Chapter 4
664words
Her hangover pounded like a thousand tiny hammers against her temples. Her throat felt like sandpaper, and waves of chills ran through her dehydrated body.
She propped herself up, desperate for water, but froze the moment she sat upright.
This wasn't her home.
This was an unfamiliar hotel suite with sleek, minimalist luxury. The air still carried the unmistakable scent of sex. And she… completely naked, her expensive gown torn to shreds, discarded at the foot of the bed.
What terrified her more was the sight of her body in the faint morning light—inner thighs, waist, and chest marked with purple bruises, as if she'd been claimed by a beast.
Memories of the previous night flashed through her mind like a chaotic film on fast-forward.
Julian's burning body pressing down on hers.
His dominant, irresistible movements.
His hoarse voice in her ear, commanding her repeatedly: "Say my name, Chloe."
And her own uncontrolled, broken moans, and in the midst of overwhelming pleasure, that unconscious whisper… "Brother…"
Boom——
All color drained from Chloe's face in an instant.
What had she done?
She'd just discovered the scandalous affair between her husband and her younger brother, only to turn around and commit her own taboo with Julian—her brother in name.
And this man was still Julian.
The same man who, five years ago at her eighteenth birthday celebration, after she'd gathered all her courage to confess to him, had looked at her with ice-cold eyes and said, "Chloe, don't be foolish. I'm your brother."
The same man who, to thoroughly crush her hopes, immediately found a passionate, fiery girlfriend who was her complete opposite, and flaunted their relationship in front of her, demonstrating his rejection through actions rather than words.
A man who had clearly and explicitly rejected her from the beginning.
Why had he… slept with her?
Was it pity for her betrayal? Or… because she was drunk and vulnerable?
Or… was this his five-year-delayed, crueler form of revenge? To prove it wasn't that he couldn't have her, but that he simply hadn't wanted to?
An overwhelming confusion and double guilt enveloped Chloe like a suffocating shroud. She couldn't face it—couldn't face the sleeping man beside her whom she should call "brother," and even more, couldn't face her own role in this forbidden encounter.
Her only thought was escape.
Like a frightened thief, she crawled from the bed, frantically searching for her clothes in the dim room. She dared not turn on the light, hastily wrapping the tattered remains of her dress around her body.
Her hands shook violently with panic as she fumbled with the clasps of her dress. She found her handbag and hastily stuffed her phone and wallet inside, desperate to flee this "crime scene" that was suffocating her.
As she grabbed her handbag from the dressing table chair, one of her pearl earrings—the ones that had witnessed her heartbreak at her eighteenth birthday—slipped from a side pocket, falling silently into the plush carpet.
Chloe didn't notice.
Like a frightened bird, she ran barefoot down the silent hallway, jabbing the elevator's down button with trembling fingers.
The elevator door opened with a "ding"—a sound that, in the quiet pre-dawn, seemed to announce her guilt like a judge's gavel.
She rushed in, frantically pressing the door close button and the lobby button. As the doors slowly sealed her inside the descending metal box, she finally broke, leaning against the wall and sliding slowly to the floor.
She didn't cry.
She just hugged her knees, burying her face deeply into them like an ostrich, futilely trying to hide from this incomprehensible, chaotic new reality.
The hotel room door closed with an almost inaudible soft click.
In the vast, silent presidential suite, Julian remained asleep, unaware of everything.
At the foot of the bed, on the dark carpet, the solitary pearl earring caught the first faint light of morning, gleaming with a cold, forlorn radiance—like an abandoned tear.
