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

Share

Chapter 2: Comparing Him to a Teddy

Author: Raven
last update publish date: 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?”

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Comments (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
VIEW ALL COMMENTS

Latest chapter

  • 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 166: He Said He'd Replace Him — And the Room Stopped Breathing

    Felicity lunges.Not at me. At Chloe — hand raised, fury past the point of calculation, moving with the blind momentum of someone who has stopped caring what happens next as long as something breaks.She doesn't get there.My hand closes around her wrist in the same half-second her arm swings, and muscle memory — ten years of Taekwondo, ten years of early mornings and bruised knuckles and my body learning to move before my brain catches up — takes over completely.One pivot. One pull. One clean, practiced throw.Felicity hits the auditorium floor on her back with a sound that echoes off every wall.The room goes absolutely silent.Even I'm briefly surprised at myself.Felicity lies there for three full seconds — stunned, winded, staring at the ceiling with the expression of someone whose brain hasn't caught up with what just happened to their body. Around her, everyone has gone perfectly, identically sti

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 165: She Tore Her Own Costume. I Almost Felt Bad. Almost.

    I grab Julian's hand and we run.Through the wings, past the lighting rig, into the backstage corridor where the noise from the auditorium chases us like something alive — four hundred voices compressed into a single desperate frequency, crashing against the walls and the ceiling and every surface between us and escape.I snatch a coat off the rack as we pass — props department, dark wool, anonymous — and shove it at him without slowing down. "Hood up. Now."Julian pulls it on without argument. For a man who has probably never worn anything under three thousand dollars in his adult life, he does not complain about the costume rack coat. This is why I genuinely like him.We hit the back door at full speed and burst out into the daylight.Behind us — nothing. No one. The back exit of Aldridge opens onto a service path that runs behind the science buildings, and it's empty, and for one full second we both just stand there breat

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 164: Julian Ford Just Walked Into My Auditorium

    Eight fifty AM.Ten minutes to curtain.I'm standing in the wings of Aldridge Auditorium looking out at the seats, and I'm counting.Fourteen people.Fourteen — including our stage crew, Chloe's study group friends who came as a loyalty gesture, and one freshman who wandered in thinking it was a different event and hasn't figured out his mistake yet.Chloe appears at my shoulder, close enough that I can hear her without her having to raise her voice. "Felicity's souvenirs worked," she says quietly. "She had people stationed at every path leading here. Anyone who even glanced toward Aldridge got intercepted and handed a gift bag with directions to Harmon."I exhale slowly through my nose."How bad is Harmon?""Standing room. Line out the door." She pauses. "I'm sorry, Allie."I look at those fourteen faces scattered across three hundred seats and feel something hollow open in the center of my chest — not defea

  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 113: The Reckoning

    Vivian Brooks was ecstatic.Someone like Liam Hart—powerful, untouchable—could only be toying with Allison Brooks. That much was obvious.Now that everything was out in the open, Allison had become nothing more than a liability. He would discard her without a second thought, and Vivian couldn’t wai

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-02
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 112: A Shift in Perspective

    Allie’s hands curled into fists as she glared at Liam.“I don’t care anymore, Liam. Julian is better than you, and at least he doesn’t treat me like I’m disposable. I won’t waste my breath arguing. If you don’t sign the divorce papers, I’ll take this to court. Let’s see if you can keep your secrets

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-02
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 115: Bowing for My Wife

    Liam Hart’s words cut through the air, leaving the entire room in stunned silence.Wife?What did he just say?The gathered reporters exchanged glances, trying to make sense of the bombshell that had just been dropped. Around the doorway, the secretarial staff, especially Ava, wore expressions of p

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-02
  • Secrets of a Hidden Marriage   Chapter 116: Front-Page Fireworks

    At that moment, Preston Whitmore stepped forward and addressed the reporters, his tone authoritative. "That concludes today's press conference. Please make your way back."But one reporter, bolder than the rest, raised his voice. "Mr. Hart, can you two pose in a more intimate position for a headlin

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-02
More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status