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Chapter 53: The Child Who Would Not Shake His Hand
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2026-06-25 08:35:50
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One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 55: Named by the Dead
(Keyla POV) I felt the change in the room before I saw where everyone was looking. Not dramatically. It happened quietly enough that someone outside the room might have missed it. But the attention moved, all of it, like water finding the lowest point, and somehow Leo noticed it before I did. He looked up from where he'd been examining the stitching on the arm of his chair and found four adults looking at him, and he did what he always did under unexpected scrutiny: he went very still and looked back. His fingers stopped playing with the stitching. By the time I realized what I was doing, my arm was already around him.. My arm went around him and he came without resistance as if he'd been waiting for permission. I kept my hand on his shoulder while Holt quietly rearranged the documents and the silence settled into something heavier. Holt adjusted the top page before speaking, "To clarify the language," Holt said, "and I should note that this is the limited language I'm authorize
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 54: The Sealed Room
(Keyla POV) Holt glanced once around the room before opening the folder in front of him "Before the will can be read," Holt said, "we must confirm all named parties are present." Nobody answered. A chair creaked somewhere to my left. The room he'd chosen for the preliminary meeting was the small sitting room off the library — which was probably deliberate. Nobody would mistake this room for somewhere people came to win arguments.. There were eight chairs arranged in a loose formation, a side table with water, and no flowers, which made it feel more like a boardroom than a house. The room had been stripped of anything that might soften what was about to happen. Eleanor had arrived first and taken the chair that communicated she'd arrived first. She sat with the quiet certainty of someone who expected everyone else to arrange themselves around her. Adrian was beside her, still performing grief in the slightly overworked way he'd been performing it all morning, the expression too cont
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 53: The Child Who Would Not Shake His Hand
(Keyla POV) Holt had asked for everyone in the outer sitting room before the formal reading — family and any guests named in the estate proceedings, which meant Keyla was required to be there, which meant Leo was with her, and which meant the first time Draxler approached Leo directly, it happened under fluorescent lighting with a solicitor's assistant hovering in the doorway. I saw him coming before he reached us.. I'll give him that. Not the way someone moves when they're entitled to a space, but the careful, deliberate approach of a person who was aware they could be asked to leave. He stopped a respectful distance away before lowering himself to Leo's level.. Leo had been standing slightly in front of me, partly because that was where he'd decided to stand and partly because Leo had strong opinions about geometry and this was where the geometry made sense to him. He watched Draxler descend to his level with the expression he gave everything he was still deciding about. Withou
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 52: Adrian Counts the Years
(Third Person Limited - Adrian POV) The guest bathroom on the second floor had a lock that actually worked, which was the only reason Adrian had chosen it. Cold water rushed into the basin while Adrian stared at his reflection instead of it, because he needed to think and heat made him feel like he was sinking — and in his phone's notes app, because he needed to write it down to be sure, he'd typed out a timeline. His eyes kept returning to the same date. October.. The boy at the funeral looked — Four? Five? Adrian was terrible at guessing children's ages. Hard to tell with children that age, they ranged, but the child's demeanor and height suggested four, maybe just turned five. He'd kept staring at Draxler across the reception room with those unsettling, assessing eyes, and Keyla had put herself between them with the speed of someone trained for it. October wedding. Child approximately four to five years old. The second calculation didn't help. It only gave him the same answ
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 51: Do Not Approach My Son
(Keyla POV) The break between the service and reception lasted fifteen minutes. Apparently that was all the time Draxler needed to find me. The fifteen minutes when the family dispersed to compose themselves and the guests drifted toward the tea and the awkward condolences, and I'd stepped away from Nora and Leo for exactly the length of time it took to find a bathroom and check that my face still looked like a face. Coming back, he was there. He'd chosen his position carefully. Close enough that I couldn't miss him. Far enough that no one could accuse him of stopping me. He was simply present in it, standing near the arrangement of funeral lilies that one of Eleanor's staff had placed on the side table, and when he saw me he didn't pretend he'd been heading somewhere else. "You have one minute," I said, before he could open with anything. Surprisingly, he didn't argue. Draxler held my gaze for a second. "How old is he?" I said, "That's not your question to ask." He exhaled on
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 37: A Better Apartment
(Keyla POV) Leo ran into the room ahead of us and stopped in the middle of it. Nobody would've mistaken it for a large bedroom — small enough that the toy chest and the single bed we'd ordered would take up most of the floor space, the window looking out onto a courtyard rather than a wall, at le
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 36: The Old Man's Cough
(Augustus POV) He folded the handkerchief before anyone saw it. The movement had become automatic. By the time anyone looked his way, the handkerchief was already gone.. The sight no longer surprised him. Three months was long enough to stop calling it temporary, which was long enough that Augu
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 35: The Boy in the Addendum
(Keyla POV) I almost missed him. The entrance was rarely used unless someone wanted to avoid attention, the one that didn't bring you past the main reception room where Eleanor spent most of her mornings. The kind of briefcase that usually arrived attached to invoices nobody argued with. He alrea
One Night with My Ex-Fiancé’s Ruthless Brother Chapter 34: Augustus Writes a Name
(Augustus POV) "How difficult," Augustus said, "is it to protect a child that no one is allowed to know exists?" Nineteen years working for the Churchills had trained most visible reactions out of him.. "Money is one thing. Identity is another. Inheritance is a different fight entirely." "Eventu
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