My Fiance Kept Serving My Sister, So I Let Him Have He

### Chapter 1

After Felix Barnes missed getting our marriage license for the ninety-ninth time.

I opened a delivery app and found more than a dozen orders still out for delivery, every one of them women's things.

But the address field was filled in with my sister's place, all of them.

Lace lingerie of every kind, paired with the newest "toys," each one a top-shelf item that made you sit up and take notice.

Each order even came with a thoughtful little note full of innuendo, the kind of thing a couple in the honeymoon phase would send back and forth.

The most recent one was going to a hotel. Today.

With shaking hands, I left the delivery driver a five-star review.

The next second, Felix's call came through.

"Olive's a girl living alone, it isn't safe. Buying all this is just to keep up appearances. Don't read too much into it."

Don't read too much into it. Again.

Felix and I had been together eight years. He'd been sending her deliveries for five.

There were more orders after those, actually, but I couldn't bring myself to keep scrolling.

Thinking of how, all these years, Felix had always managed to find some reason to miss our marriage license appointment, I didn't have the courage to face any of it.

My chest stung as if it had swallowed ten thousand needles.

"You really are a kind man."

He went quiet.

When he spoke again, his voice had softened.

"Leila Harding, none of it's real. You know me. I've never liked your sister."

"If it weren't for the fact that you'd be hurt when something happened to her, I wouldn't lift a finger to help her."

My voice caught. "Do you have any idea how much I did to get ready for that appointment? I"

Felix cut me off, impatience in his tone.

"We missed it this time, so we just book it again, that's all. Don't keep getting jealous over things that don't matter. She's your own sister, after all."

"Be good. I'll explain when I'm done here and come home."

Then came the busy tone of the call ending.

Right before it cut off, Olive's soft, coaxing voice slid clearly into my ear, sweetly begging him to help zip up her dress.

I pushed the surge of feeling back down.

The appointment could be rebooked, that much was true.

But Felix, the person who walks into that clerk's office with me doesn't have to be you.

...

I stood alone at the entrance of the dining room, the candle flames on the carefully set table shivering in the night breeze.

On it was the meal I'd made with my own hands, after learning to cook for three whole months just for tonight.

I'd reheated it seven times, start to finish.

Facing this warm, happy candlelit dinner, my heart felt as cold as an icebox.

"Throw it all out," I said flatly to the servant beside me.

Felix wasn't coming home tonight.

Just then, an alarm went off like a death knell, tearing mercilessly through the silence of the house.

I walked to the study and followed the shrill sound to its source.

On Felix's work tablet, I saw the alarm reminder that had popped up:

Celebrate Olive's birthday.

Maybe it was because the night had thrown too much at me.

I stumbled back a couple of steps, nearly falling, and had to catch myself against the edge of the bookcase to stay standing.

The first photo Felix and I ever took together, back when we'd just gotten together, still sat on his desk.

But now, staring at the man smiling so gently in the picture, I felt only that he was a stranger.

The alarm kept repeating, over and over, coiling around my mind like a curse pulled tight, until my head throbbed and I couldn't breathe.

Felix didn't like being conspicuous. He'd never once taken me out on a date anywhere public.

Birthdays, anniversaries, special days like that, he skipped whenever he could, and even when we marked them, it was only a small celebration at home.

He said he wanted to put his mind on his career first. There'd be time for grand gestures later.

I remember the first birthday I had after Felix and I got together. A month ahead, I booked the best table at a restaurant everyone was talking about.

But the moment I brought him to the door, Felix's brow furrowed.

He accused me, angry, of ruining him, saying that in the middle of the company's most important bid, I wasn't keeping a low profile, and sooner or later someone with an agenda would catch it on camera and make something of it.

In the end, he drove off alone and left me standing at the curb, not knowing what to do.

That was our worst fight ever. After that, we never had another intimate moment anywhere the public could see.

No one knew we were a couple.

For eight full years, he forgot my birthday more than once, leaving me to eat a small cake I'd bought off the street, alone, tears running down my face.

He'd forget our hundred-day anniversary, leaving me holding a bouquet, waiting up all night at home for him.

He'd even forget Valentine's Day, forget I existed, and shamelessly post on social media about watching fireworks with Olive Harding.

Because I loved him, even when he forgot all of it, I still chose to understand him, to respect his ambition.

And what I got in return was a "birthday alarm" he'd set specially for another woman.

And that woman, of all the terrible luck, happened to be my own sister...

I don't know how I made it out of the study, or how I got through that night.

Not until the door opened and Felix's voice reached my ears did I notice the sky outside had already gone pale.

"Leila? Why are you up so early?"

Clearly not expecting to see me in the living room, he froze for a second.

When I didn't answer, Felix took off his coat and draped it over me with practiced ease, pretending to be annoyed as he complained that I didn't take care of myself, dressed so lightly and sitting on the floor, when it was easy to catch a chill.

The look in his eyes was still full of love, as if everything that had happened yesterday had nothing to do with him.

Maybe because I stayed unmoved, Felix was quiet for a moment, then switched to an innocent, coaxing expression.

He pulled out a little food box he'd been hiding behind his back, scooped a small spoonful of cake himself, and lifted it to my lips.

"Leila, yesterday was all my fault. See, I brought you a little cake to make up for it. Trust me, I'll never stand you up again."

The instant the cream touched my lips, I flinched away on instinct.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught that slice of mango cake, and the logo on the box was from a place I'd mentioned wanting to try a long time ago.

Felix had always said cake was too sweet, that finishing a whole one would make me gain weight and eating less was a waste.

So to this day I'd never once tasted that cake.

And there was something more important, too. That bakery never made cut-corner slices, so this piece, barring some miracle, was what Olive had left over.

At that thought, my chest clenched hard, and my voice trembled as I asked, "Where were you last night?"

At my words, the tenderness on Felix's face stiffened, and his eyes darted away on instinct.

"Olive said spending her birthday alone was too lonely..."

Even though I'd known the answer all along, hearing the truth from his own mouth left a dull, numbing ache spreading through my chest that I couldn't hold back.

Felix had forgotten. I'm allergic to mango.

In the end, I twisted my lips into something like a smile, left with nothing but contempt for myself.

Of course. His so-called low profile and practicality, all along, had been nothing but a leash on me and me alone.

### Chapter 2

"I don't want it."

Felix frowned, displeasure clear in his voice.

"Leila, Olive was out there alone late at night. It isn't safe. No matter how important the marriage license is, it can't come before a young girl's safety. Can you please stop being unreasonable?"

"But her birthday isn't even"

"Right, yesterday wasn't her birthday."

I wanted to tear Olive's lie open, but he cut me off, his voice cold.

Under my disbelieving stare, his face darkened as he kept accusing me. "I know your parents doted on you more from the time you were small, and now you have me spoiling you too, which only makes you more willful and reckless.

"But Olive is different. No one ever looked after her growing up. She never even knew who to invite for her own birthday. For her, her real birthday was always a nightmare. Now she just likes the date she and I first met, so she moved her birthday to yesterday. What's wrong with that?"

Felix's expression was frigid, yet I still caught the flicker of ache in his eyes when he mentioned Olive.

His reasoning was so absurd it made me doubt whether last month, when the whole family spent half a day happily setting up a birthday surprise for Olive, had ever happened at all.

"Leila, all these years you've had everyone's love to yourself. Would it kill you to give a little of it to Olive?"

"Weren't you the one who told me a family should live in harmony?"

"So why is it that the moment I indulge her for a little while and skip getting the license, you can't stand it?"

"Do you have any idea how disgusting you look, pretending to be so magnanimous?"

Every word out of Felix's mouth landed like a boulder on my heart, pressing down until I couldn't breathe.

I kept my head down, my teeth clenched hard on my lower lip, and even as the taste of blood spread freely through my mouth, I felt that this small pain was nothing next to the sharp ache in my chest.

The cake dropped into the trash can beside me with a soft thud, and the instant it scraped against the garbage bag, the sound grated.

The huge mansion held nothing but silence.

Neither Felix nor I spoke, as if we would spend the rest of our lives just like this.

In the end, he silently pulled away the coat draped over me and turned and walked off without looking back.

Cold air rushed into my body all at once, freezing that battered heart solid.

After he left, I finally couldn't hold on and cried, huge tears falling to the floor, as if I meant to cry out every grievance and every tear of these past years until nothing was left.

By the end, even I didn't know when I lost consciousness.

I woke again to the ringing of my phone. The call was from Julian Harding.

Back then, no matter what they tried, my parents couldn't have children, so at last they went to an orphanage and adopted him.

Who could have guessed that the very next year they had me and Olive.

Father was overjoyed, convinced it was his arrival that let the Harding bloodline continue, and he thought highly of him.

"Felix is in the news. What exactly is going on between him and Olive?"

His voice startled me awake, and I forced my still-aching head up and sat up from the floor.

As if some unseen hand were guiding me, I opened the news app.

At the top of the trending topics was a headline I thought I'd never see in my life.

#Barnes Group CEO Felix Barnes personally designs a wedding ring for his belovedhigh-society love made real?!#

I stared blankly at that glaring headline.

I tapped it open, and a familiar wedding-ring design sketch filled the screen.

In the photo, a pale, small hand rested in a pair of hands with clean, sharp knuckles, the two pressed tightly together, a gardenia-shaped matching ring on each ring finger.

In that moment, my heartbeat stopped completely, and even my breathing turned ragged.

That wedding ringI designed it!

The two rubies set into it were my mother's only keepsake.

She had given me the engagement ring she and Father exchanged years ago, hoping I would set its stones into a new ring, a blessing for my love with Felix.

Back then, when I brought him the design I'd worked on for a full six months, full of joy, what had he said?

He sneered at my level and threw the sketches into the trash.

He said he could bring in the best designer in the country to make the wedding rings, and told me to put my mind on the recent project instead.

The sharp pain in my chest surged up, and the tears I'd just barely held back came pouring down again beyond my control.

This had once been the scene I imagined countless times, the day Felix and I would make it official.

And now it had truly arrived, only the leading lady wasn't me.

This wedding-ring design that carried everything I'd ever hoped for had instead become his offering of love to someone else.

### Chapter 3

I choked on the words as I spoke into the phone.

"Julian Harding... I don't want to get married anymore..."

On the other end, he was quiet for a moment, then said, "I told you a long time ago that Felix Barnes wasn't reliable. Look at you. You had a perfectly good life as the eldest daughter of a wealthy family, and you threw it away to be some hard-luck sweetheart building a life from nothing with him. Secretary, they call you. I'd say you've turned into his nanny..."

Back then I loved him with everything I had, foolish enough to believe we'd grow old together. Looking at it now, this whole thing was a one-woman play, start to finish.

"Leila." He let the old argument drop. "If you're unhappy, I'll come bring you home tomorrow."

The heart that had gone cold all night warmed a little at that. I said softly,

"Okay."

After I hung up, I went to the office to submit my resignation.

Back when I first got together with Felix, Julian had been dead set against it. I'd said a lot of harsh things to him over it, and I refused to see him on holidays.

Looking at it now, I was wrong beyond words.

Olive hadn't thought much of Felix at first either. To her, a man with no background was exactly the kind of ordinary person who only wanted the Harding money, with nothing good in mind.

And Felix couldn't stand the way she stirred up trouble.

Then one day the power tripped in the apartment where Olive lived, and she called me while I was out of town, so I sent Felix over to her place.

After that, Olive's little "help me" calls started coming to Felix now and then.

At first I didn't think anything of it. Not until Felix bailed on our plans, over and over, to go help Olive. Not until I saw that stack of delivery receipts. Not until now, when everyone thinks the two of them are the real couple.

It wasn't that I never made a scene about it.

But every time, Felix had some reason ready to throw back at me.

"Leila, I saw with my own eyes how much it destroyed you when your mother passed. Olive is your sister. It's too dangerous for her out there on her own. I can't even imagine how you'd fall apart if something happened to her."

"Everything I'm doing is for you. I don't want you sinking back into that pain."

Every time, it was for me.

But Felix, what makes you think I wouldn't be hurt while you use excuses like that to appoint yourself Olive's "guardian angel"?

Now all I feel is my beating heart being held over an open flame every waking moment, scorched raw, until I can't catch my breath from the pain.

To protect Olive, he handpicked a dozen bodyguards for her. Even when she only scraped the skin on her arm by accident, Felix flew into a rage, cursing that pack of bodyguards as useless, said they couldn't even keep one girl safe.

Yet he'd been the one to say he liked a partner who was independent, not some pampered little thing who wailed to the heavens over a scratch.

To protect Olive, he personally took her on vacation to the Aegean Sea. That was where I'd planned to hold our wedding, and he'd turned me down, saying the trip was too far and a waste of time.

That was the first time he missed our appointment to get the marriage license. I waited alone at the county clerk's office for the whole day.

There were plenty more things like that. So many that I hated myself for remembering every single one of them down to the bone.

I patted my own cheeks, forcing myself to stop remembering.

When I got to the office, Felix wasn't in.

Because of the peculiar nature of my position, HR didn't dare make the call for the boss.

So they phoned Felix.

But the moment they said my name, he cut them off in that cold voice.

"Haven't I already said that when I'm out of the office, she can sign the important contracts in my place? It's just one person leaving. I shouldn't have to teach you the paperwork for that."

My heart gave a jolt.

Felix had always been like this. Of everyone in the company, he trusted me most.

So when he wasn't there, I could make any decision in his place.

He trusted my love for him that much, certain that no matter what, I would never betray him, never leave him.

And it was exactly that trust that let him, again and again, brazenly play at being another woman's partner under the lie of "helping out."

Just as I stood there not knowing what to say, his voice came through again.

This time, it wasn't for me.

Under the seemingly angry tone, there was nothing but concern.

"Didn't I tell you to rest? The doctor said your fetal heartbeat is unstable right now. Why are you running around barefoot?"

Then came Olive's sugary voice.

"It's a call from the company, though. I didn't want it to hold up your work, so I grabbed the phone and hurried to find you..."

After that, I took the phone from HR and pressed to hang up.

In that moment, it felt like an invisible hand closed hard around my chest.

I stood frozen where I was, the noise around me blurring into a muddy backdrop, a ringing in my ears, cold spreading through my whole body.

Olive was pregnant!

So it turned out that his putting off the marriage license, all his fretting over his sister, had nothing to do with caring about a future sister-in-law. He'd already made a child of love with her.

HR opened their mouth to say something more, but I'd already picked up the company seal and stamped it straight onto the resignation.

I left without a backward glance.

Whatever happened to Felix had nothing to do with me anymore.

### Chapter 4

I came home carrying my resignation letter.

Delivery bags were piled at the front door flowers, all sorts of little trinkets and skincare.

Every one of them was a holiday gift Felix had bought me before. Cheap, all of it, and yet I'd guarded it carefully for years, kept it looking brand new.

Before I could react, Felix noticed me first and offered an explanation. "Olive hasn't been feeling well these past few days. She might stay here for a while, so I'm having the place tidied up."

I said nothing. I watched him tell the staff to take away my usual meal plan and replace it with high-protein shrimp and steak.

He'd forgotten that after crying myself sick the night before and spending the whole night in the living room, I'd caught a chill.

With this cough, I couldn't eat any of that.

Then, afraid the smell of perfume might bother Olive, he threw out every one of my scented candles without a second thought, never mind that they were what I needed to calm my nerves and help me sleep.

The truth was that Olive had slipped into my life with Felix a long time ago, without a sound.

The gardenias that had always sat in the house were swapped out for jasmine. Felix said Olive had recommended it a lighter scent, more refined and gentle.

The closet filled up with pale-colored nightgowns he never once would have tried before. He explained that Olive said light colors were more cheerful, that they lifted the mood of whoever wore them instead of weighing them down.

I watched him sitting on the sofa, that familiar delivery app open on his phone.

He was picking out stretch-mark oil for her.

The next second, a voice message popped up.

Felix tapped play on reflex.

Olive's soft, girlish voice came through. "Felix, honey, you told me last time that my sister's sensitive and ticklish, so I had someone buy a few little things that won't do any harm. They'll definitely bring you and my sister closer"

Felix caught himself in time and cut it off, then looked at me with a rare flicker of guilt in his eyes.

All I felt was the blood in me going cold all at once, my fingertips trembling and refusing to stop.

"Felix, so even the most private things between us are something for you to chat and joke about with her?"

He panicked visibly, tried to explain, and I cut him off.

"I'm not gossip for the two of you to laugh over."

Maybe the line struck something he didn't want touched. Felix frowned.

"Leila, Olive is your own sister. What's so wrong with talking about that kind of thing? She's just sick and staying a couple of days, and she thought of bringing you a little gift because she didn't want to intrude. It isn't nearly as serious as you're making it out to be. Stop being so petty about everything."

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. It was absurd.

Even now he thought I was sulking, competing for his affection.

Honestly, I'd never understood how Felix could tell his fiance to take care of his pregnant mistress without so much as a change in his expression.

But by now the disappointment had piled up enough that explanations no longer mattered.

I took a deep breath and said quietly,

"Felix, we're done here."

"What did you say?" He froze for a moment, and his face darkened all at once.

But I acted as if I hadn't seen it, staring at him and spelling it out word by word.

"I said, we're over."

Felix looked at me.

The air went solid.

Before long the menace drained out of him, leaving only a deep weariness.

He lifted a hand and rubbed the space between his brows.

"You won't be satisfied until it comes to burning every bridge?"

He frowned, staring at me, his voice full of exhaustion and irritation.

"Leila, are you sure you can get by without me? Where would you go if you left? Off to save your father's hollow shell of a company?"

He sighed. "Leila, you aren't half as sweet and easy as Olive."

My gaze settled on his eyes, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't line up the man in front of me with the boy who once had eyes only for me.

Six years ago, when the company was surging ahead, a rival who couldn't get a grip on Felix turned on me instead. They grabbed me while I was out and dragged me to an abandoned warehouse.

To save me, he gave up a project worth hundreds of millions and rushed to the warehouse alone. When he saw the thugs manhandling me, even with three ribs already broken, he threw himself over me and shielded me with his own body.

Afterward, he blamed himself more than once, so much that no matter how busy work got, he never missed a single combat class after that.

He said he had to protect the one he loved.

Until Olive came along, and made a stubborn man who would never bend his own rules bend them for her, over and over.

I laughed to myself inside. "Felix, do you have any idea? All those times you missed the date to get our marriage license so you could keep Olive company, my father and I were out begging people, spending the last of our connections to open doors for you."

"When you were racking your brain over some intimate little surprise for her, I was handling every headache at home alone, not daring to slow the company down even when my fever hit a hundred and four."

"So the one who poured out her heart to lift up your career and never once asked for your company doesn't know how to behave, and Olive, who only needs you to spend money coaxing and keeping her company and doesn't share a shred of the pressure, is the sweet and easy one. Is that right?"

### Chapter 5

Felix faltered, his mouth opening as if to say something, but I was past caring what it was.

The second I dragged my luggage out through the front door, a soft, tearful cry rose up behind me.

And the moment I turned, Olive collapsed to the ground, barely inches from me.

Her shriek pulled a ring of curious strangers around us in an instant.

Before I could get a word out, Olive was already crying, eyes red, voice pitched sweet and small:

"I'm so sorry, sis... That day at the house I was undressing and I accidentally caught my hair in the zipper... I honestly didn't know what to do, so I called Felix. I really didn't know it was the day you two were getting your marriage license... If I'd known, I never would have made that call!"

The onlookers took in the scene and murmured among themselves:

"She only asked for a little help. A zipper caught in your hair really hurts, and it's not like the girl did it on purpose. This one doesn't have an ounce of grace in her."

"They look so alike, probably real sisters. Humiliating your own flesh and blood in public like this, that's just shameful!"

Between sobs, Olive twisted the knife: "Don't worry, sis, Felix will always be yours, I truly wish you both well... Please, don't be angry with him, okay..."

I let her finish slinging her mud in silence. Then I reached into my bag, pulled out a set of lace lingerie along with the photos I'd printed in advance, and threw the whole thing in her face.

The breeze caught the photos and scattered them into the hands of the crowd gathered to watch.

They showed Olive in the lingerie Felix had bought her, posing in front of a hotel mirror. She'd posted them herself.

"Truly wish us well? Your idea of wishing us well is having my fianc buy you underwear, having my fianc throw out my things and replace them with what you like?"

"Olive, I signed for your delivery, and the spot as Mrs. Barnes is yours too. I don't want it."

The color drained from her face and her crying cut off cold.

Just when I thought she was about to pull some new stunt, she suddenly spun around, covered her face, and ran.

A furious roar came from behind me.

"Leila, what do you think you're doing?!"

Then Felix slammed his shoulder into mine, hard, without sparing me so much as a glance, and took off after her.

By the time I reached the little creek in the back garden, Olive was crouched at the edge of the wooden bridge, shaking with sobs.

The instant she saw me, she got even more worked up: "I'm sorry, sis, those deliveries were things I asked Felix to help me buy. There's truly nothing between us..."

Even Felix chimed in for her, though his eyes stayed locked on Olive, the worry in them all but spilling over.

"Leila, Olive has already apologized. Just forgive her, right now. She can't take any more of this!"

I looked at the water, not even knee-deep, then at the man whose eyes had gone red with panic.

The whole thing struck me as absurd.

"There's soft sand under there, and the water doesn't even reach the knee. Is your precious little sister's body so fragile she must be pregnant?"

The words landed, and not just on Felix. Even Olive's tear-streaked face froze for a few seconds.

The next second, her body tilted, and she flung herself straight into the freezing creek.

Felix's face changed in an instant. Without a moment's thought he plunged in after her, hauling her up onto the bank with everything he had.

Watching it all, I felt nothing but cold spread through my chest.

Once the two of them were back on the bank, Felix held the near-unconscious Olive and turned to glare at me, the hatred in his eyes impossible to shake.

"Leila! You keep dragging this out. Are you going to hound everyone to death before you're satisfied?! I'm telling you, if anything happens to Olive, I won't let you off."

He hurled that last warning at me, then bellowed for the family doctor to hurry over and carried Olive into the house, calling her name over and over, as if terrified she might slip away the next moment.

The vast back garden was left with nothing but the cold wind.

I watched the back of him, so anxious as he soothed my sister, and felt only a barren emptiness.

In his heart, Olive would always come first, and I would always be the unreasonable villain.

I gave myself three days. Hand off every last piece of work in my hands, and then disappear from Felix's world for good.