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Chapter 8

Author: Chloe Laurent
Rosalie's POV

I made it all the way to the elevator before I turned around.

I didn't know what made me do it. Part of me refused to walk away while he still had the last word. Part of me had spent seven years waiting to say the things I'd never been able to say before, because I'd been too young, too broken, and too pregnant to do anything except run.

So I went back into the conference room. He was still there. He hadn't moved from his chair, which surprised me. I'd almost expected him to
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  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 294

    I sat at my desk and looked out the window. "He's Elena's cousin," I said. "A distant one." "But her cousin." "Yes." Richard's tone was measured. "There's no evidence of any connection to what she did. The investigation was thorough, and his name doesn't appear anywhere in the records." I took a moment to absorb the information. The cold feeling I had experienced when Rosie mentioned the surname hadn't been caused by a mistake. There was a real connection, a blood connection, between Marcus Vasquez and the woman who had planted evidence in Rosie's car, given false testimony before a military board, and tried to destroy everything we had built. That connection was real. As Richard had said, the connection was also, very likely, meaningless. And I had been thinking about it for three days. I thought about the twelve-week ultrasound. About those eighteen hours I had spent alone doing the calculations before going to her. About the precise cost of all of it, which had end

  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 293

    Aiden's POV She told me at the kitchen table, after the children were asleep. I already knew she was holding something back. I had sensed it when she came home from Mara's: that particular impression, that contained attention, the look she got when something happened and she didn't yet know how to handle it. She had told me about the two hundred and fourteen guests, the possible venues, the organizational system with the binder and tabs, and I had listened to all of it and waited. Then she mentioned a name on the guest list she wanted to talk to me about. She told me the name. Marcus Vasquez. An extended family member on her father's side. Not particularly close. Invited out of obligation. She told me she didn't yet know whether what she was feeling was information or simply instinct. After she went to check on the children, I took out my phone. I searched the name. It took me thirty seconds to find a public professional profile. I looked at the photograph. I didn't recogni

  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 292

    I had been here before. Not this exact situation, but something particular about it. Reading something, feeling a certain unease, and then having to determine whether that unease was information or the reflection of an old instinct that was still on alert. Wondering whether the alarm triggered by certain words in certain contexts was accurate information about the present situation or a remnant of old situations that had already been resolved. I was better at telling the difference than I used to be. Over the years, I had learned that not everything cold was a threat. Sometimes it was simply the body remembering an old threat that was no longer there. I still wasn't sure what this was. Marcus Vasquez. Mara's cousin on her father's side. East Coast. Not particularly close. Invited out of family obligation and because her mother had expectations about the extended family guest list. The name Vasquez was common enough. Mara's connection to him was through research circles, a com

  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 291

    Rosalie's POV Mara and I had our first real bridesmaids' meeting on a Tuesday evening at Mara's apartment. She already had an entire system in place, which wasn't surprising. Mara approached most things the way she approached research: with organized documents and a clear process. When I arrived, a binder was sitting on the table, with printed tabs and a color-coding system. She made tea for me while I looked through it. "You made tabs," I said. "The guest list alone has two hundred and fourteen names," she said from the kitchen. "We need tabs." I looked through the guest list. Two hundred and fourteen names was significant. Our wedding had had twenty-three people in a garden. This would be completely different, something I had sensed when Jeffery mentioned Mara's large family, but I hadn't fully understood it until I had the binder in my hands, with its different-colored tabs. Mara came back with the tea and sat across from me. We went through everything. Three venue opt

  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 290

    "You needed time." "I needed someone to stay," he said. "There's a difference." I was sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee. The morning was quiet around me. From the living room, Alessandro cheered. Down the hall, Lucy turned a page. "I know the difference," I said. "I know you do." He was silent for a moment. "You're going to stand beside me while I marry someone, and you'll be there because I asked you to."That means something." "It means everything," I said. He made a sound that wasn't quite a word. The sound he made when something was too big for the word that was supposed to contain it. "Send me the dates," I said, because we both functioned better when we had a concrete objective to work toward. "I'll send them this week." His voice had returned to that other register, the functional voice, which told me the other part was over and properly filed away. "Will Lucy have an opinion about the wedding?" "Lucy will have very strong opinions about the wedding.

  • My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby   Chapter 289

    Aiden's POV Jeffery called the next morning at eight-fifteen. I was in the kitchen. Rosie was in the studio, door closed, her Sunday morning signal that she needed her night. Alessandro was still asleep.Lucy was reading in her room. I knew because I had made my rounds of the three bedrooms and found her already awake, a book open on her pillow. She acknowledged my visit with a brief nod. I brought my coffee to the kitchen table and answered. "I know Rosie already told you," Jeffery said. "Last night." "Good. I wanted to tell you before the announcement." A silence. "I'm calling you about something else." There was something in that pause. A quality I had learned to recognize after fifteen years of knowing Jeffery's voice in its different registers. He had a tell when he was less certain of himself, which was rare, and that was why it was so recognizable. He spoke quickly. Not hurriedly, but without his usual context. Directly, because the context would have given him ti

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