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Chapter 3 One Step Too Close
publish date:
2026-03-01 04:34:58
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Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 43 — His Past
I found it by accident.I was in the study looking for a charger — the kind of errand that had become unremarkable over months of coming and going through this house, when I opened the wrong drawer.It was near the back. A photograph, not framed, just loose between two folders like it had been placed there quickly and not moved since. I almost closed the drawer without looking properly.I didn't.The man in the photo was Damian, unmistakably, but a version of him I had never seen. Younger — not dramatically, just enough to show in the set of his shoulders, the slight looseness around his jaw. He was laughing. Properly, genuinely, the kind of laugh that didn't know it was being observed. The kind I had never once seen on his face in all the months I had known him as something more than Chloe's father.Beside him was a woman.She was turned slightly toward him, her hand on his arm, her expression warm in the particular way of someone completely at ease with the person beside them. She w
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 42 — Chloe Sees Something
It happened at the gallery.The Meridian show was the kind of event Chloe had been excited about for two weeks — she had texted me about it four separate times, sent a photo of the outfit she was planning, and arrived twenty minutes early to walk the first room before the crowd filled in. By the time Damian and I arrived separately, she had already identified three pieces she wanted to discuss at length and one artist she was prepared to argue about."You came," she said when she saw me, immediately linking her arm through mine."You asked me four times.""Because I wasn't sure you'd actually come." She pulled me toward a large canvas on the far wall. "Look at this one. Tell me what you see."I told her what I saw. She disagreed with most of it, which was exactly what she had been hoping for."No, no — see the way the light falls on the left side? That's not accidental. He's doing something with the asymmetry." She tilted her head. "You're looking at the surface.""Most people look at
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 41 — Something Like Normal
He texted on a Wednesday afternoon. Not about the evening or the suite or anything that required a coded answer.Just: *Saturday morning. Early. I know somewhere quiet.*I read it twice.Then: *Okay.*He picked me up two streets from my building at seven-thirty, before the city had properly woken up. I got in the car and he glanced at me once and pulled back into the road without ceremony, which I appreciated. No preamble. No checking whether I had changed my mind.We drove for about twenty minutes, out of the central streets and into a quieter neighbourhood I didn't know well — wide roads, old trees, the kind of area that felt like it belonged to a slower pace of life.He parked outside a small place on a side street. The kind of café that didn't have a sign you could read from the car, just a window full of warm light and two tables outside that nobody was using yet."You've been here before," I said."Occasionally. They don't know me." He opened the door. "That was the point."Insi
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 40 — Not Leaving
Chloe cried once, properly, about twenty minutes after I arrived.Not dramatically. She wasn't that kind of person. It was just one moment where something she was saying about the boy — what he had said, how he had said it, the particular cruelty of someone who knew exactly which words would land — caught up with her, and her voice broke, and she pressed her hand over her eyes and said *sorry* twice in quick succession."Don't apologise," I said."I'm not even that upset about him," she said, which was what people always said when they were more upset than they wanted to be. "It's just—" She exhaled. "I let myself think it was going somewhere. That's the embarrassing part.""That's not embarrassing. That's just hoping.""Same thing sometimes.""No," I said. "It really isn't."She looked at me. Her eyes were red at the edges but she had composed herself again, the way she always did, quickly and without fuss. "When did you get so wise?""I've always been wise. You just don't listen."S
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 39 — Distance Attempt
I woke before either of them.The room was unfamiliar in the grey light of early morning — not unwelcoming, just not mine, every shape slightly off from what I expected when I opened my eyes. Damian was still asleep beside me, which was its own kind of strange.I checked the time. Six-forty.I dressed quietly and let myself out, moving down the hallway as carefully as I could, past Chloe’s door — still closed, still silent.I came around the corner near the kitchen and stopped.Marta was already up, moving between the counter and the kettle with the quiet efficiency of someone who had been running this house long before I ever set foot in it. She looked up when she heard me.“Miss Eva.” She didn’t look surprised, exactly. Just attentive, the way she always was. “You’re up early.”“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I came down to grab my charger — left it in the study last night.”“Mm.” She turned back to the kettle. “There’s coffee on if you’d like some before you head off.”“I’m okay, thank
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 38 — Fracture Line
Chloe didn’t wake up properly.Damian crossed the living room and crouched beside the couch, and she stirred enough to mumble something incoherent and let him guide her up by the arm, half-asleep and pliant the way she always was when sleep caught her somewhere other than her bed.“Come on,” he said quietly. “Bed.”“M’fine,” she mumbled. “Just resting my eyes.”“Sure you were.”She leaned into him without resistance, and he walked her down the hallway, one arm steady around her shoulders. I stayed in the kitchen, drying the last of the glasses, listening to the soft sound of her door closing.He came back a few minutes later.The house was quiet now. The television had been switched off. The afternoon light had shifted into early evening, soft and gold through the kitchen window.Neither of us said anything for a moment.I set the last glass down.“She’s out for the night,” he said.“Already?”“She does this. Falls asleep mid-afternoon, sleeps through to morning.” He leaned against th
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 30 — Smarter
His message came at 11:47 in the morning.One word.*Tonight.*I read it once. Put my phone face-down. Picked it up again. Read it a second time like the meaning might have changed.It hadn’t.Andre rolled his chair back and looked at me over the top of his monitor. “You’ve gone very still.”“I’m t
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father CHAPTER 29 — The Morning After Almost
Chloe made coffee like nothing had happened. That was the first thing I heard when I came downstairs. The clatter of the cupboard. The grind of the machine. Her humming something under her breath, off-key and unbothered, the way she always did on mornings when she was in a good mood and had nowhe
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 26 — Late Night Call
By the time I got home, the quiet felt heavier than usual.The kind of silence that leaves too much space for thoughts you would rather not sit with.I dropped my bag on the chair and stood there for a second longer than necessary, still in my heels, still in the same dress
Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father Chapter 24 — Chloe's Trust
The next morning, I woke up before my alarm and stayed still for a full minute, staring at the ceiling above me as if that would somehow make the weight in my chest easier to name.I pushed the blanket aside and sat up slowly. My body still felt too aware, as if sleep had rested my
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