Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

Chapter 11SeraI didn’t close the folder.I could have. I could have shoved it back into the drawer and made up some story about not being able to sleep, about wandering, about curiosity. Julian would have believed me or he wouldn’t have, and either way the night would have moved on.But I had just read the words arrangement with the daughter in his grandfather’s handwriting, and I was done pretending I didn’t know anything.“Did you know?” I asked.Julian stayed in the doorway. “Know what?”I held the page up so the light fell on it. “Read it.”For a moment he didn’t move. Then he crossed the room, crouched in front of me, and took the paper out of my hand. I watched his eyes move down the page. I watched them stop on the last line and stay there.His face didn’t change much. It never did. But a muscle jumped in his jaw, and the hand holding the page went white across the knuckles.“Where did you find this?”“Bottom drawer. Behind the tax records.” My voice was steadier than I felt.

Chapter 13Julian“Home for good,” I repeated. “Since when?”Cassian dropped back into his chair like he’d never left it and reached for the coffee pot. “Since about six this morning. The jet landed at five. Mother sent a car.” He poured, took a sip, and grinned at me over the rim. “You look terrible, by the way. Still not sleeping?”I’d slept fine. Better than I had in years. I’d fallen asleep with Seraphina’s head on my chest and woken up to her hair across my arm, and for one quiet minute this morning I’d let myself think the day might actually be simple.Then my mother had knocked on the bedroom door, glowing, and told me there was someone downstairs I needed to see.“Nobody told me you were coming back,” I said.“Nobody told me you were getting divorced.” Cassian’s eyes slid to Seraphina, who was still standing near the doorway with one hand on the frame. “Or that you weren’t. The headlines are a little confusing from overseas. One day it’s an engagement to Evelyn Cross, the next

Chapter 15 Sera I sat on the window seat with my phone still against my chest when Lucien’s reply came through. Old boathouse on the river. Noon. Come alone if you can. I read it twice then deleted the whole thread, every message, every number, until the screen was empty. My hands were shaking when I shoved the phone under a pile of fabric and pressed my palms between my knees so they would stop moving.A soft knock sounded on the door.“Sera.”Julian’s voice came through the wood, quiet and rough. I did not answer. He knocked again, softer, then I heard the low thud of him sitting down on the floor outside.“I’m not going to make you open it,” he said. “I just need you to hear me. I’m sorry about the terrace. The way I spoke. The way I put my hands on you like I was marking territory. Cassian was right about one thing. I never asked what you wanted. Not once. Not when Grandfather put that contract in front of me. Not in three years. I took what was handed to me and I never looked a

Chapter 17JulianThe wood was cool under my palm.I kept my hand there because it was the only thing in the room I trusted. Behind me I could hear her breathing, uneven and wet, the small catch at the end of every breath that meant she was still crying. Still crying for him.I couldn't turn around.If I turned around and saw her face, red and wrecked over my brother's handwriting, I didn't know what I'd do. Go after him, maybe. Drag him back down that hallway by his collar and demand to know why he got to be the one she cried for. Or worse. Stand there in front of her and let her see exactly how much it was tearing me apart.I had never in my life let anyone see that.So I stood with my back to my wife and my hand flat against a closed door and counted my own breaths until the urge to put my fist through the wood passed.When it finally did, I looked down.The letters were everywhere. Scattered across the rug where she'd let them fall, some face up, some face down, a few slid half un

Chapter 19Sera"Favorite food.""Julian.""Answer the question." His fingers were drawing slow circles on my bare shoulder, and his voice was lazy and low and so unlike him that I kept wanting to look up and check it was really him. "I've got three years to catch up on. I'm starting with the easy ones."I was lying half on top of him, my cheek on his chest, the sheets twisted around both of us like we'd fought them and lost. The lamp was still on. Neither of us had bothered to turn it off. My whole body felt warm and heavy and loose in a way I didn't recognize."Cinnamon toast," I said."That's it? Cinnamon toast?""Not just any cinnamon toast. My mother's." I smiled against his skin. "She always burnt it. Every single time. She'd put it under the grill and then get distracted reading some paper about protein folding and forget it was there until the kitchen filled with smoke. The edges would be black and the sugar would go all hard and bitter on top.""That sounds terrible.""It was