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Chapter 43 — His Past

ผู้เขียน: Luna Hart
last update วันที่เผยแพร่: 2026-06-26 16:40:21

I found it by accident.

I was in the study looking for a charger — the kind of errand that had become unremarkable over months of coming and going through this house, when I opened the wrong drawer.

It was near the back. A photograph, not framed, just loose between two folders like it had been placed there quickly and not moved since. I almost closed the drawer without looking properly.

I didn't.

The man in the photo was Damian, unmistakably, but a version of him I had never seen. Younger — not
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  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 43 — His Past

    I found it by accident.I was in the study looking for a charger — the kind of errand that had become unremarkable over months of coming and going through this house, when I opened the wrong drawer.It was near the back. A photograph, not framed, just loose between two folders like it had been placed there quickly and not moved since. I almost closed the drawer without looking properly.I didn't.The man in the photo was Damian, unmistakably, but a version of him I had never seen. Younger — not dramatically, just enough to show in the set of his shoulders, the slight looseness around his jaw. He was laughing. Properly, genuinely, the kind of laugh that didn't know it was being observed. The kind I had never once seen on his face in all the months I had known him as something more than Chloe's father.Beside him was a woman.She was turned slightly toward him, her hand on his arm, her expression warm in the particular way of someone completely at ease with the person beside them. She w

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 42 — Chloe Sees Something

    It happened at the gallery.The Meridian show was the kind of event Chloe had been excited about for two weeks — she had texted me about it four separate times, sent a photo of the outfit she was planning, and arrived twenty minutes early to walk the first room before the crowd filled in. By the time Damian and I arrived separately, she had already identified three pieces she wanted to discuss at length and one artist she was prepared to argue about."You came," she said when she saw me, immediately linking her arm through mine."You asked me four times.""Because I wasn't sure you'd actually come." She pulled me toward a large canvas on the far wall. "Look at this one. Tell me what you see."I told her what I saw. She disagreed with most of it, which was exactly what she had been hoping for."No, no — see the way the light falls on the left side? That's not accidental. He's doing something with the asymmetry." She tilted her head. "You're looking at the surface.""Most people look at

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 41 — Something Like Normal

    He texted on a Wednesday afternoon. Not about the evening or the suite or anything that required a coded answer.Just: *Saturday morning. Early. I know somewhere quiet.*I read it twice.Then: *Okay.*He picked me up two streets from my building at seven-thirty, before the city had properly woken up. I got in the car and he glanced at me once and pulled back into the road without ceremony, which I appreciated. No preamble. No checking whether I had changed my mind.We drove for about twenty minutes, out of the central streets and into a quieter neighbourhood I didn't know well — wide roads, old trees, the kind of area that felt like it belonged to a slower pace of life.He parked outside a small place on a side street. The kind of café that didn't have a sign you could read from the car, just a window full of warm light and two tables outside that nobody was using yet."You've been here before," I said."Occasionally. They don't know me." He opened the door. "That was the point."Insi

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 40 — Not Leaving

    Chloe cried once, properly, about twenty minutes after I arrived.Not dramatically. She wasn't that kind of person. It was just one moment where something she was saying about the boy — what he had said, how he had said it, the particular cruelty of someone who knew exactly which words would land — caught up with her, and her voice broke, and she pressed her hand over her eyes and said *sorry* twice in quick succession."Don't apologise," I said."I'm not even that upset about him," she said, which was what people always said when they were more upset than they wanted to be. "It's just—" She exhaled. "I let myself think it was going somewhere. That's the embarrassing part.""That's not embarrassing. That's just hoping.""Same thing sometimes.""No," I said. "It really isn't."She looked at me. Her eyes were red at the edges but she had composed herself again, the way she always did, quickly and without fuss. "When did you get so wise?""I've always been wise. You just don't listen."S

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 39 — Distance Attempt

    I woke before either of them.The room was unfamiliar in the grey light of early morning — not unwelcoming, just not mine, every shape slightly off from what I expected when I opened my eyes. Damian was still asleep beside me, which was its own kind of strange.I checked the time. Six-forty.I dressed quietly and let myself out, moving down the hallway as carefully as I could, past Chloe’s door — still closed, still silent.I came around the corner near the kitchen and stopped.Marta was already up, moving between the counter and the kettle with the quiet efficiency of someone who had been running this house long before I ever set foot in it. She looked up when she heard me.“Miss Eva.” She didn’t look surprised, exactly. Just attentive, the way she always was. “You’re up early.”“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I came down to grab my charger — left it in the study last night.”“Mm.” She turned back to the kettle. “There’s coffee on if you’d like some before you head off.”“I’m okay, thank

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   Chapter 38 — Fracture Line

    Chloe didn’t wake up properly.Damian crossed the living room and crouched beside the couch, and she stirred enough to mumble something incoherent and let him guide her up by the arm, half-asleep and pliant the way she always was when sleep caught her somewhere other than her bed.“Come on,” he said quietly. “Bed.”“M’fine,” she mumbled. “Just resting my eyes.”“Sure you were.”She leaned into him without resistance, and he walked her down the hallway, one arm steady around her shoulders. I stayed in the kitchen, drying the last of the glasses, listening to the soft sound of her door closing.He came back a few minutes later.The house was quiet now. The television had been switched off. The afternoon light had shifted into early evening, soft and gold through the kitchen window.Neither of us said anything for a moment.I set the last glass down.“She’s out for the night,” he said.“Already?”“She does this. Falls asleep mid-afternoon, sleeps through to morning.” He leaned against th

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   CHAPTER 17 Act Normal

    By the time I got to the office, I had already told myself three different versions of the same lie.You're fine.It was one night.You can act normal.The problem was that none of those things felt entirely true.I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and stared at the spreadsheet in front of me for

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   CHAPTER 14 Too Close Again

    By the time Chloe's brain finally gave up, the table looked worse than it had an hour earlier.Books were spread open in different directions, loose papers stacked over each other, and three pens had somehow rolled all the way to Damian's side of the living room without either of us noticing.Chloe

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   CHAPTER 12 Lines You Don't Cross

    Chloe's house always felt different in the afternoon.The light came through the tall windows in long strips, stretching across the wooden floor and the pale sofa like quiet shadows. It was calmer than the nights here. Less tension in the air, less noise from the city outside.I dropped my bag on t

  • Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father   CHAPTER 10 Too Comfortable

    The house felt different at night. Not quieter. Just slower, like everything had settled into its own rhythm. Chloe had gone upstairs early, saying she needed to finish something before the week became hectic again. Music drifted faintly from her room, sof

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