Beranda / Romance / Secrets of a Hidden Marriage / Chapter 2: Comparing Him to a Teddy

Share

Chapter 2: Comparing Him to a Teddy

Penulis: Raven
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2025-06-16 22:00:32

Allie woke up with a start, realizing she’d overslept. She could’ve sworn she set her alarm, but it hadn’t gone off.

She sat up quickly, waking the man next to her.

Liam groaned, barely opening his eyes. “What are you doing so early?”

“It’s eight o’clock! I’m late for work,” she said, scrambling to get up.

But before she could move, Liam pulled her back, wrapping his arm around her. “You’re already late. Stay and sleep a little longer.”

Allie hesitated, but his hold was firm. She didn’t dare resist, so she lay still, hoping he’d drift back to sleep. Slowly, she started inching away, trying to slip out of his arms.

Just when she thought she was free, Liam’s voice rumbled in her ear. “Sneaking around like a caterpillar this early?”

Before she could reply, he pulled her close, and the morning took a very different turn.

When Allie finally made it to the office, it was almost 9:30.

Her friend Jenna spotted her. “Allie! What’s up? You’re never late.”

Memories of that morning flashed through her mind, and she felt her cheeks warm.

Jenna squinted. “Your face is all red. Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Allie stammered. “It’s just… my dog. He’s super clingy.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Jenna nudged her. “Heads up. The boss is here.”

Sure enough, Liam was walking by. He paused slightly as he passed them, his gaze flickering in Allie’s direction before he continued.

She held her breath. Did he hear what she’d just said?

Jenna exhaled in relief. “You’re so lucky he didn’t call you out for being late! I thought he’d drag you to his office for a scolding.”

Allie’s heart pounded. If only they knew they’d arrived together—thankfully, no one had seen her getting out of his car.

Just then, another coworker, Claire, chimed in. “You have a pet dog, Allie? What breed?”

Allie hesitated, then shrugged. “Uh… a teddy.”

If Liam knew she’d compared him to a teddy bear, he’d never let her live it down.

But she didn’t have to worry about him for a bit. That afternoon, he left on a business trip to Tokyo, messaging her before his flight: “Gone for three days. See you soon.”

Three months of a secret marriage, and he spent half that time on business trips. Still, he never left without telling her.

With just a week left in her internship, Allie only hoped for a smooth finish back at school. But the next day held a surprise.

When she walked into the office, a crowd had gathered around her desk. She squeezed through and saw a massive bouquet of rainbow roses—99 of them.

Jenna’s eyes widened. “Wow, Allie! Who sent these? This must’ve cost a fortune!”

Allie’s heart sank. She found the card tucked inside the roses and read it, her expression shifting instantly. Without a word, she grabbed the bouquet and tossed it into the trash.

Everyone stared, stunned. Jenna leaned in, whispering, “Did you and your boyfriend have a fight?”

Another coworker sighed. “If my boyfriend sent me 99 rainbow roses, I’d forgive him for anything.”

Allie avoided explaining, leaving everyone curious.

The rest of the day, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. After work, she stepped outside and froze—there was Nick’s car parked right in front of the building.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Allie wanted to turn and walk away, but Nick saw her, got out of his car, and grabbed her arm. “Allie, please, hear me out.”

She turned, her expression cold. “Fine. Go ahead. I’m listening.”

He sighed. “I was drunk that night. I thought Cher was you.”

Her gaze hardened. “That’s it? If that’s all, I’m done here.”

They were standing at the building entrance during rush hour, with people streaming past.

Just then, Jenna pulled up in her little car, and Allie quickly slipped inside, leaving Nick behind without a second

glance.

As they got on the highway, Jenna couldn’t help but ask, “So, who was that guy back there?

The same one who sent those roses this morning?”

“An ex,” Allie replied with a sigh.

“Ex? He seemed pretty eager to make up. Why’d you let him go? He’s, like, ridiculously handsome, and he looked loaded!”

“Jenna, please. I’ve got a headache.”

Jenna noticed the rare sadness in Allie’s usually carefree face and decided not to press any further.

Allie gazed out the window, her mind drifting back to that fateful night three months ago.

It had been her birthday, November 11th. Nick’s gift? Walking in on him in bed—with her best friend, Cher.

After being betrayed by the two people she trusted most, Allie had gone to a club called Nightfall to drown her sorrows.

That’s when everything changed.

For three days straight, extravagant bouquets of rainbow roses kept appearing on her desk, and each night, Nick would wait outside the office, hoping for a second chance. By now, everyone knew there was a “super-hot guy” desperately chasing after her.

Allie didn’t explain. Only Jenna knew the truth.

On the fourth day, there was another bouquet waiting. But this time, someone else was there too.

It was Cher.

Allie’s stomach twisted as she spotted her, but Cher rushed over before she could leave. “Allie, you won’t take my calls or meet me anywhere else, so I had to find you here. Can we talk?”

Curious glances from around the office made Allie uncomfortable. She nodded curtly. “Follow me.”

They walked to a small meeting room, and as soon as the door closed, Cher’s eyes filled with tears. She grabbed Allie’s arm. “Allie, I’m so sorry. Please, just forgive me. I can’t stand losing you as my friend.”

Allie’s expression didn’t soften. “If you’d thought of me as a friend, you wouldn’t have done it. And as far as I remember, you weren’t drinking that night.”

Cher’s voice cracked, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “You don’t understand. I’ve had feelings for Nick for so long. You two were childhood friends, yes, but love isn’t something you can just control.”

Love. Right.

Cher continued, pleading, “Allie, we’ve been friends for years. Couldn’t you… I don’t know, let me have Nick? You’re from the Brooks family, you have a bright future ahead of you no matter what. But I don’t have anything. Without him, I’m lost. You’ve never been one to fight over things—can’t you just let Nick go?”

Let him go? Allie felt a surge of anger. She’d never clung to him. After what happened, she knew there was no future with Nick.

She turned toward the door. “Is that why you came here today? To tell me all of this?”

Lanjutkan membaca buku ini secara gratis
Pindai kode untuk mengunduh Aplikasi
Komen (1)
goodnovel comment avatar
Allie
I’m actually so shocked . My name is Allie and I dated my manager called Liam , love this novel but seriously who’s wrote a book about me ..., can’t wait for the next chapter
LIHAT SEMUA KOMENTAR

Bab terbaru

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 172: He Showed Up — and Everything Shifted

    I walk through the front door dripping, shoes squelching, hair plastered to my neck, and Elizabeth Hart takes one look at me and says absolutely nothing for a full three seconds.Liam is on the couch beside her. His gaze travels from my face to my soaked shirt to the small puddle forming around my feet, and something in his expression moves — caught somewhere between concern and the very specific, private amusement of a man who is absolutely not going to say what he's thinking."Oscar," I explain, before either of them can ask."Of course," Elizabeth says, like this is a reasonable explanation for the state I'm in."I was helping with the bath. He shook." I gesture vaguely at myself. "This happened.""Go change," Liam says. Quiet. Easy. The tone of a man who is not worried about me but would like me to be dry.I head for the stairs.I'm halfway up when the front door opens again behind me. I turn.Adam walks

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 171: You Should Smile More — It's Devastating

    Robert Hart is "discharged" the next morning.He walks out of Mercy General in his own clothes, carrying his own coat, waving off the nurse who offers a wheelchair with the particular impatience of a man who has decided the performance is over and would like his dignity back. I watch from the car and think about what Liam told me on the drive home — they do some version of this every year — and feel the complicated mixture of exasperation and genuine tenderness that Robert Hart always manages to produce in me.He staged a cardiac episode to get his grandson home.And it worked.We're back at Hart Manor, and we're staying.Dinner that night is the first time I've seen Adam since Director Harmon's office.He's already at the table when I come down — jacket off, sleeves rolled, the version of him that exists inside this house that is somehow more dangerous than the campus version, because it's quieter. Less arm

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 170: He Called It a Trick — and Then We Packed Our Bags

    The office door closes behind me and the noise of the floor disappears like someone cut a wire.Just us. Just the hum of the building and the last gold light pressing through the windows and Liam, already moving toward his desk with that unhurried ease that makes even the most chaotic situations feel like they were always under control.I stay by the door."That wasn't right," I say.He glances back. "Which part?""Firing Ava." I push off the door and cross toward him, because if I'm going to say this I'm going to say it to his face. "She was provocative and she staged the whole thing, and I'm not saying she didn't deserve consequences — but firing her on the spot? The moment I showed up? Liam, her family has connections all over this city. That's going to land on you."Liam looks at me for a long moment.Then he asks — completely calm, like it's a genuine inquiry and not a trap — "Was it satisfying? When I did it?"

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 169: If You Upset My Wife, You're Done

    Liam sees me before he sees anything else.That's the thing I notice first — the way his gaze moves across the floor and finds me with the immediate, locked-in precision of a man whose attention has exactly one priority in this room. Then he clocks the rest of it: the shattered mug, the soaked documents fanning out across the floor, the coffee still dripping off the desk edge in slow, deliberate arcs.His expression doesn't change. It never does. But his stillness shifts quality — becomes the specific, contained stillness of someone deciding something very quickly and very quietly."What happened here?"His voice carries without effort — low, level, the kind of tone that doesn't need volume because the room already belongs to it completely. Every keyboard stops. Every pretense of busyness evaporates.Ava moves first.She steps forward before I can draw a breath, and the performance she delivers is seamless &md

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 168: I Came to Surprise Him and Walked Into a Trap

    "Stop it, Jess." I feel the heat climbing up my neck before she's even finished the sentence.Jess grins wider. She has always had the specific gift of finding the exact pressure point and pressing it with absolute precision and zero remorse. "I'm just saying — the CEO's wife, using the staff elevator, no announcement, no entourage — very mysterious. Very romantic." She sighs theatrically. "He's in a meeting, by the way. Probably another hour.""I'll wait in his office.""Of course you will."I move through the open floor plan — the long rows of desks, the familiar hum of keyboards, the particular concentrated energy of a floor full of people who are extremely good at pretending they aren't looking at me while looking directly at me. I've walked this space before. Spent a month navigating it as an intern, invisible and unremarkable, learning the rhythms of this building from the bottom.I am not invisible anymore.Every hea

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 167: The CEO's Wife Walks In Unannounced

    Felicity stares at Adam like he just spoke in a language she doesn't have the capacity to process."What did you say?" Her voice comes out cracked at the edges, all that carefully reconstructed composure fracturing in real time.Adam doesn't repeat himself. He doesn't need to. He turns to Director Harmon with the clean, unhurried certainty of someone who made this decision before he walked through the door and has no interest in being argued out of it."I'll take the role," he says. "Give us the two weeks."Director Harmon looks between us — me, Adam, Felicity, the wreckage of whatever just happened in this office — and makes the calculation that a woman in her position makes when the most magnetic student on campus hands her exactly the outcome that's best for the school's centennial event."Done," she says. "Rehearsals start tomorrow. Don't waste the time."We file out.The hallway outside the administrative offices is w

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 74: Deliberately Came Back Early to See Her

    “Cut!” Director Samuel Jackson’s exasperated voice echoed through the set.“Julian Ford, what’s the matter with you?” he demanded, glaring at the actor.Allison “Allie” Brooks clenched her fists, frustration mounting. It wasn’t part of the script—she was sure of it. Julian’s earlier actions weren’t

    last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-03-27
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 71: Trouble in the Spotlight

    Allie Brooks stirred awake to the sound of Liam Hart’s deep voice. He had just stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered, and was buttoning up his crisp shirt. His hair glistened with droplets of water, and he exuded a calm confidence that made Allie’s stomach churn with mixed emotions.With a

    last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-03-27
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 75: The Strings That Bind Us

    Liam Hart had just left the room, his calm yet piercing presence lingering like an invisible storm.The moment the door closed behind him, Allie Brooks was swarmed by curious voices.“Allie, how do you know Liam Hart? He seemed so… gentle with you.”“The way he tied your shoelaces—oh my God—it was

    last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-03-27
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 70: A Lingering Mistake

    The hotel’s bathroom was pristine, with a luxurious rainfall shower. Allie fiddled with the knobs, adjusting the water temperature to just the right warmth.She turned to Liam, who was leaning against the doorframe, watching her with a lazy intensity. "The water’s ready. Go in."He didn’t move. Ins

    last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-03-27
Bab Lainnya
Jelajahi dan baca novel bagus secara gratis
Akses gratis ke berbagai novel bagus di aplikasi GoodNovel. Unduh buku yang kamu suka dan baca di mana saja & kapan saja.
Baca buku gratis di Aplikasi
Pindai kode untuk membaca di Aplikasi
DMCA.com Protection Status