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Chapter Twenty-Three: The Library
publish date:
2026-06-22 03:51:45
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Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty-Five: Marcus
Marcus had been careful ever since the announcement in the staffroom. He hadn't been cold. He hadn't been overly warm, either. He had settled into a scrupulous neutrality that was far more comfortable than the alternative. Nadia had no desire to manage his feelings about her marriage; she had enough to manage already. For six weeks, the arrangement held. A polite good morning in the corridor. A brief conversation about the exam timetable. A nod across the staffroom. Nothing required either of them to address the day Caiden had walked into the room and said *my wife, Nadia*, with the flat certainty of a man stating an absolute fact. It was a Wednesday. She had a free period at eleven, her marking spread across a corner table in the staffroom while her tea went cold beside her laptop. The room was quiet. Two teachers stood at the far end, talking in low voices about an administrative matter she wasn't following. Marcus came in at eleven-twenty. He made a coffee, then sat at the tabl
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty-Four: The Jacket
The temperature dropped overnight. By six-fifteen, every surface on the estate was edged with frost. The gravel on the driveway was frozen solid. Nadia looked out her bathroom window, thinking briefly that she should find her heavy coat before going downstairs. She didn't look for it. She had been awake since five-thirty, turning over a name she had seen on a board paper Caiden left on the kitchen counter three days ago. She hadn't meant to read it—she had put the paper back the moment she realized what it was—but the name stayed with her. By the time she showered and dressed, she was running behind. The coat was in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. She left it there. She told herself the car and the school were both heated. The walk between them was less than a minute. She gathered her bag, her lesson folders, and the stack of marked Year Twelve papers, and went downstairs. The kitchen was empty. Caiden was usually at the counter making coffee by six, but he was already gone. Na
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty-Three: The Library
Nadia heard the car at exactly nine-forty-seven. She was sitting at her desk, deep into a stack of Year Twelve practice papers, when the low hum of tires on gravel reached her through the window. She did not look up immediately. Her pen hovered over an unpunctuated sentence in Tobias's essay, but she noted the time automatically. In a house this quiet, every sound carried. Nine-forty-seven was late. On evenings when Caiden had board commitments in the city, the car usually rolled down the driveway by seven-thirty. A two-hour delay was unusual. She did not stand up to peer through the curtains. She simply waited. Downstairs, the heavy front door opened and shut with a dull, muffled thud. There was the low murmur of Mrs. Park’s voice, and then the house settled back into silence. Footsteps crossed the marble floor of the grand hall. Nadia held her breath, listening to the cadence of his stride. They didn't turn toward the west wing, where his study was. Instead, the steady, unhurrie
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty-Two: Cullen's Progress
By the fourth week, the tutoring sessions had become routine. Cullen arrived on time. Nadia was usually already there. Neither of them mentioned it, but the sessions had become the easiest part of the week. He complained about the reading material in the specific, vocal way that meant he had actually done it, because students who hadn't done the reading tended to complain in much vaguer terms. Cullen's complaints were precise. He had opinions about specific passages, specific word choices, and specific moments in the argument where he felt the author had made a decision he disagreed with. This was, as Nadia had learned, the clearest possible sign that he was engaged. What she had not fully appreciated until now was how methodically he was also extracting information about her. It had started subtly. A question about whether she had always wanted to teach, slipped in between two annotations. A comment about the estate that was phrased as an observation but was actually a question ab
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty-One: The School Visit
Tuesday morning, second period, Year Twelve Literature. Nadia had been teaching the same exam text for three weeks. This group was right on the edge; she could feel the lesson hanging in the balance. The students near the windows were tracking with her, but the back row had settled into that practiced look of attention that really just meant they were waiting for the bell. She knew how to handle it. The trick was to make the back row impossible to ignore. Moving away from the whiteboard, she walked down the center aisle and stopped near the third desk from the back. Instead of directing her question to the front row, she aimed it straight at a student named Tobias, who had been staring intensely at his notebook while thinking about something else entirely. "Tobias. The speaker in this stanza is describing a loss. What kind of loss is it?" Tobias looked up. He hadn't been paying attention, and they both knew it, which meant his response carried a sudden weight. "Something s
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Twenty: What Eleanor Knows
Eleanor returned to the estate on a Saturday. True to form, she arrived completely unannounced, carrying herself with the absolute certainty of a woman who viewed advanced warnings as a courtesy she simply had no intention of wasting. This time, however, Nadia caught the heavy crunch of tires on the gravel driveway and came downstairs immediately, wanting to meet her before Mrs. Park could intercept her. Eleanor was in the foyer, handing her heavy wool coat to Hana, when Nadia reached the final step. Eleanor looked up, her sharp gaze narrowing slightly in a way Nadia was beginning to recognize as genuine interest. "Good," Eleanor said, smoothing the lapels of her suit. "You came down yourself. Last time I was left waiting in the parlor." "I heard the car," Nadia said, offering a small smile. "Even better. It means you’re listening." Eleanor turned and marched toward the sitting room with practiced familiarity. "Let’s have some tea. And you can tell me exactly how these past two
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Nadia stumbled back two steps before she managed to catch her balance.The car window was already gliding down smooth and silent. She froze on the pavement because, out of all the black Bentleys in the city, of course it had to be his.Caiden barely glanced her way before his attention shifted to C
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Three: Enemies Cross Paths
Nadia was up at six.Outside, it was still pitch black—the kind of freezing winter morning where just stepping out from under the duvet felt like a punishment. She stood by the window, wrapping both hands around a mug of warm water, watching the bare tree branches whip around in the wind. Christmas
Married to My Enemy's Son Chapter Two: The Mischievous Kid
The second Nadia stepped out of the hotel, the cold bit straight through her scarf. She paused at the top step, her boots planted in place as she tried to make sense of the mess in her head.Calling it bad luck felt ridiculous. She had shown up to her best friend's wedding looking for a night of ce
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