One night,his forever

What wren knew

Wren's apartment was four blocks from mine and I covered it faster than I've ever moved in heels in my life.

She opened the door before I even knocked twice, like she'd been standing on the other side waiting for it, and one look at my face told her exactly why I was there.

"Rue"

"Bridal party." My voice came out shaking, phone already up between us with the photo still open. "Second from the left. Explain that to me right now."

She didn't reach for the phone. She didn't ask which photo. She just stepped back from the door and let me in, which told me more than anything she could have said.

Her apartment was dark except for one lamp in the corner, a glass of wine already half gone on the counter like she'd known this conversation was coming for hours and had started bracing for it early.

"How long have you known," I said. "That I work for him. That I met him. Any of it."

"I didn't know you'd meet him at that bar." Her voice was steady in a way that felt rehearsed. "I swear to you, Rue, I did not plan that."

"But you knew he existed. You knew Noor. You knew all of it and you let me walk into that building Monday morning without saying one word."

Wren wrapped both hands around her wine glass and didn't drink from it. "Noor is my sister."

The floor tilted slightly under me.

"Half sister," she went on, quiet, like the correction mattered to her more than it should. "Same father. Different mothers. We weren't raised together. I only found out four years ago, right before her wedding, when our father finally decided honesty was easier on his deathbed than it had been his whole life."

"You were in her wedding photos."

"She asked me to stand up for her. I think she needed one person in that church who wasn't part of the deal her marriage actually was." Wren finally looked up at me, something raw moving behind her eyes that I'd never once seen there in three years of friendship. "It's not a love story, Rue. It was never a love story. It was a merger with a ring on it, arranged before either of them turned eighteen, sealed the week their fathers' companies needed each other more than either of them needed a real marriage."

I sat down on the arm of her couch because my legs had stopped being reliable.

"Then why is he still married to her."

Wren's jaw tightened. "Because his father tied everything to it before he died. The shares, the holding company, my inheritance too, all of it locked to that marriage staying intact on paper. If Ronan walks away from Noor, it doesn't just cost him the company his father built. It costs Noor everything she has left of her own name. And it costs me mine."

"Your inheritance is tied to their marriage."

"Our father's will." She said it like it tasted bad in her mouth. "I didn't even know until after the funeral. I've spent four years watching my sister live inside a contract dressed up as a wedding, and I never told you any of it because it was never mine to tell."

"Until I ended up working for him."

"Until you ended up in his bed," Wren said, and the words landed harder than she probably meant them to. "I didn't send you to that bar to meet him, Rue. That part is a coincidence I still can't wrap my head around. But the second I saw the way you looked when you got home Saturday morning, I knew exactly what had happened, and I knew exactly who it happened with."

I stared at her. "That's why you texted me this morning. Don't tell me about it until tonight."

"Because I needed time to figure out how to tell you the truth without destroying the only thing left that feels uncomplicated in my life." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "You. Us. This friendship that has nothing to do with my sister or her marriage or that man's dead father's will."

Neither of us said anything for a moment. Somewhere outside a car alarm went off and died.

"Does Noor know," I asked. "About any of this. About me."

Wren's face did something complicated and closed off fast.

"Wren."

"I don't know what Noor knows," she said, too carefully. "But I know she called me an hour ago asking who the new girl at Ronan's office was."

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

"She what."

"She's not stupid, Rue. She's lived inside that marriage for five years watching him look through her like glass. She notices things." Wren set her wine down, untouched. "I told her I didn't know anything."

"You lied to your sister for me."

"I lied to my sister," Wren said quietly, "because I don't know yet whose side I'm supposed to be on, and until I figure that out, I'm not choosing for either of you."

My phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down without meaning to.

A text. Unknown number.

*This is Noor. I think we should talk. Tomorrow, my office, before you decide anything you can't take back.*

I turned the screen toward Wren without a word. Watched all the color leave her face at once.