Semua Bab He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge: Bab 151 - Bab 160

The day the archive officially changed felt quieter than I expected. There were no speeches, no photographers, no glittering launch banners across the boutique windows. The announcement went up on our small corner of the website the night before, a single paragraph stating that the student archive was now a formal learning program. It carried my name, but in truth, it belonged to all the hands that had passed through here.We opened early that morning. Claudia was already in the back when I arrived, leaning over a table with a neat row of folded muslin and a stack of labeled boxes. The smell of fresh coffee drifted through the air, and somewhere behind the fabric shelves, I could hear the muffled hum of the small heater we had pulled out for winter mornings.I set my bag down and walked toward the archive room. It had always been small, tucked away at the far end of the boutique, past the workstations and the racks of finished garments. For years, it had been littl

The next morning, the rain had cleared. The streets looked scrubbed clean, the sky pale and wide. I opened the curtains in the living room while Julian was still in bed, letting the light spill in and chase away the last of the night. The apartment felt unusually still, as though it knew there were things waiting to be said.I made coffee and sat at the kitchen table, my hands wrapped around the warm mug. My mind kept circling back to our conversation from the night before, not in a frantic way, but like a tide that kept returning. We had gone to sleep without deciding anything, but the weight of the question hadn’t lessened. It was just sitting there, patient, waiting for us to pick it back up.Julian came out a little later, hair still mussed from sleep, a T-shirt soft with age. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat across from me without speaking at first. There was a kind of gentleness to the quiet between us, not strained but deliberate, as if neither of us wanted to rush int

Julian was still asleep when I came into the kitchen that morning. The card Marco had given me was exactly where I left it on the table, like it had been waiting for me to admit that I was already thinking about it. I made coffee and stood with my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my fingers before I even took a sip.The name on the card was printed in gold, the kind that looks confident without trying too hard. I turned it over slowly, as if the back might tell me more than the front. It didn’t.Julian came in, rubbing the back of his neck, hair still sticking up from sleep. He reached for a mug from the shelf.“Morning,” he said, voice still thick.“Morning,” I replied.He nodded at the card. “That’s the guy from yesterday?”“Yes. His name’s Marco. He says he’s seen some of my old work. From the Noelle years.”Julian sat across from me, cradling his mug. “Old work like…?”“My earliest designs,” I said. “The ones I drew in that tiny apartment. He says they’re going to

The package stayed on the dining table overnight, untouched. I passed it twice before bed, resisting the urge to undo the twine. In the morning, the first thing I saw when I came into the kitchen was the brown paper catching a thin strip of sunlight through the blinds. The light made the paper look softer, almost worn, and the twine cast a neat, straight shadow across it.Julian had already left. His coffee cup sat rinsed and upside down by the sink. On the counter was a note in his handwriting — Meeting early. See you later. The apartment was still. I could hear the faint hum of the fridge and the occasional groan of the old pipes when the building shifted.I made coffee and sat at the table, turning my chair slightly so I wouldn’t be looking directly at the package. I didn’t want it to pull at me before I was ready.By the time I reached the boutique, the workroom was alive. Claudia was leaning over the cutting table, scissors making their clean, deliberate sound through a length of

The light in the boutique felt different that morning. It was softer somehow, spilling through the front windows in a way that made the fabrics on the racks look almost weightless. I was rearranging a display near the register when Lena walked in with her tablet in hand.She didn’t even take off her coat before speaking. “We need to talk about the emails.”I set the hanger back on the rack. “Which ones?”“The ones from investors. More this week than we’ve had in the last three months combined. Some are from names you’d recognise.” She placed the tablet on the counter, the screen bright with a neatly organised list of offers.I didn’t look right away. I had learned over the years that the longer I kept my eyes on the work in front of me, the steadier my thoughts stayed. “And what’s your feeling about them?” I asked.She gave me a careful look. “That depends on yours.”Julian arrived a moment later, holding two coffees. He caught the edge of Lena’s expression and raised his brows at me.