My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 10

My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 10

A month passed.

Thursday. I was working my shift at the library when a push notification popped up on my phone. A French financial news headline, I skimmed past it, not paying much attention. But the building in the thumbnail

made my finger stop.

I tapped it.

The French was dense. I didn’t catch most of it, but words like “acquisition” and “full ownership” jumped out. The glass facade of the building in the photo reflected a gray Crestmere sky-the same building I used to pass every morning on my way to work.

Edmund’s company.

#Sterling Group Completes Full Acquisition of Domestic Enterprise#.

I stood there gripping my phone behind the library’s periodical shelves, my fingers cold.

Arthur’s phone rang for a long time before he picked up.

On his end, silence. His voice carried the kind of exhaustion that came from too many sleepless nights, like he’d been working for three days straight.

“Have you seen it?”

“Yeah.”

“That company’s been a mess for months.”

He paused. “Edmund hasn’t run it properly in almost a year. I had people look into it. He flew to Paris on his wedding day, stayed three days, and flew back. Never stepped foot in the office again after that. Three shareholders jumped ship. The cash flow dried up. Suppliers were camped out at the front door demanding payment. Employees weren’t getting paid.”

“Arthur.” I cut him off.

He stopped.

“Why did you do all this?”

A few seconds of quiet on the line.

“I’m not getting revenge for you, Rowena. I just don’t think he deserves what he had, and you deserve way

better.”

I leaned against the library wall, cold, hard stone pressing into my back.

Outside the window, the wisteria in the courtyard was in full bloom, purple clusters swaying gently in the breeze.

I said, “When are you coming back?”

He paused. Then I heard him laugh through the phone, tired, but warm, crossing thousands of miles.

“Tomorrow night,” he said. “I’ll take you to that Burgundy place.”

“Okay.”

My graduation defense was in early June.

It went smoothly. The professors sat in that old lecture hall and asked a few questions about

post-Impressionist color theory. I answered them all. The last professor took off his glasses and nodded.

“Félicitations.”

Congratulations.

I walked out of the classroom.

Arthur stood on the steps outside.

“Rowena.” His voice wasn’t loud, but every word was clear. “I was going to wait for a more formal moment.

A better one. But I’ve waited long enough. I don’t want to anymore.”

He opened a deep.blue box.

A platinum ring sat in the center of the velvet, thin, simple, no diamond. Just a delicate vine pattern

engraved around the band.

“No diamond?” I looked down at him, my voice wavering.

He smiled. “You told me once you didn’t like diamonds. Said they were heavy.”

I remembered then.

One night after we got together, walking along the river after dinner, I’d mentioned it in passing. He hadn’t said anything then. Just tucked my hand into his coat pocket.

Cheers went up around us. Whistles. Clapping.

Sunlight filtered through the plane trees, falling across Arthur’s hair and shoulders. He knelt on one knee, looking up at me, his eyes unshaken, bright.

I opened my mouth to say “yes.”

But my gaze drifted past his shoulder, past the cheering students, and eventually landed on the streetlamp

on the corner.

Someone stood there.

Thin, cheekbones sharp and jutting. Stubble covered half his face. His hair was too long, messy, falling

across his forehead. Those eyes-once striking-were sunken now, with dark hollows beneath them. And they were red. So red they looked like they might bleed.

Edmund.