Chapter 317 I couldn't even win over my own son

Chapter 317 I couldn't even win over my own son


"Sienna is still your sister," Cassie said, and her voice carried the particular steadiness of a woman who has already done the hard work of making peace with something and isn't going to pretend otherwise.

"Just the same way Frederick is still Franklin's twin. I knew that before I ever let you get close to me, so go ahead. Say what you need to say."

Violet took a breath. "My mom called," she began, her hands folding together in her lap. "She said Sienna has changed. A lot. And even though she'd been holding on, waiting for Fred, she finally agreed to an arranged marriage. A businessman out in San Francisco."

She paused, like the next part needed a moment to be said properly. "The wedding is next week. And she asked me to be her maid of honor again."

The room went quiet in that full, weighted way it does when something lands that nobody was entirely braced for. Not a bad quiet, just the kind that comes when people are genuinely processing something and don't want to rush past it.

Cassie's voice came in first, measured and careful. "Does this man know everything about her?"

Violet nodded slowly. "Sienna called me after my mom did. She said she wasn't willing to walk into another marriage carrying secrets, not again. So she told him everything. All of it. Including what the doctors told her about her womb."

She let that settle before continuing. "They've already agreed to adopt. And he has two children of his own from his late wife, so it's not something he needed convincing about. He understands what that kind of love looks like."

The breath that left Cassie came out long and slow and quiet, the kind of exhale that carries something with it — relief, mostly, and the particular softness that comes from wanting something good for someone you've had complicated feelings about and finally, genuinely getting to feel that it happened.

What she had always wanted, not for Sienna to suffer, not for her to be punished, but for her to actually become something better than what she'd been, had apparently come to pass in its own time, in its own way, without anyone having to push it along.

"We are happy for her," Cassie said, and lifted her glass of fruit juice. The gesture was simple and unhurried and it meant what it meant. "And honestly? We might just show up at that wedding, gifts in hand, and give her the surprise of her life."

She let that land, and then turned her eyes to Violet with something quiet and intentional in them.

"For your sake."

Violet stared at her. For a moment she didn't move, didn't speak, like the words were still traveling the distance between being heard and being believed. "You would actually do that for me?"

Cassie's smile was warm and completely without performance. "That's what being part of this family means."

Violet was out of her chair before she'd fully decided to move, crossing the space between them, and pulling Cassie into an embrace that had nothing managed about it, just gratitude, the kind that's too full to stay inside a person.

"You are such an incredible woman," she said, her voice slightly unsteady at the edges. "Franklin is so lucky to have you."

"I know," Franklin said from across the room, his smile wide and unabashedly proud, the expression of a man who has heard this particular truth enough times that he has stopped being modest about agreeing with it.

The warmth of the moment carried for a breath or two, and then, the way it always does when a room full of perceptive people is paying attention, the energy began to quietly redirect itself.

Frederick hadn't said anything. He hadn't moved or made a sound. But his expression had changed, and it wasn't the kind of change that went unnoticed in a room where people were watching.

Something had moved behind his eyes, not dramatically, not in a way that announced itself, but it was there, and it was enough.

Franklin noticed first. He looked at his twin brother for a moment before he said anything, his voice gentle but direct, such that only someone who has known a person their entire life can manage. "Fred. If you loved her that much, you should have given her a second chance."

Frederick was quiet for a moment. Then, "She did say she'd wait for me." He said it evenly, without bitterness, like a man reading a fact from a page rather than feeling his way through it.

"So I'll admit, I'm surprised. But if I'm being honest with myself?" He paused. "I never actually pictured us finding our way back to each other. Not really."

"That's a relief," Giselle said.

The words came out before she'd entirely meant them to, and the room's attention swung toward her with an immediacy that made her sit up slightly straighter.

Cassie's eyes landed on her with an expression caught somewhere between curious and amused. "Were you saying something?"

Giselle cleared her throat, and for just a small, unguarded moment, her eyes moved to Frederick, whose expression had settled into something cool and unreadable.

She pulled herself together and pressed forward, because she hadn't come this far into the evening to lose her nerve now.

"It's my ex-husband," she said, keeping her voice steady. "He won't give up. He keeps coming back, keeps pushing, and what I actually need, is shared custody of my son.”

“I'm done with marriage. I'm not interested in anything like that again. I just want my boy to have both his parents in his life without it being a war zone every time." She paused. "But my ex won't back down on his own. He needs a reason to, and I just don’t want all the complicated legalities."

The room was very quiet, and all of it was pointed in one direction.

Frederick didn't respond. He sat with the same unhurried stillness he'd held most of the evening, giving nothing away.

Franklin, reading his brother the way only a twin can, stepped in without making it seem like he was filling a silence. "Fred," he said simply. "What do you think?"

Frederick turned his head in Giselle's direction. Not unkindly, but not warmly either, just with the particular directness of a man who doesn't see the point of softening a question that deserves a straight answer. "Why me?"

Giselle held his gaze. "Because you look just like your brother," she said plainly. "And you carry yourself in a way my ex-husband would take seriously. He's the kind of man who backs down when he's outmatched, not in a fight, but in presence. Status. The feeling that the person across from him isn't someone to push around."

She folded her hands in her lap. "All we'd need to do is make a few appearances together. Let him see us. Let him draw his own conclusions. Once he believes we're together, he'll pull back, and after that, you'd be done. You wouldn't owe me anything beyond that." She met his eyes steadily. "I can pay you for your time."

Frederick drew in a long, slow breath through his nose. The room waited.

"Here's what I'll tell you," he said finally, his voice measured and even. "If you can get my daughter to actually like you, and I mean, genuinely like you, not just tolerate you, then I'm in."

He let that sit for just a moment before he added, "Because if Rose takes a dislike to you, she will find a way to unravel the whole thing without even meaning to. She's seven, and she's already better at reading people than most adults I know."

The room held a beat of silence.

Then something moved across Giselle's face, something that didn't try to be anything other than what it was. The composure she'd been holding so carefully all evening slipped just slightly at the edges, and what showed through was something quieter and more painful than anything she'd said out loud all night.

"I couldn't even win over my own son," she said, and her voice, for the first time, had nothing guarded in it at all. "How am I supposed to win over yours?"