All Chapters of My Dearest Beautiful Cousin: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ENOCHEnoch Wade ran on six hours of sleep and had done so since university, a discipline he had developed not from necessity but from the understanding that the hours between midnight and six belonged to no one and were therefore the most productive ones available. Tonight, he had used them well: two reports reviewed, one board memo drafted, a contract flagged for legalities that would have sat until Monday if he hadn't caught it.His phone lit up at 2:17 in the morning and he looked at it the way he barely spared it a glance. He had trained himself never to react before he processed.The name on the screen was one he had assigned a ringtone to, so when he heard it, he reached for the phone before his brain caught up with his hands.Anna.He picked up on the third ring because he was a man with some discipline left."Anna," he said carefully, worried about her and excited to hear her voice all at onceWhat followed was "Cousiiiiin," stretched and warm. He sat back in his chair and l

ANNAThe ice had worked its magic on her puffy eyes.She had spent Sunday night doing two things: crying and pressing zip lock bags of ice against her eyes with a methodical focus. She had decided that puffy eyes were the one indignity she was not walking into Monday morning with. By six AM the damage was manageable. By seven, with concealer and the specific determination of someone who has something to prove, it was gone.She stood at her mirror and looked at herself.Then she went to her wardrobe and reached past everything sensible and pulled out her structured emerald green dress. She had bought it four months ago on impulse, she was glad she did. The dress hugged her figure and complimented her skin so nicely.The heels came last. Six inches, nude, reserved. She had worn them twice in five years. Once to a pitch meeting, once to a gala where Jack wanted her on his arm and she wanted to feel like someone worth looking at. Today they were purely for herself. She put them on, stood

Anna opened her eyes to the dark and stayed perfectly still, listening to Maya’s steady breathing on the couch. The fridge hummed. Every creak of the floor told her this place was already letting her go. She slipped out of bed, made coffee, showered, and by eight she stood in the middle of the living room with one suitcase, one carry-on, and the small box that held everything she refused to leave behind. Maya shuffled in, wrapped in a blanket draped like a cape with her hair sticking up in ten directions. She blinked at the stripped room. “That’s it?” she asked, voice still rough with sleep. “Yeah,” Anna said. “Five years packed into three pieces of luggage. Apparently that’s all it takes.” Maya crossed the room and slid an arm around her shoulders. “I’m going to miss you so damn much.” “You’re flying over in three months. I already booked the guest room.” “I know the date. I’m still going to miss you every single day until then.” Maya squeezed once, then stepped back. “Shower.

ANNAThe first thought that surfaced through the fog of sleep was that she was lying on something so soft and so expensive that it felt illegal to exist here without a signed contract and a credit check.She stretched both arms out, then rolled over and screamed into the pillow. Not a dignified twenty-five-year-old woman scream. A little kid scream.She was here. Actually here. In London. In Enoch's apartment.Anna kicked her legs under the duvet, grinning like an idiot. Then she rolled the other way because the sheets felt too good not to. She gave herself sixty seconds of pure, stupid happiness. When she finished, she sat up and looked around.The guest room with cream walls and dark wood furniture was bigger than her entire old apartment. Everything was in the right place. Through the gap in the curtains, she could see buildings climbing toward a grey sky.She padded to the window and pulled the curtains open."Oh," she breathed.The grand city spread out before her full of poss