My Finance's Brother's Forbidden Game のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

Stephanie's POVWhen Lara was still alive, my biggest problems were petty manageable things.What skirt to wear to a party. Whether to straighten my hair or leave it wavy. If I’d ever perfect the delicate art of the winged eyeliner. What color to paint my nails. Whether my phone battery would make it through the day. If I’d be able to convince Lara to let me get a tattoo before I turned eighteen.Back then, I worried about the same things that every other seventeen-year-old worried about: university applications, final exams, friend group drama, and crushes.Life used to be simple.Or at least, simpler.Now I had a toddler to care for. Claire. Nineteen months old, full of ice cream and chaos, and way too much energy for her tiny body. And someone, now, she was my responsibility. She wasn’t just the only piece of my sister I had left, she was also the only family I had left.It wasn’t like I didn’t love her. I did, wholly and fiercely. But loving her and being able to properly raise he

Larissa's POV The scowl Stephanie gave Brayden lingered, though he ignored it, a faint flicker of amusement ghosting across his face.I could tell she hated being called ‘kid’. Probably because she was teetering on that thin line between almost-adulthood and being treated like a child. At that age, I hated it too. Still, I understood why he had done it. Stephanie’s nerves were frayed and she was panicking. He saw the chance to annoy her out of her funk and he took it.Now, Stephanie sat on the chair beside me, her leg still bouncing anxiously. An internet search had informed us that the flexible laryngoscopy was a quick procedure that only took a couple of minutes. Fifteen minutes tops, the article had said. But the seconds in the consultation room felt like they were dripping instead of ticking by.In real life, when doing mundane activities, fifteen minutes isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things. But in a hospital, with a toddler as the patient, fifteen minutes stretches i

Larissa's POV “The two of you are really gross when you get all lovey-dovey.” Stephanie said once the door closed.“What?”“I mean, he could have just said goodbye and left he didn’t have to do the whole kiss your head and stare into the depths of your soul thing that he did before he left.” She said. “Very lovey-dovey. Very gross.”“I… He didn’t… We…” I stammered trying to find something, anything to say. I couldn’t.Stephanie was wrong. Brayden and I weren’t lovey-dovey because our entire relationship was a carefully constructed lie. We were just good actors.Right?Still, acting or not, my face was warm and I knew that it was also reddened.“I didn’t think he had it in him.” She continued. “I mean, he’s still got that ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe. Like did you see how quickly the receptionist attended to us once she found out that she was dealing with a Patterson? I almost kinda won’t blame someone for letting that kind of power get to their head. But despite all that, he’s not like

Larissa's POV I hadn’t slept since then. How could I?Claire nodded off after a couple more minutes of sniffling. Her small hand had curled into Stephanie’s hoodie like a lifeline, and she’d placed her head on Stephanie’s chest, and then she was gone.Stephanie had tried to stay awake but after a while, she had fallen asleep too, both arms wrapped protectively around her niece.It was just me. Physically and mentally, I was exhausted. But sleep didn’t come.My mind looped back to the earlier hoursClaire’s screams. The raw panic in her voice when she called out for her mother. My own hopelessness on the matter. I had tried to help. But I wasn’t Lara. I wasn’t her mother. And I would never be.It had hit me hard last night. Not for the first time, but harder than before.Lara was gone.Dead.Because of Benjamin.I looked at the two figures curled together on the bed, a teenage girl barely holding herself together, clutching a toddler who would never again be held by her mother.There

Larissa's POV “Balloon!” Claire announced for the fiftieth time as we waited for the nurse to hand over the discharge papers.“Yes, bug.” Stephanie said patiently. “You have a balloon. You’ve been telling us since you got it.”Claire held up the twisting tangle of pink and purple latex shaped like an octopus with way too many tentacles. She looked thrilled with it.“And I got one too.” Stephanie added, lifting her own: a blue sword-looking thing. “Mine’s cooler though.”“You bullied a staff member into making you a balloon?” Brayden asked, amused.“Such vile accusations. I did no such thing. I don’t bully people.” She said. “I just said I was traumatized and that balloon animals were therapeutic and that it would be inhuman of him to deny me access to a balloon animal simply because I was older than the other kids. That’s ageism.”“So you emotionally coerced him into giving you one?” Brayden asked.“Perhaps.”He shook his head as he signed the last page of Claire’s discharge forms.