Lahat ng Kabanata ng Married To My Ex-Brother-in-Law: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Tia balanced the takeout bag on one arm and knocked twice with the other hand, already smiling.Tyler had texted her that morning sounding miserable. Stomach thing. Skipping practice. Might die.She'd laughed, skipped her afternoon lecture, and picked up the ginger soup from the place he liked on campus. Twenty minutes on the bus for a boyfriend who was probably exaggerating a headache into a national emergency. That was just who he was.Nobody answered.She tried the handle. Unlocked. That wasn't unusual — Tyler never locked anything, which used to charm her and now, apparently, was about to be useful."Tyler?" She pushed the door open with her hip, bag first. "I come bearing soup and mild judgment—"She heard it before she saw it. A laugh. Molly's laugh, unmistakable, low and delighted, coming from the bedroom.For one stupid second, Tia's brain tried to build her a kinder story. Molly had stopped by to keep him company. Molly was watching something funny on her phone. Molly —She s

"Three?" Tia repeated. "Three plans? You've had three plans this whole time and you let me sit in your guest room in a stinky sweatshirt for three days?""I needed you emotionally ready," Maddy said, entirely serious. "Revenge doesn't work if the person executing it is crying into a throw pillow. Timing matters. Presentation matters.""You sound like you're running a business.""I am. It's called Justice For Tia, Incorporated, and it is currently accepting no other clients." Maddy pulled her laptop onto her knees, then hesitated, which was so unlike her that Tia sat up straighter just watching it happen. "Okay. Plan one.""I need to show you something, and I need you to know I only got this two nights ago. I wasn't sitting on it. I would never sit on something like this.""Sitting on what? Maddy, you're scaring me.""Reagan had a party Tuesday. Tyler was there, being loud and pathetic about single life already, and at some point he set his phone down on the counter to get another drin

The house smelled like her mother's cooking, which should have been comforting and instead just made Tia's stomach twist tighter.Her mother only cooked like this — the good rice, the dish Tia had loved as a kid — when she was trying to soften something.Her father was already at the dining table when she came down, laptop closed in front of him, which was its own kind of alarming. Tia had never once seen her father sit at a table without his laptop open."Sit," he said. Not unkind. Just final.She sat.Her mother came in a moment later, set down a pot of tea neither of them would drink, and sat too, hands folded in her lap like she was bracing for something."Is someone sick?" Tia asked, because the silence was worse than anything they could actually say. "Is it Rebecca? Is it one of you?""No one's sick," her father said. "This is about the company."Tia blinked. "The company.""You know our families have known each other for years," he said, like he was opening a meeting instead of

Dylan Hart was still at his desk at nine on a Tuesday night, which wasn't unusual, and that was exactly the problem his mother had come to talk to him about."You're doing it again," she said from the doorway of his home office, arms crossed, not bothering to knock."Doing what.""Living in this house like it's a hotel you check into between meetings."He didn't look up from the screen. "I have a board call at ten.""Of course you do."Something in her tone made him finally set the pen down. His mother rarely came upstairs after dinner. When she did, it usually meant something he wasn't going to enjoy."Sit down for five minutes, Dylan. Please."He sat.She lowered herself into the chair across from him slowly — she'd been moving more carefully lately, something he'd noticed and not let himself think too hard about — and folded her hands in her lap."I want you to remarry."The words landed strange, like they belonged to a different conversation entirely. "Excuse me?""You heard me."

Maddy's café was nearly empty by the time Tia showed up, the after-lunch lull settling in, one bored barista wiping down the espresso machine for the third time. Maddy took one look at her from behind the counter and pointed at the corner table without a word. "Sit. I'll bring coffee. You look like you need it." Tia sat, glancing around while she waited — exposed brick, hand-lettered menu boards, the kind of curated warmth that clearly hadn't happened by accident. Maddy dropped into the chair across from her a minute later, two mugs in hand, and didn't waste any time. "Nice place you built around here," Tia said, wrapping her hands around the mug. "It's all money, girl." Maddy waved a hand at the room like it was nothing. "When you've got money to burn like my family does, indulging in a side hustle like this is basically a given." "You call running a café a side hustle?"