The Wrong Brother's Temptation novel Chapter 189

Chapter 189

Sienna

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A fresh wave of nervousness went through me at the thought of facing the elders again, and the rest of the Ashford family, and Aaron most of all, whose frozen expression from that morning I couldn’t stop replaying.

“You will be fine,” Maria reassured me and stepped back to survey the result.

“There,” she sounded satisfied. “You look like yourself again. Only…” she considered the word, “…more certain.”

I wasn’t sure I felt certain of anything.

“Do you need anything else before we go?” she asked, already folding the dryer’s cord.

“I forgot my meds,” I admitted in a small voice without elaborating why I was taking them. “Back at the mansion.”

Maria lightly slapped her forehead.

“Oh, I nearly forgot.” She reached into her bag and pulled out the familiar small bottle, holding it out. “Connor asked me to bring this specifically but I forgot to give it to you. He told me you’d need it before leaving the hospital.”

Among a myriad of things he had to keep in mind, he chose to remember this bit of information too?

I took the bottle, curling my fingers around the cool plastic, and wondered, not for the first time that morning, whether I’d spent the night tending to him, or whether he’d been the one looking after me the entire time in his faintly infuriating way.

I popped the pills in my mouth and my gaze fell on my reflection in the mirror.

This wasn’t my style. I lived in jeans and whatever soft t–shirt I could find, not high–waisted skirts and wide leather belts, not turtlenecks that made me look like I’d been styled for some fashion magazine. But looking at the reflection now, I found I didn’t hate any of it.

“You look beautiful,” Maria smiled at me gawking at the mirror while already folding her supplies back into her bag.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You’ll do fine today,” she added, not looking up from the bag. “Whatever’s waiting for you in the mansion I’m

sure.”

I wanted to press her on that because Maria always seemed to know more than she let on, but there wasn’t time, and some instinct told me she wouldn’t have told me anyway.

So I stepped out of the room to see that Connor was in the corridor, talking with the doctor, his side profile turned toward me.

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The Wrong Brother’s Temptation

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The bandage at his throat peeked above his collar, but there was no fresh red blooming through the white, which I took as the first good sign of the morning. The doctor said something low I didn’t catch, probably instructions Connor had no intention of following, and nodded once before moving off down the hall with his clipboard tucked under one arm.

Connor turned and his gaze fell on me.

His eyes started at my feet and moved upward in a slow and completely unhurried way, taking its time over every inch like he had nowhere else in the world to be.

I felt it linger on my mouth a beat too long before it finally reached my eyes, and the smile that followed was entirely too pleased with itself.

He mouthed one word. Gorgeous.

I told my body, very firmly, to behave itself.

Thank the Goddess for the meds whose effects would kick in shortly.

My body was not particularly interested in following instructions. But I managed to cross the corridor toward him without visibly combusting, which felt like an achievement already.

“You clean up well,” I said, mostly to have something to say that wasn’t ‘stop looking at me like that.

“I always do that,” he replied with an amused grin. “You’re only now noticing?”

“I’ve been distracted by other things…like the part where you nearly died.”

“Semantics,” he waved his hand off like this was a minor technicality rather than the central event of the last night.

“Dying is not semantics, Connor.”

How could he be so calm when going to meet the very people who almost killed him last night?

“I didn’t die,” he corrected me. “I’m standing right here and I’m very much alive. You can check my pulse if you’re concerned.”

He extended his wrist toward me but I resisted the urge to touch just so I could absorb some confidence from him.

“I trust the doctor checked you thoroughly before letting you walk out of the hospital.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged before offering me his other arm instead.

“Now shall we?”

I took it, because arguing further felt like a losing battle I didn’t have the energy for, and we started walking toward the mansion together.

The weather outside turned out to be quite pleasant with a clear sky, mild sun, and slightly cold air.

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The Wrong Brother’s Temptation

I felt thankful for the warm sweater as I stayed close to him, dreading meeting the elders again.

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One of the gardeners spotted us first. He dusted his hands off against his trousers and hurried over.

“Alpha Connor,” he greeted, slightly breathless. “How are you feeling? We heard about the trial. We were all so worried last night.”

“I’m fine,” Connor replied. “Thank you for asking, Desmond.”

He knew the servant’s name. I filed that away as one more small piece of information that didn’t fit the version of Connor I’d carried around in my head for most of my life.

“We heard it was…” Desmond started, and then decided to not finish that sentence, shaking his head instead. “We’re just glad you’re well.”

He called out to two others working near the fountain, who immediately abandoned their watering cans and hurried over, and within moments a small crowd had gathered around us.

All of the servants and maids came running over to meet Connor, all of them wanting to see with their own eyes that he was upright and doing fine.

I stood slightly to the side and watched him reply to each one of them without shrugging them off as lowly employees working for his pack.

And he knew not just Desmond but everybody by name. Not just that, he also knew little details about most of them, about their children’s education, and their old parents‘ health.

Connor had absolutely nothing to gain by giving them his time. No succession votes hinged on gardeners‘ opinions, and no political advantage came from a maid’s relief.

These were all just people who cared about him, despite him being away from the mansion for a large part of his life.

That realization made a warm smile appear on my face as I wondered again where this version of Connor had been all these years.

An older woman pushed gently through the small crowd. Her hands were spotted and weathered with age, the knuckles slightly swollen, and she reached up without hesitation to cup his face between them.

He didn’t pull away.

He let her hold him there, tilting his head down slightly to make it easier for her, while she murmured something in a dialect I only half caught, wishing him a long life.

I stood there, unsure what to do with myself, watching this stranger bless a man I’d known my whole life and somehow never actually known at all.

Connor glanced sideways at me.

“Won’t you bless me to live that long life,” he gently asked the woman, “with my partner as well?”

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The Wrong Brother’s Temptation

The woman’s eyes moved to me, and her smile widened further.

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“Of course,” she nodded and reached out to cup my face too, holding us both there at once, her thumb brushing lightly across my cheekbone.

Her hand smelled faintly of soil and lavender. “You both look so good together. I’ve seen you play with Aaron since childhood but I must say, you and Connor are a match made in heaven. May the Goddess always keep you in love with each other.”

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The Wrong Brother’s Temptation

Chapter 190

Sienna

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Love. I wasn’t sure if I understood that word anymore.

I exchanged a glance with Connor whose eyes danced with mischief so I quickly looked away.

Then the woman stepped aside as I murmured a thank you to her.

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Just then movement caught my eye near the mansion’s front entrance, and the warmth dropped several degrees at once.

Sandra was standing at the top of the steps in a perfectly fitted dress, wearing flawless makeup but a sour expression.

And I realized why a second later. She noticed the love and warmth being showered on Connor and me and that face which always looked smug crumpled a little.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy seeing the corner of her mouth tighten. I had no proof but I knew very well she was the reason for Connor’s suffering last night, the instigator to fuel Johanson’s wicked schemes.

For one small and relieved second, I felt something close to satisfaction watching it happen.

Then she turned and disappeared back through the front door without a single word, and the satisfaction curdled fast into something akin to dread.

Sandra didn’t know when to back down and she certainly didn’t take a failure in stride.

In all the days I had gotten to know her, I was sure she always wanted to be the center of attention and hated anyone who took the limelight from her.

I could already imagine her stomping her feet to go cry a river to Aaron and then come up with some wicked scheme in a few hours.

“You saw that?” I asked quietly to Connor, once the crowd had started dispersing back to their tasks after everyone was satisfied now that they’d confirmed with their own eyes that he was fine.

“I saw it,” he nodded without a hint of unease on his face.

“She’s going to do something. I know that look in her eyes” I shared my concern with him.

“She’s always doing something,” he answered in that same unbothered tone, guiding me up the front steps. “The question is when will it stop bothering you.”

I blinked. “Bothering me? You almost died in the arena and calling it just ‘bothering‘ is weird, even for you. You should be more than bothered”

He raised a finger to flick my nose like we were arguing over something silly.

1/4

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The Wrong Brother’s Temptation

“You are too easy to read, Speckles. Calm down. I’ve got this”

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“But you…” I began but then he gently pushed me aside, making my back hit the railing of the staircase and placed a finger on my mouth.

My eyes went wide as his face hovered just a hair’s breath away from mine.

“Do you trust me?”

How was I supposed to answer when he was touching me like that, just near the entrance anybody could walk in any second.

I tried to express frantically but he pressed his finger firmer on my mouth, leaning further into me.

“You can nod or shake your head for the answer”

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