All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 211 - Chapter 220

Damien had my entire suitcase reorganized within ten minutes, and I spent most of that time pulling things back out the moment he set them in, which turned the whole exercise into a strange kind of tug of war neither of us was technically winning."You've packed three pairs of shoes for a five-day trip," he said, holding up the offending pair like evidence in a trial. "You need one for the sessions, one for the dinner, and something comfortable for travel. That's it.""I like having options.""You have a suitcase, not a boutique." He set the shoes back in anyway, rearranged, and I pulled them straight back out just to watch his jaw tighten."This is a five-day trip, Damien, not a military operation.""I'm being efficient.""You're being insane." I refolded the blazer he'd disapproved of earlier and tucked it back in, and he immediately reached over and folded it a different way, apparently under the impression that his method survived travel better than mine did. I let him have that o

I pulled Damien down onto the bed with me, my hands already working the buttons of his shirt while his mouth found my neck, and whatever remained of the evening's teasing dissolved completely into something slower, more deliberate, both of us moving with the particular attention of people who knew they were about to have several nights without this."I want you to remember exactly how this feels," I said against his ear, and felt him shudder slightly at that, his hands tightening at my waist."I don't think forgetting was ever a risk.""Good. Then don't."He laughed at that, low and warm, before I pulled his mouth back to mine, and the laughter dissolved into something else entirely, unhurried at first and then not unhurried at all, my fingers finding his skin while his found mine, both of us learning each other again the way we always did even after months of knowing exactly how."Tell me what you want," he murmured, his forehead against mine, the same question he'd asked so many tim

Somewhere over the second hour of the flight, I caught myself reaching for my phone to tell Damien something completely unremarkable, the man beside me had ordered three bags of pretzels and eaten none of them, and only realized halfway through pulling the phone out of my bag that airplane mode meant the thought would have to wait. It was such a small thing to miss him over, and yet there it was anyway, that automatic reach toward him that hadn't switched off just because I'd boarded a plane.I didn't sleep much, despite trying, my mind cycling between the presentation I still hadn't finished rehearsing and the general strangeness of being somewhere entirely on my own for the first time in longer than I could remember. By the time we landed, I was tired in the particular way that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with the accumulated weight of the last several weeks.My phone came back to life the moment we touched down, and a message was already waiting, timestampe

The presentation itself went better than I let myself expect walking up to the podium, my hands steadier than they'd been in Damien's office weeks ago, the room quiet in the particular way that meant people were actually listening rather than waiting their turn to speak. I walked through New Ground's model plainly, the numbers, the structure, the specific moments that had shaped how we did things, and when I finished there was a pause before the applause that felt more like consideration than politeness.The open floor discussion started reasonably enough, someone asking about our current staffing ratio, another person following up on how we tracked long-term outcomes past the first year. I answered both cleanly, the kind of information I could recite without thinking too hard, and felt a small, dangerous confidence settle into my shoulders.Then a woman near the front raised her hand and asked what would happen to our model at triple the current scale. "Your entire approach depends o

I walked back to the hotel slowly, phone tucked into my coat pocket, telling myself firmly that a missed call meant nothing beyond the ordinary fact of two people with different evenings unfolding around them. It was easy enough to believe on the surface, and mostly I did, though some small part of me kept checking the screen anyway every few minutes just in case.By the time I reached my room, I'd talked myself out of any real concern and into a mild, manageable disappointment instead, the kind that came from looking forward to something and not quite getting it on schedule. I changed out of my dinner clothes, pulled his gray shirt back on out of habit, and was halfway through brushing my teeth when the phone finally rang properly, his name lighting up the screen."There you are," I said, answering with my mouth still not entirely rinsed of toothpaste."Sorry. I fell asleep." Damien's voice came through rough at the edges, clearly just waking up, and I could picture him exactly, spra