate corrects, which doesn’t make any sense but I let it slide because MK is probably at her fiancé’s place and time doesn’t exist for the newly engaged. She looks radiant, even through the grainy video: pink gloss lips, a cozy sweatshirt that says “COZY,” and a halo of perfectly tousled hair. “You look like shit, by the way.”

“Thank you, I’m in mourning,” I say, raising my glass in mock salute. “My loving father just informed me that he doesn’t trust me to be home alone and has assigned me a professional babysitter.”

There’s a split-second of silence, then both girls erupt at once. “NO WAY,” Kayleigh says, and MK over her: “You’re twenty-two, not twelve!”

“Tell that to Thomas,” I say, sliding further down until I’m nearly supine on the sectional. “He thinks if left to my own devices I’ll either burn the place down or sell it for concert tickets.”

“Who’s the babysitter?” Kayleigh asks, eyes narrowing in mock suspicion. “Do I know him? Is it someone hot? Oh my god, tell me it’s someone hot.”

I sigh, milking it for drama. “If by ‘hot’ you mean ‘my dad’s stepbrother with a billionaire complex and enough testosterone to kill a small horse,’ then yes. It’s Hunter Roberts.”

Both girls go dead quiet. I watch their faces freeze, then explode into a flurry of open-mouthed shrieks.

“Are you SHITTING ME?” Mary Kate crows, shaking her phone so violently her image blurs into a seizure of pixels. “Hunter Roberts is going to be living with you? Like, in the same house?”

“Not living,” I say, a little too quickly. “Just staying for a week or two. Monitoring. Supervising.” I make air quotes around the word, nearly dropping my glass.

Kayleigh leans so close to her camera that I can see the individual dots of her freckles. “Stella. You are about to be under twenty-four-hour surveillance by the hottest man alive. I hope you’ve updated your nudes folder, because you need to bring your A-game.”