Todos los capítulos de The Discarded Heiress: Married To My Ex Fiancé’s Brother: Capítulo 41 - Capítulo 47

LenoraI kissed him back before I'd even decided to.There was no careful thought behind it, no measured weighing of consequence the way I'd approached almost everything since the wedding—just his mouth against mine and every reason I'd been giving myself for weeks collapsing at once, quiet and complete, like a building finally admitting it had been condemned all along.His hand found the curve of my jaw, then my neck, then lower, and I heard myself make a small, helpless sound against his mouth that I would have been embarrassed by in any other version of my life. I wasn't embarrassed now. I didn't want to be careful. I didn't want to be sensible. I'd spent so long being both of those things for other people's comfort that doing neither, finally, for myself, felt like something close to relief.His hands were in my hair, mine fisted in the front of his shirt, both of us breathing like we'd run the length of the beach instead of simply lying still on it, and it was Elias—of course it

LenoraI hadn't thought about Marcus Hale in years, not really, not beyond the vague, unpleasant shape of him in the back of my memory—a tall, silver-haired man who always smelled faintly of cedar and spoke to my father in a low, unhurried voice that made everyone else in the room feel like they were interrupting something.But sitting there with Elias's phone still warm on the bed between us, I found the memories coming back sharper than I expected, details I hadn't realized I'd kept."He was at the house the week before I left," I said slowly. "Not for anything to do with me. Some routine visit, the kind he made a few times a year. I remember because he asked me a question that felt strange at the time, and I never thought about it again until right now.""What did he ask?""He asked if I was happy." I frowned, turning the memory over like it might reveal something new if I looked at it from a different angle. "Not in a casual way. He asked it like it actually mattered to him, which

LenoraDominic sent the footage before Elias had even finished asking him to.It was grainy, timestamped, the angle awkward the way airfield security cameras always seemed to be, built for liability rather than clarity. But it didn't need to be clear. I knew her the second she stepped out of the car—the particular way she tucked her hair behind her ear, a habit I remembered now from a handful of visits so long ago I'd nearly convinced myself I'd imagined half of them.Marie.She crossed the tarmac toward Liam like they'd done this before, like the choreography of it was already familiar, and handed him something small enough to fit in one hand before he pulled her into a brief, tense embrace and they both disappeared up the stairs of a waiting jet.I watched it three times before I could make myself say anything."She called me," I said finally, voice strange and distant even to my own ears. "She called to warn me. About your mother, about the rumors, about all of it. I thought—" I st