Semua Bab Wanting my best friend’s brother : Bab 41 - Bab 50

Ethan was standing just outside my office door when I walked out. He looked up from his phone the moment he heard my footsteps and that dangerous smile he always carried whenever he saw me appeared immediately. The kind that made it very hard to stay composed."There she is," he said.I walked toward him, trying not to look as exhausted as I felt after hours of meetings and discussions."Hey," I replied, already smiling."You came all the way here?" I asked.He slipped his phone into his pocket casually while giving me a hug. "Well, I had to check if my girlfriend was still alive and I’m sure you haven’t had anything to eat since morning."I laughed softly. "How do you even know that?"Before he could answer, I heard the sound of heels behind me. I didn't even need to turn around to know who it was."Ethan."His expression shifted slightly. He looked genuinely surprised in the space of a second before he recovered."Chloe," he said. "I didn't know you'd be here.""Yeah, I had a meetin

I just sat there in my car for a long time, after I had walked out of Ethan’s sight. At some point, the tears had slowed down but the ache hadn't. Even my body seemed too exhausted to keep up with the intensity of the tears anymore. Outside the windshield, people moved normally across the street. Cars passed and someone even laughed nearby.Meanwhile, my entire world felt like it had cracked open in the span of ten minutes. My phone lit up on the passenger seat. It was Ethan’s call. I stared at his name on the screen until it stopped ringing. Then it started again a few seconds later and I just turned my face away and looked out the window instead. My phone stopped ringing, then it buzzed with multiple texts. I reached over slowly and put the phone on silent before turning it face down on the seat without reading a single word. The silence that followed was worse than the ringing had been. At least the calls gave me something to be angry at. The silence just left me alone with my own

I arrived at the studio 40 minutes early. I told myself it was because I had emails to catch up on and also the fitting schedule needed one final review before everyone arrived. There were fabric notes I hadn't finished annotating from the previous session that I had to work on too and all of that was technically true. But the real reason I was sitting at my desk before eight in the morning with a coffee I kept forgetting to drink was that I needed time to prepare myself before Chloe walked through that door for our meeting. And no matter how badly I wanted to avoid it, today’s fitting meeting was already scheduled days before and I knew Chloe would be here.I opened my laptop and emails immediately flooded the screen. I pulled up the fitting schedule. I read through the first section carefully. The model confirmations, arrival times, and collection order were all laid out cleanly. I stared at one email for almost three full minutes before realizing I had already read the same paragra

Ethan looked away briefly like he was deciding how much truth would make things worse."Because I mentioned it to her that you might stop by that morning," he said quietly. "I wasn’t hiding it from her. I told her she had to leave before I got back from the grocery store and she agreed but she stayed back." He kept staring at me looking disappointed in himself.The air between us went very cold. Everything Ethan said had changed how things were but I still felt betrayed that his carelessness had led me straight into Chloe’s trap to set us apart. And to Chloe, the whole thing had been a performance designed entirely for my arrival. I stayed quiet for a moment while my brain rearranged and put the pieces together, realizing the possibilities of what he had just said."Wow..." I exhaled slowly. "So she stood in your apartment and in your shirt?" I said finally, my voice was steady even though my hands were not. "Knowing I was coming?" I swallowed hard."And knowing exactly what I would t

Throughout the entire walk back from the café, Chloe’s words stayed inside my head like a background noise I couldn’t switch off. I hated that she had succeeded in doing exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t let her do. By the time I got back to the studio, I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. I was just unsettled. Maya looked up the moment I walked in and followed me into my office."Did you meet her? How was it?" Maya asked.I sat down and dropped my bag on my desk. I let out a long breath before answering."It was…" I paused, "a lot."Maya frowned and pulled out the chair opposite me. "What did she say?"I hesitated because saying it out loud somehow made it feel more real."She said Ethan left her when things got hard," I said finally. "That he relocated while she was grieving her dad. And he has a habit of walking away when life becomes too much."Maya’s expression didn’t change immediately. "And?""And that’s it.""That’s it?" she repeated.I nodded."I’m only worried because