All Chapters of He Chose My Sister, So I Married His Enemy: Chapter 331 - Chapter 340

"Then you won't," I said, and I tucked the blanket higher over his shoulder.He let out a long breath and leaned his head back against the cushion. I felt something go quiet in him that had been tight all weekend. We settled the little that needed settling, that we would leave at nine, that I would drive, and that he would find out where visitors could park. Then I turned off the lamp, and we stayed there a while longer, listening to the house tick as it cooled.Monday morning began with his alarm and my groan, and with both our phones left outside the bedroom door where they belonged. I stood at the mirror trying to fasten the clasp of my necklace, which had never once cooperated, until I felt his fingers brush mine. He did the clasp up in one try, kissed the side of my neck, and lingered there with his mouth against my skin."You look very good," he said, "for a woman who has promised to drive me somewhere I'd rather not go.""I'm told I'm an excellent driver.""By whom?""By me."H

The regional visits went the way good ones do, quickly and with more tea than I strictly needed. At the first site the beans had come up in the courtyard, twining up their strings in ragged green rows, and one of the women showed me her section with enormous pride. I took a photograph and sent it to Damien, and he wrote back, Those are serious beans. By Wednesday evening I was home, and he took my bag at the door before I had put it down.On Thursday I stood in front of the wardrobe longer than I would admit. I chose a dark green dress with a low back and a hem that moved when I walked, and a pair of heels I had owned for two years and worn twice. I put on earrings, left my hair loose, and came downstairs a little before seven.Damien was in the hall, checking his cuffs. He looked up, and whatever he had been about to say disappeared from his face. He straightened one cuff, then the other, and cleared his throat."I had a line ready," he said."Did you?""It was a good one." His eyes

"I wasn't asking for a good performance," I said."That's a relief. I was going to book one.""You know what I mean.""I'm not sure I do." He grinned, and I flicked his ear, and he caught my hand and held it against his chest. I let the teasing pass, and then I said what I meant, more slowly. "I want to see the work, Damien. I want the parts that aren't finished too."He looked at me for a moment, then lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles, which was as close as he came to answering. I stayed on his knee for another minute, until the clock above the cooker reminded us both that it was Friday. Then I kissed him properly, tasting coffee, and got up to find my laptop.The call with Grace and Claire started at eleven. We were planning the next training session for site leads, and I had a clear idea of how it should go. I wanted to open with a long shared section covering everything the leads would need, so that nobody walked into the practical work with gaps."I don't think they need it,"

"Taking it back," he said at last, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.I waited, because I could tell there was more. He pulled the laptop toward him by the edge, pushed the lid up, and frowned at the screen. "I thought one example was confusing, the one about the Tuesday handoff. So I changed it, and then I changed the sentence before it, and then the sentence before that.""And then?""And then I changed most of it." He let out a breath. "I wanted every answer to sound like mine. That's the honest version."I did not tell him it was good that he had seen it, and I did not tell him what he should do next. I picked up my fork instead. "You promised me an evening," I said. "You left me to cook it, and you told me you were nearly finished for an hour.""Two," he said. "It was two hours. I'm sorry I promised we'd eat at seven and left you waiting. And I'm sorry I kept saying nearly.""Thank you."He opened the document history, found the version she had sent that afternoon,

For a moment, I thought he might say something to me across the whole room. Instead he took a breath, turned back to the woman in the front row, and answered her himself."Routine decisions belong to the local team," he said. "There's a short list of things that come to me, and those are written down. The trial has to show whether that works without me stepping in every time, and my share of that is not stepping in when it isn't needed. I'm working on it."She nodded slowly. "That's honest. I'd like to see how the escalation holds over a month, though, rather than a few weeks.""So would I. We can report on that next time."She wrote something in her notebook, and that was the end of it. There was one more question, about training, and the operations lead answered it while Damien stood back, and then he thanked everyone and closed. It was not a triumph. Some people looked reassured, one man looked doubtful, and the question of escalation hung open in the room like a window nobody had