All Chapters of Tempted by my brother-in-law. : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

POV: HazelSTUDYI got dressed and went downstairs.Not because I was hungry. I just could not sit in that room anymore, in that mirror, in that colour. I pulled on a loose shirt and trousers, tied my hair back, locked my phone screen on that message, and went downstairs.Kaden was already at the dining table.He had not waited. He never waited. A plate had been set for me at the opposite end and I sat down and reached for the water and told myself this was fine. This was just dinner. "How was the trip?" I asked.He had been in Black City for four days. Four days of me in that house alone, eating meals I did not taste, sleeping on my side of a bed that felt no different whether he was in it or not."Nothing you need to worry about," he said.He did not look up.I set my glass down carefully.That sentence. That specific sentence, in that specific tone, delivered to the top of his plate. He had said it so many times over the past year that I had stopped registering it as a response an

POV: HazelSCOREThe ball was six hours away and nobody had told me.I stood in the entryway of the Varyn estate and let that settle while Kaden's mother finished her sentence. She had greeted us at the bottom of the stairs with a smile that had nothing behind it and the first thing out of her mouth was that she had expected me to walk through the door with a baby on my hip.Nobody moved for a second.Then Kaden said her name. Just that. The way he shut down anything he did not want to continue. His mother blinked at him and then looked back at me with an expression that said she was only joking and we both knew that was not true."I'm saying what everyone here is already thinking," she said pleasantly. "One year, Hazel. The family had hopes.""We're handling it," Kaden said.I glanced at him. He was not looking at me. He was looking at his mother with that particular stillness he used when he wanted a conversation to die. I noted that he had said we. Filed it away without knowing wha

POV: HazelKNOWNI woke up knowing.That was the worst part. There was no blissful gap, no merciful few seconds of not remembering. I opened my eyes and the ceiling was the first thing I saw and the second thing was the knowledge, sitting fully formed in my chest like it had been there all night.Nikolai Varyn.My brother-in-law.I lay completely still for a moment. The room was quiet. The space beside me was empty, which meant he had left before I woke up, the same as the first time, and I did not know whether to feel relieved or insulted by that.I pressed my fingers against my eyes and breathed.Kaden.The thought arrived fast and cold. What time had he come up last night. Had he come to this room at all. Had he stood in this doorway and seen something, or had the room been empty by then and he had simply assumed I was already asleep. I had no way of knowing. I had been unconscious by the time it was over and I had no memory of anything after the dragon tattoo.I got up and checked

POV: HazelLUNCHThe family lunch was at one o'clock.I knew because Celeste knocked on my door at half past twelve and told me to come down, that the matriarch had requested everyone present, and that her mother was already in a mood so the faster we all got downstairs the better.I took my time anyway.I stood at the mirror and looked at myself and had a direct, private conversation with the woman staring back. You are going to walk into that room and sit down and eat your food and speak when spoken to and give absolutely nothing away. You have survived one year in this family performing a version of yourself that did not exist. You can survive one lunch.I went downstairs.The dining room was full. The long table had been properly set, the good china, the kind the matriarch only brought out when she wanted to make a point about who this family was. Family members I recognised from the ball filled most of the seats. Kaden was already there, near the head, talking to his uncle. Celes

POV: HazelGARDENI needed air.Not the kind the house offered, recycled through expensive vents and smelling faintly of fresh flowers the staff replaced every two days. Real air. The kind that did not have the weight of that dining room sitting inside it.I slipped out through the side door after tea and went straight to the garden.It was quieter out here. The sweet smell hit me the moment I stepped onto the path, the same one I had noticed on my wedding day, the same one I had noticed on arrival, familiar in a way that felt almost cruel given everything else about this house. I walked until the noise from inside was just a low hum and then I stopped and stood there and breathed.Kaden's jaw had done that tight thing.Celeste had said it like it was minor. Incidental. A footnote to a lunch that had been uncomfortable from the moment I walked in. But I had been watching Kaden for a year and I had never once seen that particular expression on him. The controlled kind that meant someth