My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 02

My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 02

Sadie’s hands were shaking as she grabbed a pair of tweezers and iodine.

She nicked her own finger on the tweezers’ tip, but she didn’t even flinch, just kept working, brow furrowed, carefully cleaning my wound.

Edmund stood nearby, his gaze tangled.

“Sadie, you’re bleeding,” he said, reaching for her wrist.

Sadie jerked away, shot up, and spun around. Her arm swung.

Slap.

The crack echoed sharp and clean. His head snapped to the side, and a red palm print bloomed across his cheek.

“Are you even human, Edmund?” Sadie’s voice sliced through the room, her eyes wet and blazing.

Edmund stood there, head tilted, throat working as he breathed slow and heavy.

After a long moment, he turned back to me, his eyes still holding that messy, broken look.

Pain laced with tenderness, or maybe tenderness laced with pain.

He lifted my injured foot onto his knee, his voice scraping out.

“I’m sorry, Rowena.”

“Does it still hurt? Let’s get you to the hospital first, okay? ”

I watched his lashes drop—were those tears?—then glanced up at Sadie, who was wiping blood off her fingers.

Her lips still held a smudge of lipstick she hadn’t fully taken off.

The exact same shade as the stain on Edmund’s collar.

He’d never understand that the shard in my heel wasn’t the worst pain.

My phone buzzed. A confirmation from the wedding planner.

[Your wedding has been canceled.]

It was late by the time I got back from the hospital.

I hobbled up to the second floor, the anesthetic still dulling my foot, and every step felt like walking on thick cotton, numb and unsteady.

Passing the walk-in closet, I noticed the door wasn’t fully shut. Light bled through the gap.

Inside, Edmund’s voice came low and hoarse, nothing like his usual tone.

“How’s your finger?”

Fabric rustled, followed by a scuffle and a dull thud as Sadie’s wrist hit the wardrobe.

Edmund had grabbed her hand, turning it over to inspect the still-oozing cut.

“You’re still bleeding! Why didn’t you bandage it?”

“She only got three stitches. You didn’t have to freak out like that.”

Sadie shot back, her voice laced with a cruelty I’d never heard from her.

“She’s your wife, Edmund! What is wrong with you?”

“Let go! Are you out of your mind?”

He pressed closer, trapping her between the mirror and his own body, and dabbed antiseptic on her finger.

Then his voice dropped, defeated.

“I’m crazy. I’ve been crazy for a long time, Sadie.”

“I lost my mind the day you came back.”

“You have no idea how many times I didn’t want to keep going.”

He released her wrist and slowly rolled up his sleeve.

Beneath the watch he never took off, even in bed, lay a bulged, twisted scar.

I leaned against the hallway wall, my cane planted on the floor, my palms cold.

My mind reeled backward, uninvited.

Years ago.

Before Edmund and I were together, he became a different person after Sadie went abroad.

He shut himself in, ate nothing, and wouldn’t leave his room.

When I found him, he was lying in bed with the blackout curtains drawn, beer cans scattered everywhere.

The moment he saw me, the tears came. That was the first time I ever saw him cry.

After that day, we got together.

It took me two years to stitch that broken man back into something human.

A crash from inside the closet yanked me back to the present.

I peered through the crack.

Edmund and Sadie were locked together.

His eyes were red with emotion, tears streamed down his face as he pulled her into a desperate embrace.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice splintering.

“Sadie, your sister broke up with me.”

“Tell her the truth. Please.”

Sadie’s tears fell in drops, her head shaking wildly.

“We can’t do that.”

“Without her, Dad would’ve never brought me home.”

“I can’t betray Rowena.”

I watched them through the gap.

The numbness from the anesthetic seemed to crawl all the way up to my skull.

I gripped my cane, backed away soundlessly, and turned toward my bedroom.

I dragged a suitcase out of the closet and started shoving clothes into it, one piece after another.

If they loved each other that much, fine, I’d get out of their way.