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Chapter 23: Small Work, Smaller Room
publish date:
2026-05-29 12:44:32
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One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 50: Eleanor Notices
(Keyla POV) Eleanor Churchill looked at Leo once, across the width of the formal drawing room, and for the briefest second, the rest of the room seemed to disappear from her attention. Surprise would've been easier to read. Eleanor gave me something much harder than that. More like the expression of someone who has just encountered the look of someone who had just found the missing piece of a puzzle she hadn't admitted she was solving, and who is deciding how to handle it before anyone else in the room notices they've noticed. I noticed. I'd been watching for it since we'd arrived. I'd known this moment was coming when Eleanor's attention would find Leo and lock on. I'd hoped it wouldn't happen until after the legal meeting, maybe not until after the funeral itself. Eleanor had never been slow about anything that interested her. She crossed the room with the unhurried deliberateness of someone who owned the floor she was walking on, which she effectively did. Even in mourning, th
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 49: The Little Mirror
(Keyla POV) Leo came around the corner from the side hall with Nora's hand in his, and I reached for him before I meant to — My hand moved before I'd made the decision consciously, the move of someone securing something rather than greeting them, and Draxler was close enough to see it. Leo let me pull him in, but he was already looking past me. He'd spotted Draxler the way he spotted most things — quietly, without pointing, just a long assessment from the partial shelter of my side. I didn't look at Draxler. I kept my eyes on Leo and tried to think of a reason to move, to redirect, to put more floor between us and this moment.His eyes never left Draxler. "Mom." Leo's voice was low. "Who's that?"It was the safest answer I could think of. "Someone who lives here." I adjusted the strap of his backpack. "Don't stare." "I'm not staring. I'm looking." He said it like there was a meaningful distinction, judging by his expression, those were completely different activities.. He was stil
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 48: The Woman at the Funeral Door
(Draxler POV) I turned away from the corridor toward the main entrance, and she was standing there. Five years. I'd spent five years with a torn piece of wedding veil in a locked drawer and a woman I couldn't stop looking for, and now she was twelve feet away in the entrance hall of Blackthorn, wearing black, holding a funeral program, and looking at me with an expression that said she'd already calculated the exits. Marcus had been mid-sentence — something about timing, about the legal team arriving early — and he stopped. Whatever Marcus was saying disappeared into background noise. Keyla. Every photograph I'd collected suddenly felt useless. *Her.* Recognition arrived through the smallest things, something about the way she held her shoulders that I'd thought about more than I was ever going to admit to anyone. She looked like someone life had reshaped.. Different. Like someone who'd spent five years learning to take up less space and had become very good at it. She'd seen me
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 47: Blackthorn Manor Waits
(Keyla POV) The rain started somewhere around the last mile of private road, and by the time the gate came into view — iron, tall, the kind that seemed designed to remind you whose territory this was — the windows were streaked and the late afternoon light had gone flat and grey. Blackthorn Manor appeared through it like a fact rather than a building. Stone, old, four storeys with the kind of proportions that communicated money so far back it had stopped needing to be discussed. I'd been here twice before. Two visits had been enough to leave a mark. Adrian had insisted would go well and which had not. I'd stood at that same gate both times, on a sunny day the first time and a mild evening the second, and it had been unsettling without ever needing to announce itself. In the rain, in mourning black, it was something else. His nose was practically against the glass. "It's enormous," Leo said, face pressed to the glass. A second later: "Like in the book with the dragon." I didn'
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 46: Three Tickets Home
(Keyla POV) Leo never took his eyes off the window. "Are we going to meet the monsters or the family first?" Leo asked this with his face pressed against the airplane window, watching clouds slide past like he'd never seen any before, even though we'd flown twice for client work and he'd been bored both times. I looked up from the folder in my lap. "Neither." Leo finally glanced away from the clouds. "We're going to meet some lawyers." His disappointment was instant. "That's boring." On that point, we were in complete agreement. "Very." He seemed satisfied with this and went back to the window, his small backpack wedged between his feet — packed with exactly the things he'd insisted on: three toy cars, a picture book, and a stuffed rabbit that had lost one ear in a washing machine incident two years ago and never fully recovered. I'd checked his passport three times before we left the apartment. Every few hours I found myself reaching for it again, just to look at his photo
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 45: The Funeral Notice
(Keyla POV) The envelope was heavier than it had any right to be. It came through the regular mail slot, it looked like the sort of thing people accidentally throw away, because it didn't look urgent. Just thick cream paper, my name typed cleanly above. An address almost nobody should've been able to trace. Then I saw the seal. Black wax, pressed with a crest — a shield, two crossed keys, a motto in Latin I couldn't read but recognized anyway, because I'd seen it engraved on cufflinks and stitched into linens for the better part of a year, half a decade ago. For a second, throwing it away felt easier than opening it.Nora had already noticed something was wrong. "What is it?" Nora was at the kitchen table, laptop open, but she looked up at whatever had crossed my face.The words sounded strange out loud. "It's—" I turned it over. The seal was unbroken. "It's from them." She was already moving before I'd finished speaking — she told me to sit down first, which I did, and then she
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 44: Blackthorn Goes Silent
(Draxler POV) Every hallway at Blackthorn was too quiet. I'd grown up in this house, and I knew its sounds — the particular creak of the east staircase, the way voices carried from the breakfast room if the kitchen door was left open, the staff moving through corridors with the kind of practiced
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 43: The Last Signature
(Augustus POV) Augustus's hand wouldn't stop shaking. He'd asked Holt to come at six in the morning, he'd wanted the meeting finished before the day officially began. and now, propped up against three pillows with the oxygen line taped under his nose, he was trying to sign his name on a document
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 42: The Birthday Without a Father
(Keyla POV) Leo blew out four candles in one breath, which he was very proud of, and then immediately asked, "Do wishes work for people you've never met?" Nora and I exchanged a quick glance. Nora, mid-photo, lowered her phone. "What kind of wish?" Something in Leo's tone made Nora ask instead of
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 41: Eleanor Opens a Drawer
(Third Person Limited Eleanor POV) Years of marriage had taught her exactly when Augustus stopped being a risk. Then she went to his study. Curiosity had stopped being curiosity sometime during dinner. She pulled on the gloves automatically, the same way other people locked doors. There had been
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