Twice His Wife
Anais Vale vanished three years ago, breaking the terms of a legally binding marriage contract with billionaire CEO Cassian Vale. To the world, their short-lived marriage was a mystery. To Anais, it was survival. But when a mysterious legal summons pulls her out of hiding, she’s forced to return—not as a woman in love, but as a wife under obligation.
Cassian, ruthless and unreadable, never divorced her. Their original contract still holds, and now he wants her back—if only to fulfill the remaining years and protect his corporate empire from a hostile takeover. Emotion is not part of the deal.
But the contract hides more than just legal conditions. It conceals a past filled with betrayal, a family legacy steeped in secrets, and a shared history neither of them fully understands.
Anais returns as a woman determined to endure it quietly. But things change quickly: she discovers Cassian’s health is failing, that someone wants her dead, and that her own tragic past may be connected to his family’s crimes.
As the truth unravels, Anais is forced to confront who Cassian really is—and who she must become if she wants to survive in his world. Along the way, both begin to transform. Anais, once passive and self-effacing, begins to find her voice and strength. Cassian, seemingly heartless and stoic, is forced to feel and face the consequences of his past.
Their story is a collision of control and vulnerability, love and guilt, power and protection. What begins as a contract slowly becomes a reckoning—and a second chance neither of them expected.
But second chances come at a cost.
And not every ending is fair.
อ่าน
Chapter: EVERYTHING LEFT UNSAID.The air inside the study thickened like it was soaked in secrets.Anais didn’t speak. Couldn’t.Because the woman standing in the doorway wasn’t a ghost, or a hallucination.It was her mother.Alive.Alive, and real, and staring at her like nothing had ever gone wrong.She hadn’t aged like time expected her to. Her hair was darker than Anais remembered. Her eyes—still that steel-blue shade—narrowed as they took her in, like she was assessing her own reflection years removed.“Hello, Anais,” she said calmly.Julien stood beside her, smug and untouched, as if this had been the plan all along.“You’re supposed to be dead,” Anais managed.Her mother’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “A lot of things are supposed to be. Doesn’t mean they are.”Julien moved to the sideboard and poured two glasses of dark amber liquid, handing one to her mother. “She kept the right people close. Paid off the wrong ones.”“Why?” Anais asked. Her voice cracked. “Why would you fake your death? Let me think yo
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
Chapter: PAPER CUTS AND WOUNDS YOU CAN’T SEE.There’s a silence Anais had never heard before. Not the absence of noise, but the space between expectation and collapse. It’s the silence before something breaks.That’s what the morning felt like.She sat alone in her office at Vale Holdings, the light outside too still, too bright. Her phone buzzed, screen flashing with a number she didn’t recognize. She let it ring.Then it rang again.Same number.Something in her chest stirred.She picked up on the third try.“Anais Vale?” a deep voice asked.“Yes?”“This is Detective Moore, NYPD.”She froze.“There’s been a development in the Fallpoint investigation. We’d like you to come in.”Anais blinked slowly. “That was a sealed case.”“There’s new evidence.”She gripped the desk. “What kind of evidence?”The voice didn’t answer directly. “We’ll explain when you arrive.”Click.By the time Anais reached the station, Cassian was already there, pacing.He looked up when she entered—something dark and tight around his eyes.“You didn’t tell m
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
Chapter: THE WOMAN WITH THE BRIEF CASE.Juliet Hale looked like a ghost no one had invited back.Her silver hair was tied in a smooth twist at the base of her neck, her long dark coat tailored so sharply it looked like it could slice through glass. She stood in the Vale Holdings lobby like it belonged to her—and maybe, at some point, it almost had.Anais watched from the security feed, frozen in the hallway.Julien and Dahlia flanked her like two lieutenants. Too smug. Too confident.Juliet lifted her chin and handed something to the front desk.A folder.Irene whispered beside Anais, “She’s requesting a board room. Immediate access.”“Under what grounds?”Irene looked at the screen again. “A clause from the original merger agreement—your father’s company and Vale Holdings.”Anais’s breath caught.That clause had been buried years ago. Sealed. Forgotten.But not erased.Juliet hadn’t come for a meeting.She’d come to take the floor.Cassian entered the hallway a moment later, tension carved into his shoulders.“She invoked
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
Chapter: THE QUIET BEFORE THE COLLAPSE.Anais didn’t cry.She didn’t scream, or tear up the papers, or demand that Cassian leave the apartment.She just… walked.Out of the vault, past the main hallway, through the quiet marble silence of a penthouse that had always felt too clean. Like a museum built to preserve something dead.She left the door open behind her.Cassian didn’t follow.Maybe he understood that for the first time, she wasn’t trying to hurt him.She just needed distance to survive him.She took the elevator to the street and started walking. No driver. No guard. No plan.Just her.The city had never looked so bright and aimless.At first, she didn’t know where she was going. But her feet remembered something her mind hadn’t caught up to yet.When she finally stopped, she was standing outside a bookstore tucked between two worn cafés on the Lower East Side. The glass was fogged, the sign crooked. She hadn’t been here since college.Inside, it smelled like old paper and nostalgia.She walked the aisles, running
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
Chapter: TERMS OF RESURRECTION..It was after midnight when Anais called Irene.She hadn’t moved from the sofa in hours, the image of Julien and Dahlia stepping into that building with Harlan Quinn frozen on her phone screen. The soft blue glow of it had become the only light in the room.“I need to know where they went,” she said without preamble.Irene didn’t ask what had changed. “Already tracing.”Anais stared ahead, throat tight. “Do it quietly.”She hung up before Irene could respond.Cassian entered the room a minute later, his sleeves pushed up, hair slightly mussed. He looked at her the way people look at old war zones—half memory, half dread.“What happened?” he asked.She didn’t hand him the phone.Just said, “Julien and Dahlia are back. And they’re working with Harlan Quinn.”Cassian’s expression didn’t change. But she saw his hands stiffen by his sides.He walked to the fireplace and stood there silently for a long moment.“I should’ve buried them deeper,” he murmured.Anais stood slowly. “This isn’t jus
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
Chapter: A NAME NO ONE SPOKE.Cassian watched Anais from the doorway.She was standing in front of the window in the study again, exactly where she’d stood the night Julien and Dahlia were thrown out. But today, her stance was different. Not just still—grounded. Like she had finally stepped fully into her skin.She wasn’t afraid of him anymore.And that realization sat heavier than any boardroom betrayal ever had.He leaned against the doorframe, silent.She didn’t turn to acknowledge him. She knew he was there.Finally, he spoke.“You haven’t asked me what’s going to happen next.”Anais lifted her chin, eyes still on the street below. “Because I’m not waiting on your answer anymore.”There was no bitterness in her voice. Just calm certainty.Cassian stepped in slowly, closing the door behind him.“You’ve changed.”She didn’t move. “No. I’m just not performing anymore.”He sat in the leather chair by the fireplace. A long pause settled between them.“I miss the way you used to look at me,” he said.She blinked onc
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-20
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