Home / MM Romance / The Brother I Shouldn’t Want / Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

All Chapters of The Brother I Shouldn’t Want: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

86 Chapters

041

꧁࿇ Ｅｒｉｃ࿇꧂One Day AgoThe knock on the ward door was soft, careful, almost hesitant.I had been staring at the pale hospital wall for so long that the sound snapped me out of my thoughts immediately. For a moment I didn’t move. My chest tightened as a familiar possibility crossed my mind, one I had been replaying over and over since everything fell apart.Tim.The idea came so naturally that my heart began to pound before I could stop it. It made sense, didn’t it? After everything that happened, after the argument, after the things he said, maybe he had finally come to his senses. Maybe he realized he had gone too far. Maybe he came to apologize.My fingers curled slightly against the blanket as I waited.The knock came again, before the door opened slowly.I lifted my head, fully expecting to see him standing there, looking guilty, maybe even nervous the way he always did when he knew he had crossed a line. For a split second I even imagined the expression on his face when he would

042

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the smooth, decorated with subtle patterns, lit by a warm chandelier that cast a soft golden glow across the room.For a moment I just lay there, confused.My head felt heavy, as if someone had stuffed cotton inside it. The last thing I remembered was sitting at that restaurant across from the old man. Tea, the faint bitterness on my tongue, the way the room began to spin.Then darkness.I pushed myself up slowly.The bed beneath me was wide and soft, the sheets smooth against my palms. The room around me looked like something from a luxury hotel, thick carpets, polished furniture, heavy curtains drawn over tall windows.A guest room.A very expensive one.And then I saw him.Eric was standing a few steps away from the bed, staring at me, he looked completely unharmed.No bruises. No restraints. No signs that he had been kidnapped or mistreated. Just Eric, dressed neatly, his hair slightly messy as if he had been running

043

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂Eric and I returned to New York the next day. The flight back felt strangely quiet, the kind of silence that lingers between people when there are too many things left unsaid. Eric sat beside me calmly the entire time, occasionally flipping through a magazine that he clearly wasn’t paying attention to. If someone looked at him, they would think nothing unusual had happened, as if the night before had never existed.But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.The guest room. The way he had suddenly pinned me to the bed. The forced kiss. And then the way everything changed when he broke down crying in my arms. The memory lingered in my mind no matter how much I tried to push it away.Now he looked completely normal again, composed and steady, as though the emotional outburst had simply vanished overnight. I couldn’t decide if that made me feel relieved or uneasy.When we landed in New York, the city welcomed us the same way it always did, endless traffic, crowded streets, people

044

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂Six months had passed, and I still hadn’t heard a single word from Frank.At first, I kept track of the days without meaning to, counting them one after another like it would make a difference, like if I paid enough attention to time passing, something would change. But somewhere along the way, I stopped counting.The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and eventually all that was left was the silence he never broke.I still sent messages.Not as often as before, and definitely not as desperate as those first few days, but I never really stopped. Sometimes I kept it simple, pretending nothing had changed, asking if he was busy or if he was okay, typing words that felt normal even when nothing about the situation was. Other times it was harder to pretend, and I would find myself staring at the screen longer than I should, typing something, deleting it, typing again, only to erase everything before finally sending something short and meaningless just so I wouldn’t

045

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂I drove over to the restaurant Eric had chosen, the city lights stretching endlessly ahead of me as traffic moved in slow, steady lines. The place wasn’t hard to find. It stood quietly among other buildings, not loud or overly flashy, but there was something about it that made it stand out anyway. Simple, elegant, the kind of place that didn’t need to prove anything because it already knew its worth.I parked and stepped out, adjusting my coat slightly before heading inside.The moment I walked in, a butler approached me without hesitation, polite and efficient, taking my coat before I could even say anything. I let him, offering a small nod as my eyes briefly scanned the interior. The lighting was soft, warm, casting a calm glow over everything. The kind of place where conversations were meant to be quiet and controlled, where nothing ever seemed out of place.A waitress approached me next and asked for my name. When I told her, she gave a small smile and gestured for me

046

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂For a moment, I really thought it was him. The feeling came first before my mind could catch up, that sudden tightness in my chest, the way my attention snapped in that direction like something inside me already knew. I saw the figure and without thinking, his name slipped out of my mouth.“Frank.”It didn’t even feel like a decision, just instinct.But then someone walked past, just a man heading somewhere else, blocking my view for barely a second, and when he moved again, the space where I had been looking was empty. There was no one there. No familiar figure, no presence, nothing that could explain why my heart was still beating so fast.I kept staring for a few seconds longer than I should have, like maybe if I waited, he would appear again, like I had just missed him. But nothing changed. People continued with their meals, waiters moved around, conversations carried on like normal, and it slowly sank in that there had been no one there at all.A small, quiet chuckle

047

꧁࿇ Ｅｒｉｃ࿇꧂I drove to the hospital with the soup still warm beside me, the lid sealed tight so it wouldn’t spill. I had picked it up from one of the restaurants Tim used to like, not because I didn’t know his taste had probably changed, but because I wanted things to feel familiar again. That was the point. Familiar meant safe, and safe meant he would come back to me the way he used to be, the way things were before everything started to shift out of place.Before Switzerland.Before Frank.I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as I drove, my jaw set, my thoughts running in quiet circles. Back then, Tim had been simple to understand. He worked, he came home, and everything in between always led back to me. He didn’t waste time on people who didn’t matter. He didn’t stay out late. He didn’t choose anyone else over me. It wasn’t something we talked about, not directly, but it was there, clear as day. I was at the center of his life whether he said it or not.And I liked it that

048

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂I didn’t know how long I had been asleep, but waking up felt like dragging myself out of something heavy. My body didn’t want to move, my head felt slow, and for a moment I just lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out where I was and what time it even was.“Tim.”I turned my head slightly and saw Sheila standing at the door, already dressed like she had finished her rounds. She stepped inside, her eyes scanning me briefly before she shook her head like she expected this.“You’re finally awake,” she said. “I was starting to think you’d sleep through everything.”I exhaled softly and sat up a little more. “What time is it?”“Late enough,” she replied, and then like it was nothing, she added, “Also, your boyfriend is waiting for you downstairs.”I paused completely.“My what?”She looked at me like I was the one being strange. “Your boyfriend. At the reception.”I frowned immediately. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”The words came out easily, naturally, but right a

049

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂By the time Eric left, the hospital had already slipped back into its usual rhythm, like nothing had happened. I finished my rounds without any real issues, moving from one patient to another, checking charts, giving instructions, doing everything I was supposed to do, but my mind wasn’t fully there.It kept circling back to Eric’s words.“Move back into my place.”I let out a quiet scoff under my breath as I signed off on a chart, closing it with more force than necessary before setting it aside. That wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not ever again. I had my own place, my own space, something I had worked hard to build for myself, and I wasn’t about to give that up just because Eric suddenly decided he wanted things to go back to how they used to be.It wasn’t even about the space, It was everything else. The way things had changed.Eric probably didn’t even realize it. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t care. Laura had been gone for a while now, some sudden trip bec

050

꧁♡ 𝓣𝓲𝓶♡꧂I didn’t know exactly when things started slipping.One moment, we were just sitting there, talking like normal people, drinks in hand, the soft music wrapping around us like background noise, and the next… I was laughing a little too loudly, words coming out easier than they should have, my thoughts loosening in a way that only alcohol seemed to allow.Somewhere between the first drink and whatever number we were on now, I had stopped keeping track.“Sheila,” I said at some point, leaning back slightly in my chair, my head feeling lighter than usual, “I feel like… we don’t do this enough.”She let out a short laugh, her own movements just a little slower than before. “That’s because we don’t do this at all.”“Yeah,” I nodded like that made complete sense, even though my thoughts were lagging behind slightly. “That’s… what I meant.”She shook her head, smiling in that amused way of hers before taking another sip from her glass. “Honestly, why haven’t we hung out before? We

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