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Chapter Ninety

Author: Love Egbejale
last update publish date: 2026-03-24 03:06:25

Esther discovered very quickly that sleep was not going to come to her that night. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling, the sheets tangled around her legs, the darkness of the room pressing in on her like a quiet accusation.

Her body was exhausted, but her mind refused to settle. Every time she closed her eyes, something inside her tightened, as though her mind was bracing for something it knew was coming.

It was no surprise, really. Anyone who had gone through what she had would have tr
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  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred And Five

    Edwina Evelyn came at me across the ballroom looking like a girl who had something to share and would actually combust if she didn't get it out soon. She grabbed my hand without a word of warning and hauled me to the farthest corner of the room."Guess what?" she said, practically vibrating."You know I hate guessing." I rolled my eyes."Well, I've been keeping this a secret for a while now, because I didn't know if it would go anywhere, but I guess I can say it now."Whatever this is, it's clearly good. I could see it written all over her face."Oh, come on. Stop stalling and tell me." I wanted to shake her. My own heart was racing now too, whether I liked it or not."Lucas asked me to be his girlfriend." She squealed the words out."What? Seriously?" My eyes went wide. "You've been dating under the radar?""We were friends first. It started the day Julian introduced him to Esther." Evelyn was talking fast now, the way she did when she was excited. "When we found out we'd be paired

  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred And Four

    EdwinaSix months later I sat very still while the hairstylist moved around my sister, watching Esther's reflection in the mirror like I still couldn't quite believe what it was showing me.My big sister is getting married today. To my boyfriend's brother.It still didn't feel real, even with the dress hanging on the door and the hairstylist's hands moving fast through Esther's curls. Esther had never said the words out loud, not once, but I had always known — the quiet worry that sat underneath my sister's smiles, the fear that she'd go through life without ever finding someone who loved her the way Mom and Dad loved each other.Well. I guess she doesn't have to worry about that anymore.In a few hours my sister was going to become a princess, and looking at her now, I didn't think I'd ever been happier for anyone in my life."Eddie, do you remember when you were little and you told Evelyn and I about the dream you had?" Esther asked, catching my eyes in the mirror."What dream?" I

  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred And Three

    Maximillian Julian was nervous. Anyone with eyes could see it — the way his knee bounced under the table, the way he kept lacing and unlacing his fingers like he was trying to remember how hands worked. Nobody pushed him to speak. We all just sat there, waiting, the silence stretching long enough that it started to feel like its own kind of conversation.Something's coming, I thought, watching him. Something he's been carrying around for a while.It made sense, in a way. This was the first time in longer than I could remember that Julian had actually summoned everyone — called a family meeting like we were a board he had to report to. Whatever he was about to say, it wasn't going to be small."Um..." He cleared his throat, lacing his fingers together again. "What I'm about to say is very important to me, so I'd really appreciate it if you all could take it in stride." Then he did something that made the whole room shift — he stared pointedly at Bianca. "Whatever opinion you might

  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred And Two

    Maximillian Six months later Julian was hiding something big.I'd known it for weeks — the way his gaze would slide just a fraction too far to the left whenever certain topics surfaced, the measured pauses before ordinary sentences, the almost imperceptible shift in his posture whenever Edwina's family came up. He was carrying a secret he'd tucked behind his ribcage, believing no one could see the shape of it pressing against him from the inside.He thinks I don't know, I thought, watching him from across the breakfast table one morning, keeping my expression carefully neutral. He really thinks I have absolutely no idea.I wasn't going to call him out on it though. That wasn't the kind of brothers we were. Julian would tell me when he was ready — I was certain of that much. So I waited, patient and quiet, carrying the weight of knowing without letting it show.After the funeral, Mercia held me like a place that had decided it wasn't done with me yet.I stood at the window of my ch

  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred and One

    Maximillian Pastor Emmanuel stepped aside, and the chapel held its breath as Dad rose from the front pew.He buttoned his jacket as he stood — a small, automatic gesture, the kind muscle memory produces when a man has spent his whole life being watched. He walked to the podium the way he walked into every room — like he owned it, like the floor had been expecting his footsteps. But I watched his hand grip the edge of the podium when he got there, and I saw what the rest of the chapel probably missed.He was holding on.He unfolded a single piece of paper, looked at it for a moment, then set it aside.He wasn't going to read it."My father," he began, and then stopped. Cleared his throat. Started again. "My father used to say that a man is not measured by the height of his throne but by the depth of his roots.""He said it so often that we stopped hearing it the way you stop hearing the sound of rain after a while — it just becomes part of the atmosphere."A quiet ripple of recogniti

  • Bared To You    Chapter Hundred

    EdwinaA year laterThe chapel had never felt so heavy.Every pew was filled — dignitaries, business partners, old family friends, CEOs of companies that bore the Sebastiani name in their boardrooms, politicians who had shaken Andrei's hand across negotiation tables, and ordinary people whose lives had been quietly changed by a man who never thought small.They had come from every corner of the world, dressed in black and grey, their faces carrying the particular exhaustion that only grief can produce. Outside, the bells had tolled at dawn and had not stopped until the procession entered the chapel doors.The casket sat at the front of the nave, draped in the royal colors of Mercia — deep crimson and gold. Atop it rested his crown. Not worn. Just placed there, quietly, as if even the crown understood it had lost its king.I sat with the family in the front pews, close enough to see everything, far enough to feel like I was watching something I wasn't sure I deserved to witness. These

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