My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 444

Chapter 444

Gianna

The phone rang again.

And again.

And again.

I stared at the screen while standing outside one of the campus buildings.

Leone Calling.

The name no longer made my stomach flutter. It didn’t make my pulse race. It didn’t make me smile. It just made me tired.

For years, that name had meant something. It had carried memories, feelings, and comfort. Now it was just a few letters lighting up my screen.

The call ended.

I know, without a single doubt, that a year ago this conversation would have ended very differently.

A year ago, if Leone had shown up in front of me, I probably would have run straight back into his arms. I would have convinced myself that everything could go back to the way it was. That he was familiar, he was safe. And he

was mine.

But standing here now, watching his name on my screen, I felt absolutely nothing. Not because my heart had hardened but because somewhere along the way, I finally learned what love was actually supposed to feel like.

Love doesn’t keep you trapped, it doesn’t make you smaller. Love never asks you to sacrifice pieces of yourself just to keep it.

Real love felt different.

I found it in places I never expected.

I found it in the way people noticed when I went quiet.

In the way a seat was always waiting for me at the table, as if it had belonged to me long before I ever sat in it.

I found it in the constant questions about whether I’d eaten, whether I was sleeping enough, whether I was okay. In the way they pulled me into conversations when I tried to disappear into the background. In the way they remembered things I mentioned once and somehow never forgot.

It was in the small things. The ordinary things.

For the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to have people who genuinely cared if I smiled or cried, who wanted me safe simply because I mattered to them.

I knew what it felt like to belong somewhere.

To be protected without being owned.

To be cared for without conditions attached.

To be loved without having to prove I deserved it.

And once you’ve known the difference, once you’ve felt what real love looks like, you can never mistake control for love again.

Then he laughed softly, the sound disbelieving and almost broken, “Fuck…” he muttered, “Fuck. it’s really you.”

I closed my eyes briefly, “Leone-”

“No, wait,” the words came out quickly, “Just… give me a second.”

I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

Almost seven years.

Seven years of nothing.

“You actually answered, I’ve been calling every day, trying to get to you…”

I leaned against the brick wall behind me, “I noticed.”

“Do you have any idea what happened when I saw your message? I thought I was imagining it.”

I looked across the courtyard. Students walked past carrying books and coffee cups.

“I must’ve read that text fifty times.”

My fingers tightened around my phone, “I know.”

He went quiet after that. I had known Leone almost my entire life. He knew every shift in my voice, every change in my mood. He could tell when I was lying, when I was scared, when I was trying to hide something.