Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother novel Chapter 302

KASMINE.

I was exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, physically…

Everything felt dull and heavy. My thoughts were too jagged to fit neatly in my head.

I didn’t even have the strength to be angry anymore. And Kester wasn’t making it any easy for me to stay angry.

Because what the hell did he buy all these for? I had only asked for something to eat. Just something simple, anything, But instead, I walked downstairs to a goddamn mall dumped in the living room. The dining table must be groaning under the weight of food, tech, shopping bags, boxes wrapped in ribbons, and a ridiculous lavender package I didn’t even want to know the price of

He’d gone feral in the name of “getting something for me to eat.”

He was a mix of sweetness and bitterness. He was both safe and dangerous. He was a blend of warmth and wrath. He was honey on a blade. He was sweet and lethal. He was… Oh, my God.

He was a complex man… So complex that I found myself making up excuses for all his wrongdoings June told me about. I shouldn’t forgive him. But here I was, standing in the middle of a fantasy he created just for me… and trying not to cry.

Because deep down, I knew what this was.

It was Kester’s version of love.

Wild. Obsessive. Unhinged.

And real, in a way that terrified me.

But this wasn’t right. What was wrong was wrong. There shouldn’t be excuses, let alone me making them up for him.

“Why, baby?” he asked cautiously as if approaching a wounded animal. “How?”

He stepped closer, searching my eyes with that impossible softness he reserved only for me. “Talk to me, please. Is it something I

did?

I felt the knot in my chest tighten, a fresh wave of frustration crashing against my ribs.

He was the problem. And still–somehow–he made himself sound like the victim.

Had he actually forgotten what the problem was? He had forgotten that all wasn’t well?

“Aren’t you proud of me tonight?” he asked, his voice almost childlike now, like a boy desperate for approval. He cupped my face gently in his hands, the pads of his thumbs brushing just beneath my eyes.

I stopped when you asked me to,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill her anymore, I promise. Is this about her?”

He let out a nervous scoff and shook his head, “She’s fine. I left her alone the moment you said to.”

God, no.

“Look? If this is about the baby, I am sorry for taking you unawares. I swear. But I had to, baby. I sincerely needed you by my side. You keep me sane. You keep me alive. I…” He swallowed hard. “I can’t breathe without you.”