All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 321 - Chapter 330

"You're wearing it again," Damien said, and he lifted the card between two fingers before I could stop him. I looked down and found the lanyard had slipped out from under the neckline of my sweater, badge facing inward, exactly as it had the night before. "I put it on without thinking," I admitted. "It was on the hook, and I'm in the habit now.""Two days running," he said. "People will think you've been promoted to something." He turned the badge over, and I could smell coffee on his hand. His hair was still wrecked from sleep, and he looked rested in a way he hadn't on the phone the afternoon before. "Give that back," I told him, and when he said he was only admiring it, I told him he was stalling the coffee."The coffee is perfectly fine without me," he said, but he let the badge fall and went back to the machine. I leaned against the counter beside him and watched him fill two cups, one slightly too full, which he pushed toward me without comment. It was a small thing, and I notic

I deleted the whole unfinished attempt and began again with the plainest thing I could think of. How are you doing? I sent it before I could dress it up, and the small grey mark appeared under it, which was somehow worse than silence.His answer took four minutes. Okay, tired, waiting for the doctor to come back.I read it standing at the counter and felt a flare of hurt that I did not particularly like. It was a perfectly good answer, but it was the answer you would give a stranger in a queue, and a few hours earlier he had kissed me in the hall as though he meant it to last. I held on to that instead and set the phone face down.The approval from the morning still needed to go out, so I wrote it at the kitchen table. The shorter evening hours were authorised for two weeks, the on-call number had to be on the door card and with every current participant by the end of the day, and the check would happen at the end of the trial. I sent it to Grace and the coordinator with Claire copied

I stepped back toward him instead of away, and the hall narrowed to the width of his shoulders. He kept my hand, drew it up against his chest again, and bent until his face rested beside mine. I felt his jaw settle against my temple and his breath go out slowly into my hair.I had spent the whole day wanting this without knowing how much until it was in front of me. My free arm went around his back and found the warmth of his shirt and the line of his spine. I stood still and let him hold on, and for a while neither of us said anything."You smell like a hospital," I said at last, into his collar."Sorry.""I didn't say it was bad."He laughed under his breath, then lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were red at the edges and tired, but they were steady now, and they dropped to my mouth before they came back to my eyes. He kissed me gently, a brief press, as though he were asking, and then drew back just far enough to see my face.When I did not move away, he kissed me again, slo

"You did," he said. "Sorry, I walked straight past it. You're collecting your boots.""And walking home the long way.""Right." He rubbed the back of his neck, and I could see the drive still sitting in his shoulders. "She was awake when I got there, and we talked for most of the time I was in the room. They're still assessing her, so nothing has changed since last night.""I'm glad you got to sit with her," I said. I put his folder on the hall table and straightened it with my hand. He did not tell me to cancel, and I did not ask whether he wanted me to.He glanced toward the study door, where his laptop was waiting. "I should look at those handoff notes while I've got a clear head," he said, already half turning. I zipped my jacket to my chin and checked my keys again, because I had decided not to stand there watching which way he went.He stopped with one foot on the first step of the stairs. I heard him breathe out through his nose, the way he did when he was talking himself out o

I stayed where I was for a little while, with his forehead against my collarbone and my fingers moving slowly through the short hair at the back of his neck. When the tea had gone lukewarm, he lifted his head, took my hand, and kissed the middle of my palm. Then he pulled me down for a quick, firm kiss on the mouth before letting me go and reaching for his cup.We drank what was left and rinsed the mugs together, and he found a tea towel and dried them without being asked. The evening went on in small, easy pieces, a plate of cheese on toast eaten standing up, a film we only half watched. He fell asleep before the end with his head tipped against my shoulder.Sunday morning went slowly, the way the good ones do. We stripped the bed together and carried the clean sheets from the airing cupboard, and Damien took one end of the top sheet while I took the other. We were in the middle of the folding, walking toward each other with the corners in our fists, when his phone buzzed on the land