All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 311 - Chapter 320

Damien didn't answer right away. He turned my hand over in his, tracing the lines of my palm as if the answer might be written there. "I might," he said. "I think I might still want it. I just need to know what I'd be giving up first.""Okay.""I wanted to build it myself. This version means other people make decisions I might have made differently, and it moves at a pace I can't set." He let out a breath. "That sounds petty when I say it to someone who's just spent a week not wanting to give things up.""It doesn't sound petty." I kept my hand in his. I didn't offer him the regional visits again, though the old reflex flickered. "Would it still include the part that made you light up on Wednesday?""The two divisions, yes. Bringing them together." He frowned, thinking. "I'd still lead it. But say there's a decision about how the smaller team restructures its first project. In the original version I'd sit in the room and shape it line by line. In this one I'd give them the goal and tr

"What are you still deciding?" I asked, keeping his hand in mine across the table.He looked at our fingers for a moment. "Most of what drew me is still in it. I just hate that I'd have to trust other people with details I want to shape myself." He rubbed his thumb along my knuckle. "There's a hiring decision for the smaller team's first project. I'd read the shortlist and know exactly who I'd pick, and in this version I'd give them my view, then let them make the choice.""And if they choose wrong?""Then I find out the way everyone else does." He laughed, short and unhappy. "It's a character flaw. I've been told.""By whom?""By me. Repeatedly."I laughed, and we stood together to clear the table, because neither of us could keep sitting still. I carried the plates to the sink, and he followed with the glasses, and then he wandered into the other room and came back with the basket of clean laundry we'd both been ignoring since the weekend."How does it feel to you?" he asked, holdin

Damien pulled the overnight bag out of the closet that night and dropped it on the bed like it might bite him. "One night," he said. "I own a perfectly reasonable amount of clothing for one night.""Then why are there four shirts?""Contingencies." He held up two ties. I took the gray shirt out of the pile before he could fold it, the soft one I'd stolen so many times, and hugged it to my chest. "That one's mine.""It's the one I'm wearing tomorrow.""Then you can have it back tomorrow," I said, and he caught me around the waist while I was still holding it, kissing me until both of us forgot what he'd been searching for. He found his charger eventually, under the pillow, and we packed the rest in a few minutes. The notice was short, and neither of us pretended it wasn't abrupt, but neither of us treated it as a betrayal either.Thursday morning we were up before the usual alarm, both groggy, and breakfast was toast eaten standing up because his car was due in twenty minutes. The kitc

I zipped the blue dress most of the way up on my own, then stopped with the last inch undone, standing very still in front of the mirror, waiting for Damien's hands to finish it the way they always did. The room stayed quiet. His side of the bed was still made from the morning before, the pillow smooth. I laughed at myself, twisted my arm up behind my back, and got it done with a small, undignified grunt. It was a stupid thing to miss, and I missed it anyway.My phone rang while I was searching for my second shoe. Damien's face appeared, a little blurred, a hotel window bright behind him. "I have eleven minutes before I'm required to be serious," he said. "Show me the dress again."I held the phone out and turned in a slow circle, and he let out a long breath. "Still unfair to the room.""You said that last night.""It's still true. Did you leave the opening alone?""Mostly." I picked up the shoe. "I changed one sentence.""One.""One small one.""At midnight," he said, delighted, and

"Nothing happened," Damien said. "I want to hear about the training. Did the room settle? Claire said the stream cut out for a minute, and I thought I'd missed the good part.""It cut out for about a minute, and you didn't miss the good part. I'll tell you all of it." I pressed my free hand flat against the cool wall of the lobby. "But you sound like you're carrying a full cup across a room, and I'd like you to answer me first. You don't have to make it a big thing. Just tell me."There was a pause, and I heard a chair shift on his end. "It's your day," he said. "I don't want to sit on it.""You're not sitting on it. I'm standing in a hallway with a lanyard still around my neck, and I'm asking nicely."He gave a short breath that was almost a laugh. "Okay. It was a small thing, really. The local team went through the on-site plan this afternoon, the part I'd drawn up for how the shifts hand off to each other. I had it all laid out in my head.""And?""One of the operations people told