All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 281 - Chapter 290

I stood there after the door closed, finally finishing the question I'd never gotten to ask him, not really about last night's warmth at all, but about when, specifically, we could give each other more than whatever scraps survived the end of a day. The walk had mattered. I didn't want it to become another memory we simply promised to recreate "next week" and then quietly let slip.I opened my calendar over coffee, scanning the coming days, and watched the first realistic opening disappear as soon as I treated it like leftover space instead of something worth claiming on purpose.At the office, Claire mentioned the routine partner check-in scheduled for Tuesday evening, and I told her I trusted her to handle it alone. "You've been running half these conversations without me for weeks anyway," I said, and she agreed easily, already pulling it onto her own calendar without needing further explanation from me.That cleared exactly the evening I wanted, no lingering obligation sitting at t

Damien woke slower than usual, still visibly tired, but his hand found my waist before either of us had properly opened our eyes. "You put the second earring in," he said, something fond in his voice. "I noticed.""You were half asleep when you got home.""I wasn't too asleep for that." He pulled me closer, his mouth finding my shoulder, and I let myself enjoy the lazy warmth of it, no rush pulling either of us toward the day yet."I have something arranged for tonight," he said eventually. "I moved the thing I had scheduled, confirmed you're actually free, and I'd like you to trust me with the rest.""No hints?""None. I've learned from your restaurant secrecy. Turnabout seems fair.""That's a flimsy excuse for withholding information from your wife.""It's an excellent excuse," he said, kissing me properly this time, slow enough that neither of us moved toward getting up for several more minutes.A photograph arrived midmorning, nothing but a corner of something wrapped in paper, de

The week had passed in ordinary rhythm since the sketchbook evening, dinner together most nights, affection intact in every small gesture, no new cancellations to carry forward. I still thought of the terrible portrait occasionally, propped now on Damien's desk where he'd insisted on framing it despite every protest, and the memory of it made me smile while I finished dressing for the reception.Damien appeared in the bedroom doorway already in his jacket, and stopped completely when he saw me, something visibly derailed crossing his expression. "You're staring.""I'm recalibrating.""That's not an answer.""I had an entire sentence prepared about the car and the timing, and it's gone. Entirely gone." He crossed the room slowly, hands finding my waist, and I let him look, enjoying it openly."Say the sentence anyway.""I don't remember it," he admitted, and kissed my shoulder instead, unhurried despite the clock, and I had to be the one to finally pull back and remind him we actually

"I know," I said again, and leaned into him, letting the words settle properly this time instead of just floating there between us. He kissed my forehead, something easing visibly in his shoulders, and I let that relief become mine too, at least for the night.We finished getting ready for bed together, the easy choreography of it returning naturally, him stealing the warmer side of the blanket before I could claim it, me retaliating by taking more than my share of pillows. "This is aggressive redistribution," he said, watching me arrange three pillows exactly where I wanted them."This is justice.""You said that about the dish towel incident too. Everything is justice with you.""Everything is justice when I'm the one deciding," I said, and he laughed, pulling me against him anyway despite the pillow theft, and I settled into the warmth of him, the joke from the reception still sitting somewhere underneath everything, unnamed and unresolved, though I didn't reach for it again that n

Damien set the phone aside, screen still glowing with the photograph between us, and neither of us reached to turn it off. "I don't know how to finish this argument," he admitted."Neither do I.""I could delete it. As a gesture.""Don't delete it." I said it faster than I meant to, and he raised an eyebrow, something almost amused cutting through the tension. "I told you I wanted a copy too.""You're very inconsistent for a woman who just accused me of loving a lie.""I never said it was a lie. I said it wasn't the whole truth. There's a difference, even if I explained it badly.""You explained it like a woman who'd been awake since six," he said, and I shoved his shoulder, though the corner of my mouth was already betraying me, the sharpest edge of the argument easing slightly without actually resolving.We got up eventually, hungry enough to abandon the unfinished conversation for breakfast, and I pulled on his discarded shirt from the night before while he found something in the k