My Unchosen Ex Chases Reborn Me (Soren and Fiona) novel Chapter 26

Fiona lowered her gaze. “I never expected to take the top honor myself,” she murmured.

The three young women lingered on the stone bench, conversation flowing from temple rituals to spring fashions, their laughter twining with the distant chime of a bronze bell. Only when Fiona noticed Hannah, Joanna, and Penelope emerging from the rear courtyard did she rise and bid her friends farewell.

The ride home unfolded beneath a tension thick enough to bruise. Neither Hannah nor Joanna spoke; the creak of the wheels was louder than breath.

Fiona asked nothing. She opened a book and let her gaze drift over the inked pages like water

over stones.

Upon reaching the Niven Estate, she curtsied obediently to Hannah in the front hall, then slipped away toward Bamboo Lodge.

Only after Fiona’s footsteps vanished did Joanna say, “Mother, please don’t let anger wear on your health.”

Hannah’s chest rose sharply. “Did you see her lofty air? I merely wished to consult her, yet she acted as though I were throwing Fiona at her.”

Joanna soothed, “Fiona is radiant, and now she holds first in archery. She can choose any groom in all Duflana. We needn’t keep the Zonfrillo family in mind any longer.”

Hannah, who valued dignity over fortune, nodded stiffly; the notion of marrying Fiona into the Zonfrillo family was, for the moment, dead and buried.

A quiet balance settled inside Joanna. If the powerful Zonfrillo family had dismissed her own daughter, Rita, then surely they would overlook Fiona as well.

It was not malice–merely the small, selfish relief that would rise whenever another outshone one’s child a little less.

A few days later, Joanna stopped by Rita’s residence, She drew Rita aside and, eyes gleaming, relayed the newest piece of gossip.

“Meryl had front–row seats when it was our turn to squirm,” Joanna said, unable to hide her satisfaction. “Well, her precious Fiona now finds herself in the very same bind.”

Rita knew that a marriage between Fiona and Soren would advance the entire Niven family. Yet she didn’t want to see a man who once dismissed her turn around only to pursue Fiona.

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Chapter 26 Temple Encounters

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Thus, she was filled with equal parts regret and private relief.

“Is this truly Lord Soren’s own decision?” Rita asked, narrowing her eyes.

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“That’s what Duchess Zonfrillo swears,” Joanna replied. “Lord Soren already pledges his heart. elsewhere. I cannot imagine how wretched Fiona feels; she adores him, and now he has shut the door on her.”

Rita had noticed Fiona’s crush on Soren long ago and dismissed it. Soren favored capable women, not fragile girlish blossoms. Even after Fiona blossomed into striking beauty, she still failed to catch his discerning eye.

“I haven’t glimpsed the poor girl in days,” Joanna added.

Fiona’s coming–of–age ceremony loomed only weeks away, and she was not ignorant of the whispers around her. On the carriage ride home, she had sat unusually silent, the stillness itself proof that she already understood her situation.

Once inside Bamboo Lodge, Fiona recited poems out of sheer boredom.

“Stop brooding over one setback,” Meryl murmured, sliding an ivory comb through Fiona’s hair as she began to weave an elegant braid. “When men and women seek marriage, both sides measure and choose. Being rejected or rejecting another is ordinary life, nothing more.”

Meryl had guessed Hannah’s true purpose in visiting Frostenden Temple and had quietly let the old hope wither on its own.

What pained Fiona was not the rejection from the Zonfrillo family itself. Instead, she pictured her mother in the previous life struggling to secure that very proposal.

She still could not unravel the puzzle of how, in that previous life, Soren had ever agreed to marry her at all.

“Mother, are you also anxious about arranging my marriage?” Fiona asked softly, breaking the unspoken rule against such topics.

“I’m anxious, yes,” Meryl said, continuing the braid. “But I fear an ill match even more, so my haste has its limits.”

“What kind of man would you favor for me?” Fiona asked.

“Someone who treats you well and stands on solid ground,” Meryl replied. “I care little for empty grandeur. If he comes from a great family, all the better, but it isn’t vital. Frankly, Xavier looks promising.”

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Chapter 26 Temple Encounters

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If Meryl thought Xavier promising, he had to be at least worthwhile.

After her stellar archery score was posted, Fiona meant to thank Xavier in person. Yet immediately after the autumn hunt, Soren had dispatched him to distant duties.

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