All Chapters of Secret Relationship with my Brother’s best friend : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

33 Chapters

The Alumni Party

DEREKI’m standing at the alumni gala of Manhattan School of Visual Arts. The lights are low. Champagne glasses clink. People laugh too loud.I’m not an alumnus here. But I owe a friend a favor, so here I am. Rufus. He helped me with a contract two years ago. Now he wants to talk business.Fine. But I have to leave soon. Meetings. Important things.Rufus walks up to me. Middle-aged. Expensive suit. Sweaty handshake. I give him a firm grip and a short nod.“Derek. Glad you could make it.”“Rufus.”He launches into it. A deal. Something about supply chains. We’re in the same line of work, apparently. He wants to cut me in.I nod along. Pay attention. Or I try to.Then I don’t.Not because I can’t. I’m distracted.I catch her across the room.Jade.She’s wearing a black dress. Cut low in the front. Slit up the side. Her dark hair falls over one shoulder. The dress hugs every curve. Every shape I tried not to notice before.She’s laughing at something. Nina is with her—the redhead who bro

Last Updated : 2026-07-23

The Fountain

JADEIt’s been about thirty minutes since Derek left. I’ve been weaving through the crowd, searching for Nina. No sign of her. No texts. Nothing.I’m standing by the fountain now. The water is dark. Lights reflect off the surface. I lean against the edge, exhausted.“Hey.”I look up. A blond woman is standing in front of me. She’s tall. Sharp. Expensive dress. Her eyes are cold.“That’s not a nice way to address someone,” I say. “How can I help you?”She’s the same woman from the office, the same one from the brunch weeks ago, the same practiced cold smile I’ve now catalogued twice before tonight — except tonight there’s something sharper underneath it, something that’s clearly been building for a while and has finally found its target standing alone by a fountain with no one around to intervene.She’s not alone. There’s another woman behind her. A friend. Or an assistant. Hard to tell.“You don’t know who I am, do you?” The blond smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes.“Should I?”She tos

Last Updated : 2026-07-27

The Bathroom Floor

DEREKWe reach.Not Marcus’s house. Mine.I carry her out of the car and into the building. The elevator takes forever. She’s shaking in my arms. Her beautiful dress is soaked through. Water drips onto the floor.I need to get her out of these wet clothes.The wet fabric will only make her brain think she’s still in the water. Will make the panic last longer. Will make the reversion worse.I take her to my bathroom. Set her on the floor. She’s curled up, knees to her chest, still crying.I go to the closet. Grab a black shirt. A towel. I run a hand over my face, through my hair.Then it hits me.I’m going to have to change her.That alone is its own level of difficult.Shit.I hear her crying. Her breathing is fast. Too fast. She’s struggling to breathe.Shit.I grab the clothes and go back. Kneel in front of her.“Jade.” Soft. “It’s okay.”She looks up at me. Her eyes are red. Her lips are still pale. She’s shivering so hard her teeth chatter.“Derek.” My name comes out broken. A sob

Last Updated : 2026-07-27

What We Don’t Say

JADE I avoid him for four days. It isn’t hard, exactly. He still comes by — I hear the front door, hear him talking to nobody because I’m not there to argue with, hear him leave a coffee cup on the counter that I don’t touch until it’s cold and then throw away out of spite, mostly at myself. On the second day he leaves a note under the cup, just a single line — you don’t have to talk to me, but drink the coffee, it’s a waste otherwise — and I throw that away too, and then fish it out of the trash an hour later and put it in the drawer of my nightstand, which tells me everything I need to know about how well the avoidance plan is actually working. I tell Nina everything on day two, in a voice that keeps sliding into a whisper even though we’re alone in my room. “You kissed him,” she says, very slowly, like she’s making sure she heard correctly. “You kissed Derek Yamanaka. On purpose. With your mouth.” “That’s generally how kissing works, yes.” “And then you ran away in his shirt

Last Updated : 2026-07-27

The Private Room

JADEPreston’s hand is on my thigh before I’ve finished my second glass of wine, and when I move it away, he laughs like I’m playing a game with him.“Come on,” he says, sliding closer on the small booth bench. “This is why I rented the room, Jade. Privacy.”“I thought it was romantic,” I say, and I hear how small my voice has gotten, how the room feels suddenly too warm and too small and too far from the door. “Preston, back up.”“You wore that dress for a reason.”“I wore it because I liked it.” I try to stand. His hand catches my wrist, hard, harder than it should be for a man who spent the appetizer course talking about his golden retriever and his mother’s book club.“Don’t play hard to get.” His mouth is too close to my ear now, his breath sour with wine. “I know what girls like you want.”“Let go of me.” My voice cracks. I shove at his chest, and he barely moves, pinning me against the booth with a weight I can’t fight, and for one horrible second I’m back in the fountain, wate

Last Updated : 2026-07-28

Claiming

JADEWe don’t talk in the car. I don’t know how to start a conversation after what just happened, and Derek looks like he’s holding himself together with willpower alone, knuckles split and already swelling around the wheel.He walks me inside. Sits me on the couch. Gets the first aid kit from under the sink without being asked, because apparently he knows where everything in this house is, because apparently he’s thought about this house — about me — a lot more than he’s ever let on.He wraps his own knuckles, not mine, since I’m the one who’s fine, technically, physically, even if nothing else about me feels fine right now.“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he says suddenly, not looking up from his hands.“About tonight?”“About the kiss.” His jaw works. “Four days, Jade. Four days of you avoiding me, and then I find out you’re at dinner with some guy in a private room, and I can’t —” He stops. Starts again, quieter. “I can’t get you out of my head. I haven’t been able to since you

Last Updated : 2026-07-28

Secret Hours

JADEIt becomes a routine, the kind you don’t admit out loud is a routine because admitting it means admitting how deep you’re in.I leave his bed before six most mornings, hair a mess, wearing whatever shirt of his was closest, and cross the street back to my own house before the sun is fully up, before Marcus’s video calls start, before anyone could possibly know I spent the night somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I get good at it, fast — the quiet click of his front door, the specific sidewalk crack that doesn’t creak, the exact minute the corner bodega opens so I can grab coffee and look like I’ve been out for a walk instead of sneaking home from my brother’s best friend’s bed.He leaves notes now. Small, stupid ones, tucked under my coffee cup on the mornings he brings it over before class. Don’t let Lauren’s boyfriend near your car, he has bad taste in tires. Bean sprout, you left your charger at my place, come get it or I’m keeping it hostage. Once, just: Thinking about you in

Last Updated : 2026-08-03

Call from Kyoto

DEREKThe second call from Harold comes on a night Jade is asleep in my bed, her hair fanned across my pillow, one hand curled loosely against my chest like even unconscious she’s decided this is where she belongs.I take the call in the hallway so it doesn’t wake her.“I’ve sent the preliminary contract to your email,” Harold says. “The Kobayashi-Yamanaka joint venture. Your signature is required by the end of the quarter.”“I told you, I haven’t agreed —”“The business terms are separate from the marriage terms, but they are not unrelated, and you know that.” A pause, and I can picture him exactly, standing at the window of his Kyoto estate with his hands clasped behind his back like a man posing for a portrait of disappointment. “I am asking you, as your father, to come home and finish what your mother’s leaving started. You owe this family stability. You owe me that much.”“I don’t owe you anything for what happened after Mom left.”“You owe me for everything I built to make sure

Last Updated : 2026-08-03

Caught

JADEShe narrows her eyes at me, then at the pantry, then at the two mugs on the counter, one of which is very clearly not one I own, dark and heavy and expensive-looking in a way nothing in this kitchen has ever been. “Whose mug is that?”“Mine. New one. I bought it.”“You bought a mug that says ‘World’s Okayest CEO’ on it.”I look down. I hadn’t noticed the mug had writing on it. I make a mental note to murder Derek later for buying novelty mugs with his own face practically printed on them and leaving them where witnesses can find them.“It was a gag gift,” I say. “From Lauren. She thought it was funny.”Nina stares at me for a long, excruciating moment, and I can see her doing the math — the mug, the smell, the pantry door that doesn’t sit quite flush against the frame — and just when I’m certain I’m caught, she shrugs, decides whatever she’s thinking isn’t worth the argument it would take to prove it, and grabs a granola bar from the counter instead.“Weird morning,” she says. “A

Last Updated : 2026-08-03

In between

ADEThe week between Marcus walking out and me actually, officially moving my boxes across the street is the strangest week of my life, a limbo neither of us has a name for yet.I go back to the house once, alone, while Derek is at work, just to collect the rest of my things, and the house feels wrong in a way I don’t have words for — too quiet, too still, like it’s holding its breath waiting for someone to come back and fill it the way it used to be filled. I find myself standing in the kitchen for a long time, hand on the counter where Marcus used to lean while scrolling his phone every morning, and I let myself cry there, once, hard, before packing the rest of my boxes and locking the door behind me for what feels, even then, like the last time this house will ever really be mine.I try calling him twice that week. Both times it rings through to voicemail, his old recorded greeting still cheerful in a way that doesn’t match where we currently stand — hey, it’s Marcus, leave a messa

Last Updated : 2026-08-03

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