Semua Bab Forbidden Desires: Falling For My Fiance's Brother: Bab 21 - Bab 30

The house was too quiet. Not the penthouse in the city, nor the campaign apartment her father kept near Capitol Hill. This was the old house—the one in Westchester, where she'd grown up. Where Damian had once fallen asleep on the staircase because he refused to go to bed without saying goodnight to her. The silence here wasn’t peaceful. It pressed in around her ribs like a weight. Like something missing. Anabelle walked slowly through the living room, her fingers grazing the back of the worn velvet couch. Everything was just as she remembered it. The same family portrait over the fireplace. The same cracked baseboard their mother used to complain about. Even the scent was familiar—lemons, furniture polish, and something faintly floral, like the perfume their housekeeper had worn for years. Their mother’s things were long gone. Anabelle had been six when the cancer took her. All she remembered was warmth, and soft humming in the kitchen. Damian remembered more as he used to talk abo

Morning crept in slowly through the half-drawn curtains, soft light edging across the hardwood floors of Damian’s apartment. Devon had barely slept, slumped awkwardly in the accent chair by the bookshelf. He shifted every now and then, spine stiff and neck sore, blinking against the weight behind his eyes. Across the room, Annabelle was curled on the couch beneath a throw blanket, one arm tucked under her cheek. Her breathing was steady, but even in sleep, her brow was drawn, as though grief had found a permanent place there. Devon sat forward, elbows on knees. His palms pressed together, thumbs tapping absently. He hadn’t meant to stay the night. But after that long talk, after the slow, quiet hours spent talking and not talking… there hadn’t seemed to be a good moment to leave. She hadn’t asked him to. She hadn’t needed to. And really, how could he? She was all that was left now. The last thread tying everything together. A buzz from his pocket broke the stillness. Devon slipped

The suit didn’t fit like it used to. Hugh Lawson stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom, straightening the collar for the third time. It was tailored only last year—one of those hand-stitched Italian things Annabelle had insisted he needed for campaign events. But today, it clung to him like an old regret, stiff and too dark. He sighed and reached for the tie on the dresser. Black silk, untouched since his father’s burial. He hadn’t worn this one for his wife’s funeral. He couldn't remember what he wore back then. That whole week had blurred into pill bottles and condolence cards. This one—this funeral—was different. “Sir?” came a voice from the hallway. His longtime driver, Mason. “I’ll be down in ten,” Hugh called back, his voice low but steady. The house was too quiet. Anabelle had left the previous day. She hadn’t told him where, but he didn’t press. She’d returned this morning, eyes red-rimmed, saying only, “I wanted to see the old place.” Then she'd gone to her room an

The rain has begun once again and the chapel fell into stillness, save for the faint hum of the rain brushing against the stained-glass windows. The minister’s voice had barely faded when Hugh Lawson rose to his feet. For a moment, all anyone could hear was the creak of the old wooden pew as he stepped out from it. Then silence, again. Annabelle held her breath. Hugh moved slowly toward the pulpit, not with the ease of a man in control, but like someone dragging the weight of an entire life behind him. His gray suit was immaculate, his tie straight. Yet there was something frayed about him—his hands trembled slightly as they gripped the podium, and when he looked up, his eyes seemed older than they had days ago. He cleared his throat once, but even that seemed rehearsed. “My son,” he began, his voice low, worn, and a little unsteady. “Damian was... many things.” A pause. A rustle in the seats behind him. “He was brilliant. Stubborn. Soft-hearted in ways he didn’t always show.

The next few days blurred past like a slow fog—thick, relentless, heavy with silence. Devon found himself drifting through them, going through motions without much thought. Sympathy calls poured in. Bouquets stacked in the foyer. Emails, handwritten cards, formal condolences from governors, foreign delegates, business associates who’d never met Damian but sent their grief like curated PR statements. Nothing felt real. Nothing except the letter still tucked in the inner pocket of his coat. He hadn’t told anyone. Not Anabelle. Not his father. Certainly not the Lawsons. The writing haunted him—tight, deliberate strokes, unsigned but heavy with implication. Someone knew. Not just about Damian, but about him. Them. That night. He’d read it too many times. Memorized the way the ink had pressed harder into certain letters, the erratic slant, the bite behind each word: "This doesn’t stay buried." After the funeral, the family retreated into separate silences. No one dared to disru