All Chapters of Ruined by My Best Friend’s Father: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

43 Chapters

Chapter 31 — What She Doesn’t Say

The food helped.It usually did with Chloe. Something about eating together settled whatever had been unsettled when she arrived, like the act of it reminded her that things were still ordinary in the ways that counted.By the time the containers were half empty she was already talking about something else, a seminar she had nearly slept through, a group project partner who had not opened a single shared document in two weeks, a dress she had been looking at online and couldn’t justify.“Send me the link,” I said.“It’s too expensive.”“Send it anyway.”“Why? So you can tell me to buy it?”“So I can tell you whether it’s worth it.”She smiled. “You have very strong opinions about other people’s money.”“Someone has to.”She sent the link. I looked at the dress. It was good. I told her so.“See?” she said. “This is the problem. I come here for sympathy and you enable me.”“I’m very consistent.”“The worst kind of friend.” She set her phone down. “Can I ask you something?”“Go ahead.”“

Chapter 32 — Deliberately

He didn’t apologise. That was the first thing. He looked at me across the quiet of the car park and waited for whatever I was going to lead with, and when I didn’t speak immediately he said, simply and without preamble: “I didn’t want to share your attention tonight.” I stared at him. “That’s your reason,” I said. “Yes.” “You cancelled on her. She called me in the middle of dinner, Damian. She’d gotten dressed. She was trying very hard not to make it a big deal and doing a poor job of it.” I looked at him directly. “And your reason is that you didn’t want to share my attention.” “Yes.” “You don’t feel bad about that.” He considered this with the particular seriousness he gave to questions he actually intended to answer. “I feel bad that she was hurt,” he said. “I don’t feel bad about the decision.” “Those aren’t the same thing.” “No. They’re not.” I exhaled and looked away from him for a moment. The car park was empty. The overhead lights were flat and indifferent. Somewhe

Chapter 33 — The Wrong Morning

Light came through the gap in the curtains before anything else.I registered it slowly. The angle. The quality. The particular flatness that meant it was later than it should be.I reached for my phone.Eight forty-three.Six notifications. All Chloe.*Hey, are you awake?* — 7:15 a.m.*I’m going to pop by yours if that’s okay, need to talk* — 7:34 a.m.*Are you home?* — 7:58 a.m.*I’m outside, did you sleep in?* — 8:11 a.m.*Okay I’ll wait, I have coffee* — 8:19 a.m.*Eva?* — 8:40 a.m.I was already out of the bed.Damian was awake, sitting near the window with his phone, fully dressed. He looked up when I moved.“Chloe,” I said. “She’s outside my building. She’s been there since eight.”He set his phone down. “Go.”“I need a reason. She thinks I was home all night.”“Tell her your phone was on silent. You left it at the back sit of your car.”“She’s going to look at me and know something is off.”“Then keep it short.” He looked at me evenly. “The more you explain, the worse it gets.

Chapter 34 — What She Said

I couldn’t stop hearing it.*Do you think she’s good for him?*Chloe had asked it simply, openly, the way she asked everything — no walls, no second layer. She had no idea what she was placing in my hands when she said it. She just wanted an honest answer from her best friend.And I had given her a careful one.I thought about it on the drive over. Still thinking about it when Damian opened the suite door and stepped aside. He looked at me once and said nothing, the way he did when he could tell something was running underneath the surface. He just waited.“Does Chloe know anything?” I said.“No.”“You’re certain.”“Yes.”I believed him. That was the thing about Damian — he didn’t soften difficult truths, which meant when he gave you a clean answer you could actually hold it.I set my bag down and looked at him.“She came to mine this morning,” I said. “After I got back. She sat on my couch and told me she thinks you’re seeing someone. She said you seem different lately.” I paused. “S

Chapter 35 — The Other Woman

I saw her before she saw me.She was near the entrance of the conference hall, standing with a glass of water and the same unhurried composure I remembered from the restaurant months ago — dark hair, straight posture, the kind of presence that didn’t announce itself because it didn’t need to.It was a quarterly industry event, the kind where two hours of polite networking passed as professional development. I had been there fifteen minutes, spoken to the people I needed to speak to, and was deciding how much longer I was obligated to stay when she turned and our eyes met.She smiled immediately. Warm. Direct.“You’re Eva.” She crossed toward me. “I thought so.”“I am,” I said carefully.“Selene Marsh.” She extended her hand. “It’s good to finally meet you properly. Chloe talks about you constantly — her words, not mine.”“She’s easy to talk about,” I said.“She is.” She smiled. “I’ve known the Coles for years. Damian and I work in overlapping circles.” She said it simply, nothing load

Chapter 36 — Rules

He was already there when I arrived.That wasn’t unusual. Damian was always there before me, already settled, already composed, like he had arranged himself into the room before it needed him. But tonight something was different. Not in the way he looked — he looked the same as always, jacket off, sitting near the window. It was something underneath the surface. A deliberateness in the way he watched me walk in that made me slow slightly before I set my bag down.“You look like you want to say something,” I said.“I do.”I turned to face him properly. “Okay.”He looked at me for a moment. Not calculating. Just gathering something, the way he did before he said things he had decided to say carefully.“I want to be clear about something,” he said.“Go ahead.”He stood and moved to the other chair, not toward me, just repositioning. Like he wanted to be upright for this.“This isn’t casual,” he said.I held his gaze. “I know that.”“I don’t think you do. Not fully.” He paused. “I don’t d

Chapter 37 — Quiet Loudness

Chloe announced it on Saturday morning with the energy of someone who had been planning it since Thursday and was very pleased with herself.“Family day,” she said, appearing in the kitchen doorway with her hair still half undone and a look on her face that made it clear this was not a suggestion. “The three of us. No phones, no work, no excuses.”Damian looked up from his coffee. “I have calls this afternoon.”“Cancel them.”“Chloe—”“Dad.” She pointed at him. “One Sunday. I am asking for one Sunday. When was the last time we did anything that wasn’t accidentally happening in the same room?”He looked at her for a moment.“Fine,” he said.She turned to me with the same expression. “And you’re already here so you don’t get a vote.”“I wasn’t going to argue,” I said.“Smart.” She disappeared back toward the hallway. “I’m going to shower and then we’re cooking. Nobody leaves this kitchen until there is actual food.”I looked at Damian across the kitchen.He looked back at me.Neither of

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

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

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

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