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.
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Chapter: Chapter 123-NOTHING SAFE TO CALL OURS.The silence inside the Monteluna house wasn’t peaceful—it was brittle, like a shell too thin to touch. The kind of quiet that makes you listen harder, not softer.Cassian stood by the window. The storm had rolled through quickly, leaving streaks of water down the glass and a sullen sky in its wake. The orchard outside was still dripping, the trees bowed with the weight of it all. Behind him, Anaïs moved through the kitchen in the slow, careful rhythm of someone too aware of their own body. Her back was straight, her hands precise. Measured.Like everything might break if she wasn’t.Maris sat at the long wooden table, elbows planted, scribbling notes. She’d barely spoken since they’d cracked open Julien’s final drive. Crane had pulled an all-nighter combing through it. Now, they had names. Coordinated movements. Footage. Timestamps. Internal memos. All of it meticulously encrypted, buried behind false folders and code Julien had practically signed with his own blood.They had proof no
Last Updated: 2025-08-05
Chapter: Chapter 122-WHILE THE DUST SETTLES.The silence after the explosion was worse than the noise.Anaïs had her arms around the child, fingers cradling the back of his head, her cheek pressed to his scalp. Her ears were ringing. Something warm trickled down her temple. Smoke filled her lungs. The light outside the barn had turned a strange orange-gray, almost like dusk, though it was barely past noon.Cassian was yelling something she couldn’t hear.Then, finally, her hearing came back in patches. The sound of someone groaning. The distant cough of a radio. The wind slicing through a newly torn hole in the roof.“Are you okay?” Cassian’s voice cracked as he touched her shoulder, then his hand moved to the boy, checking his limbs, his pulse. “Are you both okay?”Anaïs could only nod. Maris stumbled out of the shadows, soot covering her hands and face, her sleeve scorched.“They blew the truck,” she gasped. “Julien’s drive. They were trying to—”“I know.” Crane’s voice came from the side, cold and sharp. “It was a warning.”H
Last Updated: 2025-08-05
Chapter: Chapter 121-WHAT YOU STILL OWE.The night air outside Monteluna carried the scent of something scorched—wood, or earth, or time. Maris stood alone beneath the stars, smoking a cigarette down to the filter. She didn’t like how quiet it had gotten inside the farmhouse, and she didn’t like how Julien had just appeared, like some ghost they’d forgotten to bury.But mostly, she didn’t like the look on Cassian’s face when Anaïs hugged him. That split-second of restraint. Like a man pulling the reins on grief.Behind her, the screen door creaked. She didn’t turn around.“Came to check on me?” she muttered.Cassian’s voice came out rough. “No.”She glanced over. “You look like you saw the ghost of your own guilt.”He didn’t answer.Maris blew out a thin stream of smoke, flicked the butt into the dirt. “I knew he wasn’t dead. Don’t ask me how. Just did.”Cassian finally looked at her. “And you didn’t tell Anaïs?”“She needed to believe he was gone. Back then, she couldn’t have handled the hope.”He nodded. He didn’t argue. I
Last Updated: 2025-08-04
Chapter: Chapter 120-THE PART THAT HURTS.The wind off the hills had a bite that night, sharper than it should’ve been for early summer. Cassian stood just beyond the edge of the barn, staring out over the dim fields like the darkness might offer answers. It didn’t. It hadn’t for a while.Inside, the low hum of voices drifted from the farmhouse. Maris was putting the child to bed, Crane and Anaïs still poring over what was left of Julien’s decrypted files. They had half a blueprint, a string of scrambled access logs, and a name that meant everything and nothing—Aster. It was enough to move, not enough to win.He heard the creak of the barn door before he saw her. Anaïs stepped out slowly, arms folded over her chest, wearing one of his old jackets over her dress. The sleeves were too long. She didn’t roll them up.“You’ve been out here for an hour.”Cassian didn’t look back. “I’m counting stars.”“You never used to care about stars.”“I didn’t used to be hunted, either.”She walked closer, her boots crunching against the grave
Last Updated: 2025-08-04
Chapter: Chapter 119-NOT THE SAME SKY.Cassian didn’t move for a long time.He stood in the middle of the cellar, his hand still resting on the heavy door they’d just sealed shut. Above them, night was settling hard over the ridge. But down here, it was already darker than it had any right to be. Cold, too. The stone walls caught your breath and held it hostage.Anaïs sat on the bottom step with the child curled in her lap, her back pressed to the wood paneling like it might fold around them if they stayed still enough.Maris stood with her arms crossed tight, staring at the shelves of dried roots and pickled things that lined the walls. Her mouth didn’t move. Her eyes didn’t blink. But her hand hovered close to her knife like she expected the room to breathe wrong.And Crane… Crane looked older than he had hours ago.He dragged a stool across the stone floor and sat down with the kind of heaviness that said he’d run out of backup plans. “I was hoping it wasn’t her,” he said finally. “Aster’s not someone you lose. She’s so
Last Updated: 2025-08-03
Chapter: Chapter 118-A NAME TO THE SILENCE.They didn’t speak as they left the burned-out chapel.Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything inside them was still too raw to name. Ash clung to their clothes. Smoke lingered in their lungs. And the child, now wide awake and eerily silent, clutched Anaïs’s hand like her small fingers were the last tether to a world that still made sense.The road they followed was half-covered in moss and gravel. Abandoned, like the town they’d passed at dawn. Cassian walked ahead, his steps tense and measured. He didn’t look back. He hadn’t since they saw what was scrawled across the chapel’s wall. The blood writing had been partially smeared by fire and heat, but they all saw the same word burned into the plaster:DEBTOR.Cassian hadn’t said a word since. Not about the message. Not about the fire. Not about the two men he killed trying to stop them from getting out.Maris brought up the rear, scanning behind them every few steps. The knife she’d once toyed with aimlessly now st
Last Updated: 2025-08-03
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