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The Third Daughter

Author: Onyes
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-08-20 19:46:36

Clarisse Van der Linde learned to count in silence.

Not with numbers, but with absences.

Her earliest memory wasn’t of lullabies or birthday cakes. It was standing barefoot on cold marble, age six, while her mother adjusted the third empty chair at the Van der Linde breakfast table.

"Seraphine would have loved the croissants," Mama murmured, arranging wildflowers where a place setting should have been.

"And Zephyrine adored the jam."

The flowers wilted by noon. No one watered them.

There were seven Van der Linde daughters.

But only five chairs.

The Van der Linde estate in Amsterdam breathed like a living thing—its oak floors creaking with secrets, its leaded windows filtering light into liquid gold. Clarisse knew every whisper of its halls, every shadow that clung to the walls like dried tears.

In the hallway, portraits of Seraphine and Zephyrine watched her with eyes that held too much knowledge. Seraphine, seventeen, frozen mid-laugh with hair like spun sunlight; Zephyrine, nineteen
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  • THE PROXY BRIDE   The Dinner

    The company dinner wasn’t a gala.It was war.Drevane Holdings’ annual dinner filled the grand ballroom like a storm—hundreds of sharp suits, clinking glasses, the air thick with ambition and perfume. No chandeliers dripping diamonds. No queens claiming thrones. Just power, raw and hungry, served on silver platters.Amara stood in her sanctuary room, the Provence mural glowing in candlelight. She’d never attended a company event. Cassian had made it clear: Stay invisible. Stay useful. But tonight, the invitation had come—mandatory attendance—and she needed his permission.She found him in the library, reviewing Arctic Shipping Consortium reports under the glow of a single desk lamp."I’m going," she said, her voice steady. "To the dinner."Cassian didn’t look up. "As long as Selene Veyron walks in, Selene Veyron walks out. No mistakes." He finally lifted his eyes—storm-gray, cold as the sea at midnight. "Lyra will represent me. I don’t attend these affairs.""You never do," Amara murm

  • THE PROXY BRIDE   The Invisible Woman

    Cassian didn’t see Amara.Not when she adjusted treaty translations at her desk.Not when coffee spilled across Arctic Shipping Consortium reports.Not even when she stood three feet from his floating obsidian desk, platinum wig gleaming under the one-way glass.To him, she was air.A breathing prop in the theater of Selene Veyron.Her only purpose: perform flawlessly, vanish silently.Amara placed the corrected Arctic Shipping Consortium reports on Cassian’s desk—French clauses polished, maritime terms precise. He didn’t glance up. Didn’t nod. Just tapped the documents with a fountain pen, ink bleeding into "Page 12, clause 4."She retrieved them without a word. Mistake: "frolicking" instead of "fracking." Her knuckles whitened around the papers. Two months. Sixty days. One typo could void everything.Jacques’ espresso arrived—too hot, too strong. Amara’s hand trembled as she lifted the cup. Coffee arced across the Arctic Shipping Consortium annex, staining "Section 7B: Icebreaker Ro

  • THE PROXY BRIDE   The Glimpse Game

    Amara settled into Drevane Holdings like a ghost learning to haunt.By day three, she’d memorized the spoon shadows (avoid the silver ones near Accounting), the espresso machine’s death rattle at 10:07 AM, and Cassian’s "never interrupt when he’s scowling" rule. But her real education began at 2:14 PM daily—when Julien Morel walked past her desk on his way to the archives.MondayAmara was correcting a maritime treaty when Julien appeared down the hall. Sunlight caught the silver at his temples as he strode past—shoulders back, jaw set, radiating "I own this building and your heartbeat." She dropped her fountain pen. Ink bled across the "salvage" clause like a crime scene."Clumsy," she hissed at her traitorous hands, mopping ink with Selene’s lace handkerchief."Very clumsy," Julien murmured, pausing beside her desk. His storm-amber eyes flicked to the treaty. "Shipwrecks are tragic, but ink disasters?" He vanished down the hall, leaving Amara clutching a treaty about sunken treasure

  • THE PROXY BRIDE   Lunchtime Gossip

    Amara had never been so grateful for a clock in her life. When the hour hand struck twelve, she practically floated toward the executive dining hall—if she could’ve sprouted wings and soared over the spoon shadows, she would’ve. For sixty minutes, she wasn’t Selene Veyron, Executive Secretary. She was just hungry.She found an empty table near the service entrance, where the air smelled of fresh linen and lemon polish. Two women in crisp navy uniforms—Odette with eyes like aged cognac, Therese with hands that moved like water—approached with their trays."Mind if we join?" Odette asked, her voice warm as honey. "I’m Odette. This is Therese." She slid into the seat beside Amara, unwrapping a cloth bundle of crusty bread and olives. "First day in the penthouse? You look like you’ve wrestled tigers."Therese passed Amara a slice of bread, her fingers brushing Amara’s with a touch so fleeting it felt like a secret. "Cassian’s new secretaries always do," she murmured. "But the real coffee’

  • THE PROXY BRIDE   The Triple Life

    Amara decided to stop dissecting Elara’s quiet watchfulness and the swan etched in crystal. Watch how things unfold, she told herself, shifting the white rose three inches left on her nightstand. Some truths reveal themselves in silence.Three days later, Cassian drove her to Drevane Holdings—a monolith of glass and steel piercing the Monaco skyline like a dagger. From the street, it looked sterile, imposing. But as the elevator soared past the thirtieth floor, Amara saw the truth.This wasn’t a building.It was a living organism.The lobby stretched before them like a canyon of white marble where light refracted through a suspended sculpture of ten thousand silver spoons—Drevane’s original symbol of "measured success." Staff moved like synchronized swimmers, heels clicking in unison. Cassian didn’t break stride as he murmured, "First rule. Never step on the spoon shadows. They mark power hierarchies."Beyond the lobby, the trading floor roared—a cathedral of chaos where dozens of scr

  • THE PROXY BRIDE   The Sanctuary of Silent Things

    The knock came precisely at 3:00 PM—three soft raps that sounded like a secret code. Amara smoothed Selene’s ivory robe over her pajamas and opened the door to find Elara, Marta, and Lin standing in the crimson runner’s glow. Sunlight streamed through the hall’s projection screens, painting the maids in shifting hues of honey and amber."Welcome properly, Madame," Elara murmured, her voice a whisper of silk. She held a silver tray bearing a single white rose in a crystal vase. "The house has waited for you." Behind her, Marta balanced a stack of linen so impossibly white it glowed, while Lin cradled a leather-bound ledger stamped "Personal Preferences."Amara forced Selene’s vacant smile. "Oh! How lovely. I didn’t expect—""We always welcome new residents properly," Elara interrupted gently, stepping inside without invitation. Her eyes—warm hazel flecked with gold—swept the room, lingering a fraction too long on the unmade bed. "Marta handles linens. Lin manages your wardrobe. I ensur

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