Craved By My Husband's Best Friend 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 121 - 챕터 130

Xavier POVI did not wait. I did not even breathe.I had my hand on Ethan Harrison's collar before the door swung shut behind her, and I do not remember crossing the room. I remember the sound of a chair going over and Marcus saying, sir, and the sensation of the man's coat bunched in my fist as I drove him backward against the wall beside the coat check."Do you have any idea," I said, low and shaking, "what you have just done?""Exposed you." His eyes were wide but his mouth was smiling. "Finally. It was a public service.""You stood in front of her and read it aloud like a menu.""I stood in front of her and told her the truth. A concept you seem to find unfamiliar." He licked his lip. "Go on, Xavier. Hit me. Please. I would love a witness. I would love a courtroom. I have fourteen phones pointed at me right now and every one of them has a video."My fist was already drawn back. I could feel the muscle in my shoulder bunch. I could see the exact spot on his jaw. The wild, ugly part

Marissa POV It took me four weeks to walk back into the Sterling Holdings building.I did it on a bright, bitter morning in early January, wearing the navy blazer from the courthouse and carrying a single sealed envelope. Nobody stopped me at the lobby. A few people in the elevator looked at their shoes. On the twelfth floor, the whole department went quiet as I passed, and I kept my chin up and my steps even and my eyes on the glass door at the end of the corridor.Rachel Coleman was waiting behind her desk with a cup of tea she had clearly made for me and a face that had not slept."I know why you came," she said. "Sit. Please. Let me say something first."I sat. She slid a thin file across the desk."That is my interview note," she said. "The one I wrote before Mr. Sterling's email ever reached me. Read it."I opened it. It was one page, written in Rachel's neat blue ink on the morning of my interview. Portfolio exceptional. Strongest natural light work I have seen in five years.

Marissa POVThe engagement party was held on the second Saturday of March at the Sterling family house, in the long glass sunroom where I had once eaten a croissant under Eleanor's twinkling gaze.I had not planned to go. I had told Alina, twice, that I would send flowers. Then she had called me at midnight, weeping with laughter, and said, "Marissa Jennings, if you are not at my engagement party, I will personally drag you out of that bakery loft by your ponytail."So I went. I wore a simple dove blue dress and my hair loose, and I carried a small black velvet box in my bag.The sunroom was full of white orchids and warm light and about forty guests. Eleanor, glowing in a pale lilac gown, sat in a wicker chair near the fireplace with a blanket tucked around her knees and her hand tucked into Arthur's. He did not let go of it all evening. Hailey was there in emerald silk, holding a glass of champagne and talking with her hands to a tall man with light blonde hair, a silver septum ring

Xavier POVI arrived at the coffee shop at the corner of Calder and Third twenty six minutes early.It was a small place with mismatched chairs and a chalkboard menu and a barista with a silver nose stud who looked at me in my charcoal coat, then at the clock, then at me again, and said, "Rough morning?""I am waiting for someone.""Ah. A date." She said it the way a surgeon says, ah, a tumor. "The corner table has the best light. And the radiator does not knock.""Thank you.""Do not thank me. Order something. You are making the other customers nervous."I ordered a black coffee and sat at the corner table with my hands flat on the wood. I had not brought flowers. I had not brought cookies. I had brought nothing at all, which Dr. Roth had told me was a form of courage, and which felt, at that moment, like being sent into a snowstorm in a paper shirt.At ten o'clock exactly, the door opened.She wore jeans, a cream sweater and her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder. The spring li

Marissa POVThe two families met on the last Sunday of August in the garden of the Sterling estate.I had wanted it to be small. Xavier, with a visible effort not to arrange anything, had asked me what I wanted, and I had said, a table, some food and nobody pretending. Eleanor, who had no such restraint, had hired a caterer, strung lanterns through the maples and laid a long white table beneath the oldest tree.My mother arrived in a pale blue dress she had bought specially, clutching a covered dish and a jar of her own tomato preserves. Hailey drove her. Hailey had also dressed up for the occasion, which meant she was wearing a green jumpsuit and a belt made of tiny silver chains, and Elon Junior followed behind them carrying a crate of cookies and looking as if he wished to apologize to every plant in the garden."Mrs. Sterling," said my mother, when Eleanor came down the steps on Arthur's arm."Please. Eleanor.""Then I am Josephine." They shook hands. They held on. Two small, dete