Lahat ng Kabanata ng He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Kabanata 201 - Kabanata 210

The front door had barely closed behind us when I reached for my bag, already thinking about the follow-up email I'd promised the funding contact from the forum. Damien watched me dig through it for a second, then simply lifted the whole bag off my shoulder before I'd found what I was looking for. "Damien.""Olivia.""Give me my laptop.""No." He said it so pleasantly, setting the bag on the counter well out of easy reach, that it took me a second to realize he meant it. "You said you didn't know how to do nothing. I'm teaching you. Lesson one is that the laptop stays where it is.""I only need ten minutes. One email.""The building will still be standing in two hours whether or not you answer it." He crossed his arms, entirely unbothered by my expression, clearly enjoying himself far more than the situation warranted. "What exactly happens if you wait?"I opened my mouth to explain and found, somewhat alarmingly, that I didn't actually have an answer. Nothing happened. Nobody was wai

The mini-golf attendant handed us two clubs and a scorecard like it was the most serious transaction of her day, and Damien accepted his with the gravity of a man collecting a business proposal. I laughed at him for it, and he informed me, entirely straight-faced, that a scorecard was still a scorecard."You're taking this very seriously for a nine-dollar activity," I said."Everything deserves proper commitment." He studied the first hole like it contained a hidden strategy, a small windmill turning lazily in the middle of a felt green ramp. "Age before beauty. You go first.""That's not how the saying works.""It is when I'm using it."I lined up my shot and sent the ball rolling straight past the windmill's blades, missing them by a comfortable margin, and it dropped into the cup with a satisfying clack. Damien raised an eyebrow like I'd cheated somehow, then stepped up to take his own turn with far too much focus for what was, again, a nine-dollar activity. His ball clipped the wi

"You cheated," I said."That's a strong word.""It's the correct word." I held the scorecard up higher, my finger still pressed against the altered five, and watched him glance at it with the composure of a man who had absolutely no defense and intended to argue one anyway."I made an adjustment.""You changed a four into a three.""I recalculated," he said, reaching for the scorecard, and I pulled it back out of his reach before he could take it, which only made him step closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to keep looking at him properly. "The wall interference should have been factored in.""You already made that argument. I already rejected it.""I'm appealing the ruling.""There's no appeals process in mini-golf, Damien.""There should be." He made another attempt for the card, and I dodged sideways, laughing, only for him to block my path entirely by simply stepping into the space I was moving toward, his arms coming up on either side of me against the low fence

Damien didn't say anything right away, which was somehow more unsettling than if he'd immediately started asking questions. He just shifted slightly beneath me, giving the moment room instead of filling it, his thumb tracing an absent line along my hip."More how," he finally asked, careful, like he wasn't sure yet whether I wanted this conversation to happen tonight."I don't fully know." I sat up a little, pulling my knees to my chest, still tangled against his side. "The forum kept doing this thing where people would tell me what New Ground had done for them, and every time, I kept thinking, we could be doing this for so many more people if we actually built toward it instead of just responding to whatever comes.""What would building toward it look like?""Maybe another location. Somewhere outside the city entirely." I turned that over as I said it, feeling the shape of the idea for the first time out loud. "Better partnerships with the organizations that keep asking to collaborat

Claire and I spent the rest of the morning going through the forum schedule properly, mapping out exactly what three official days actually meant once travel got factored in. The forum ran Wednesday through Friday, but the flight alone ate most of a Tuesday, and Claire pointed out that most people arrived a day early for the informal networking dinner that wasn't technically part of the programme but apparently mattered more than half the sessions combined."So really it's five days," she said, tapping her pen against the schedule. "Travel Tuesday, forum Wednesday through Friday, travel back Saturday.""Five days." I said it out loud like testing the weight of it. "That's longer than I thought.""You'd also want at least one evening to actually talk to people properly instead of just sitting in sessions. Half of what matters at these things happens over dinner, not during the panels."I nodded, already mentally rearranging what New Ground would need to run without me for the better pa