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"So while you were playing romantic strategist with my life, you were simultaneously putting yourself at risk with my best friend. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? How it complicates every relationship I value?"
The parallel she drew was uncomfortably accurate, but that didn't change my concerns about her and James.
"The difference," I said carefully, "is that you're my sister. It's my job to protect you from situations that could hurt you."
"Even if those situations make me happier than I've ever been?"
"Especially then."
Before either of us could continue, there was a soft knock at the music room door. We sprang apart like guilty children, though it was far too late for such precautions.
"Come in," I called, my voice carefully neutral.
The door opened to reveal James, looking uncharacteristically disheveled and pale. His usually perfect composure was cracked, his tie loosened, his hair mussed as if he'd been running his hands through it. His discomfort was visible in every tense line of his body.
"Edward, Daphne," he said, his voice tight with tension. "I think we need to have a conversation."
"James—" Daphne began, but he held up a hand to stop her.
"I know that you know," he said to me directly, his voice heavy with twenty years of friendship about to be tested. "And I know that I've violated your trust in the worst possible way. But I need you to hear this from me, not discover it through surveillance or suspicion."
I studied my best friend's face, noting the mixture of guilt and defiance there.
"How long have you been planning to tell me?"
"We weren't," he admitted. "We were hoping to find the right time, the right circumstances. But there never seemed to be a moment when the truth wouldn't complicate everything."
"So you chose to lie to me instead."
"We chose to protect what we'd built until we could figure out how to make it work publicly." James stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with deliberate care. "I know how this looks, Edward. I know it appears that I've violated your trust, taken advantage of my position in your family—"
"Have you?"
"No." The answer came without hesitation. "I've fallen in love with an extraordinary woman who happens to be your sister. If anything, I've fought against these feelings because I knew how complicated they would make everything."
"But you didn't fight hard enough."
"No," he said simply. "I didn't. Because some things are worth the complication."
I looked between them—my sister and my closest friend—and saw the same desperation I'd been feeling for weeks. The same impossible choice between duty and desire, between family expectations and personal happiness.
The weight of maintaining these deceptions was visible on all our faces—the strain of loving people we couldn't publicly claim, of living lives divided between truth and performance. We'd all been slowly suffocating under the pressure of our own choices.
"This is a disaster," I said finally.
"It could be," James agreed. "Or it could be the beginning of something better than what we had before."
"And if Mother finds out? If the firm discovers that you're involved with the senior partner's sister? If society decides that you've overstepped your bounds?"
"Then we'll deal with those consequences when they come." James moved to stand beside Daphne, and I watched him take her hand with a familiarity that spoke of deep intimacy. "But I won't give her up preemptively out of fear."
"Even if it destroys your career?"
"Even then."
The three of us stood in silence, the weight of revelation settling over us like a shroud. Outside, thunder rolled across the estate, as if the very sky was responding to the tension in the room.
"So what happens now?" Daphne asked quietly.