All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 291 - Chapter 300

"That's what you supported," I said, still curled against him, careful with the words. "Not what you actually felt.""They're the same thing.""They're not."He was quiet a moment, and I watched him search for the distinction, something careful and defensive rising before he'd fully found it. "I understood why I had to cancel the restaurant. The way I understood why you had to stay for the pilot fix. I don't want either of us put on trial for choices that were genuinely necessary.""I'm not putting you on trial. I'm asking what you felt. Those aren't the same question."He exhaled slowly, something in his shoulders dropping. "I missed you at the restaurant. I know I'm the one who had to cancel it, but I still spent half that night thinking about the table we never got to, the dessert you chose, the whole evening sitting unused somewhere it should have happened.""You never said that. You just kept apologizing.""Apologizing felt safer." He paused. "Then there was the studio. I'd plann

"I don't want to say this wrong," Damien started, and then said it wrong anyway. "I want to be able to tell you I missed you without you reaching for a defense of every hour you spent away from me.""I don't always""You did it today. Twice." He wasn't accusing, just stating it plainly, and I felt the familiar instinct rise and made myself hold it this time instead of reaching for it."Try again," I said, quieter.He was quiet himself for a moment, choosing more carefully now. "Wednesday. I wanted to tell you, the second you walked in, that I'd missed you all evening. Not that I understood why you'd stayed. Not that the pencils were fine, we'd use them eventually. Just that I'd sat there missing you, plainly, without making you feel guilty for protecting someone who needed you.""You never said it at all.""I almost did. You walked through the door and I had the sentence ready, I missed you tonight, nothing more complicated than that, and then I looked at your face and reached for the

Neither of us had slept well, and it showed in the particular care we both took that morning, every ordinary question arriving a beat too deliberate. "Coffee," Damien said, holding out a cup, and I took it with a careful "thank you" that neither of us would have bothered with a week ago, the familiar easiness of us somehow gone missing overnight.I kept reaching for small habits that usually came without thinking and finding them slightly altered, his hand not quite brushing mine when he passed the sugar, my own shoulder staying a careful inch from his instead of leaning in automatically the way it always did. We moved around each other in the kitchen, competent and polite, two people who loved each other performing a morning they both knew wasn't quite right.It was only when he reached for his jacket that I noticed his collar folded wrong beneath it, caught under the fabric on one side, and I crossed to him without thinking twice and fixed it, my fingers working the collar straight

I lifted my hand off the file, the motion smaller and less decisive than I expected it to feel, just fingers unclenching from a folder that had never once needed holding. I sent the message to Damien, I'm coming home, before I could second-guess it, and closed my laptop properly for the first time in weeks without anything left running in a tab somewhere behind it.Grace stopped by my office as I was gathering my things. "We're still finishing the follow-up calls for tomorrow's appointments. Nothing complicated, just confirming times with two families.""Who's handling it?""The coordinator. She's already drafted the calls." Grace glanced at me, something testing in her expression. "You don't need to be looped in unless something actually changes with a support plan.""Then I won't be," I said, and watched something ease slightly in Grace's shoulders too, like she'd expected me to ask for an update anyway and was relieved when I didn't.Claire appeared a minute later with the handover

"I want ordinary evenings," Damien said, finally, like the sentence had been sitting ready and heavy for weeks. "Nothing to celebrate, nothing to arrange. Just you, home, with nothing either of us is proving.""We have ordinary evenings.""We have fewer than I want, and I've been bad at saying so." He pressed his palms flat against the table, gathering himself. "I want to finish saying this before we're both too tired to listen. I wish you were home. Not qualified. Not followed by *but ignore me, go do what you need to do.* Just that, sitting there plainly.""You could have just said that.""I know. I'm saying it now." He glanced up, something exposed in his expression. "Saying go has always felt safer than risking what happens after I want you here."I started to answer, some reflex rising to reassure him immediately, and caught myself before the words fully formed, letting him keep going instead."I've kept work I didn't need to keep too," he continued. "Missed chances to leave earl