All Chapters of My Fiancée Married My Sister: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Eleanor's hand tightened, just slightly, around my arm. "Rosalind." Her voice had shifted, gone careful in a way I hadn't heard from her before, even during the photograph. "I didn't know you were coming today.""Clearly." The woman, Rosalind, descended the terrace steps with an unhurried grace that made it obvious she'd grown up in houses exactly like this one. Up close, the resemblance to Eleanor sharpened further, something in the set of the jaw, the assessing quality of the eyes. "I invited myself, if you must know. You've been evasive on the phone for three weeks, and I've learned that when you're evasive, you're usually hiding something enormous.""Rosalind is my sister," Eleanor said, turning to me, her voice carefully even, though I could feel the tension radiating off her. "Jasmine, this is Rosalind. She's known me longer than anyone alive, which she considers grounds for unlimited interference in my affairs.""Someone has to." Rosalind's eyes hadn't left my face, and there w

We left the estate the next morning with the almost-moment from the studio still hanging between us, unspoken and unfinished, both of us slipping back into a careful, charged politeness that fooled absolutely no one, least of all Eleanor, who kissed my cheek at the door and murmured, "Don't let him overthink it, dear, he's very good at that," loud enough for Noah to hear.Back in the city, the ordinary rhythm of our lives resumed– my collection moving steadily toward its first small production run, Noah's slow dismantling of Lancaster Corp continuing in its quiet, relentless way. We didn't talk about the studio. We didn't have to. It sat between us in every small gesture instead- the way his hand found the small of my back a beat longer than necessary, the way I'd started leaving my sketchbook open on the kitchen counter, half hoping he'd wander over and ask about it the way he used to.It was a Tuesday when the photograph surfaced.I found out from Diana, who called before eight in t

The weeks leading up to the engagement party moved faster than I expected, filled with the particular chaos of Eleanor Voss deciding to do something "properly" which meant no detail too small to be interrogated, no vendor too accomplished to escape her exacting standards."She called the florist twice today," Lena told me, sliding a tablet across the kitchen island with an expression of long-suffering amusement. "To discuss whether peonies read as 'triumphant' or merely 'pretty.' I don't fully know what triumphant peonies look like, but apparently we're getting them.""Of course we are," I said, laughing despite the exhaustion creeping into my week. Between the party preparations and my own collection heading into its final production push, I'd started falling asleep some nights mid-sketch, pencil still in hand.I designed my own dress for the occasion, because of course I did, because after a lifetime of wearing whatever made me look smaller, whatever a mother or a fiancé decided pho

I watched Noah cross the lawn with a kind of unhurried purpose that somehow felt more intimidating than if he'd stormed the gate. Conversations around me quieted by degrees, guests turning to follow the tension the way a room always does, sensing a story unfolding before anyone had explained what it was."Diana," I said quietly, and she was already at my side, champagne abandoned somewhere, her hand finding mine."I've got you," she murmured. "Whatever happens. I've got you."At the gate, Noah had reached Ryan, and even from this distance I could read the shape of the conversation in their bodies— Ryan gesturing, animated, clearly trying to argue his way past something immovable. Noah stood with his hands loose at his sides, still, unbothered, the posture of a man who had already won an argument before it started and was simply waiting for the other person to notice.I couldn't hear the words from where I stood, but I didn't need to. I'd watched Noah handle enough rooms by now to reco

I didn't sleep either, not really. I just drifted in and out of something too shallow to call rest, the argument replaying itself in fragments every time I came close to actually dropping off. ‘Strategic positioning asset.’ ‘I know I'm a transaction to you.’ I hated how much space four words could take up in a mind that had, only a day earlier, felt entirely at peace.Somewhere around three in the morning, I gave up trying and lay staring at the ceiling instead, cataloging every reason I had to be genuinely angry and every reason I had to admit I might be overreacting, and finding, infuriatingly, that both lists kept growing at the same rate.I heard him before I saw him, the quiet, deliberate sound of the guest wing door opening just after five, careful not to wake me, clearly not expecting me to already be awake. I sat up as Noah stepped into the doorway, still in yesterday's clothes, hair disheveled in a way that told me he hadn't slept any better than I had."I saw the light was