Married To The Wrong Twin のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

"He filed for an emergency injunction," Callum said, phone still pressed to his ear, watching me over the kitchen counter like the sentence cost him something to get out. "To freeze the trust's operating accounts pending the state attorney's review. Every account. Payroll, vendor contracts, all of it.""Can he actually do that.""Voss says a judge can grant a temporary freeze on almost anything if you frame it as protecting shareholders from fraud." He said it flatly, already reaching for his jacket though it was nearly nine at night. "Hearing's tomorrow morning. Emergency docket.""That's insane. He can't seriously think a freeze helps anyone.""It doesn't have to help anyone. It just has to hurt us long enough to make the board nervous again." He raked a hand through his hair, the first genuinely rattled I'd seen him since his father's collapse. "If the accounts actually freeze, we can't run payroll past Friday. Three hundred employees, Odessa. Housekeeping staff, groundskeepers, pe

The sister question followed me around for days after the hearing, longer than the injunction itself did, longer than Warrick's sour expression on the courthouse steps, longer than anything else that morning had thrown at me.How does it feel knowing your own sister's testimony could end up part of this case.I hadn't answered it then, and I still didn't have an answer four days later, sitting at my own kitchen island with a cup of tea gone cold in front of me, turning the question over like it might eventually stop hurting if I just looked at it from enough angles. The full review hearing was still weeks out. Warrick hadn't filed anything new since the injunction, at least nothing Voss had mentioned, and the house had settled into something almost resembling routine. The clinic follow-up had come and gone two days earlier with nothing much to report, too early to know anything real yet, the doctor had said, everything else looked exactly as it should. Which left the quiet with nothin

Neither of us said a word for the entire drive home, which was, I was beginning to learn, its own particular kind of loud. I watched the city go by outside the window and tried, and failed, to organize a single coherent thought out of everything sitting in my chest.Callum pulled into the garage, killed the engine, and sat there a moment with both hands still on the wheel, staring straight ahead like the windshield had something useful written on it."Well," he said finally."Well.""That was certainly a consultation.""That's one word for it." I unbuckled my seatbelt and didn't move to get out, mostly because I wasn't sure my legs had fully signed on to the idea yet. "She said it like she was recommending a different brand of vitamin.""She's a doctor, Odessa. I imagine she recommends this particular alternative several times a week and has simply stopped finding it as loaded as we currently do." A ghost of something almost like humor crossed his face. "Statistically, apparently, it'

The kiss at the bottom of the stairs had been an inefficient use of time, though neither of us had pulled away. Callum stepped back just enough to let me lead the way up, his hand resting on the small of my back. He didn't push me. He just guided me with a precision that felt entirely too deliberate.I climbed the stairs, acutely aware of the silence of the house and the specific, rhythmic sound of his shoes behind me. We reached the bedroom door. I stopped and looked at him. He looked back, his expression as neutral as a legal brief, though his eyes were darker than they had been at dinner."The practical approach," I said. "We should probably stick to the schedule."Callum leaned against the doorframe. "I am a firm believer in the schedule, Odessa. Efficiency is the cornerstone of any successful contract.""Right. Efficiency."I turned and walked into the room, feeling the sudden, absurd need to organize the pillows on the bed. I straightened one, then the other. It was a pointless

A day or two into whatever this now was, Callum's mom called about the dinner again, briefly, and Callum handled it from the doorway on his way out, half his attention already gone to whatever was waiting for him at the office."She wants the four of us first," he said, phone still against his ear, one hand raised to stop me from asking before I'd even opened my mouth. "Before the larger dinner. Just her, my father, you, me.""We've known each other for years, Callum. Our families have been at the same events since I was a child.""I mentioned that. She said, and I'm quoting her directly here, that knowing someone across a ballroom for twenty years isn't the same as knowing your son's wife." He covered the receiver again. "I believe the actual phrase was 'I want to know her, not know of her.' My father apparently agrees, which is the part that surprised me. He doesn't usually weigh in on this sort of thing."I didn't have a ready answer for that, and by the time I'd found one, Callum