MasukFour years ago, Claire Monroe married billionaire Damien Laurent under a simple contract. Be his wife and save his reputation, and leave when the agreement ends. It should have been easy, except Claire made one terrible mistake. She fell in love with her husband. For four years, she endured whispers that she was nothing more than a replacement for the woman who had abandoned Damien at the altar. For four years, she smiled through family dinners, charity galas, and lonely nights, telling herself that being beside him was enough. Then, just fourteen days before their contract expires, Claire discovers she's pregnant, and for the first time, she dares to dream of a future that isn't written in legal clauses. Until Tiffany Morgan returns. The woman Damien never forgot. The woman Claire was always compared to. The woman determined to reclaim what she left behind. Heartbroken and convinced she has already lost, Claire leaves without ever revealing the secret growing beneath her heart. But when a tragic ferry accident leaves her presumed dead, Damien is forced to face a truth he has spent four years ignoring. The wife he thought was temporary had become the center of his life and now she is gone. As devastating secrets come to light and Tiffany's lies begin to unravel, Damien discovers one more impossible truth: Claire survived, and she's not alone. Now, the man who once failed to choose her must fight for the family he never knew he had before he loses them forever
Lihat lebih banyakClaire's POV By the time Olivia arrived at the penthouse, I had already begun to suspect that inviting her for lunch had been a mistake.It wasn't that I didn't want to see her. I did. I had missed having her around in the strange way you miss someone when you know they belong to a part of your life that you cannot fully remember. Olivia had become familiar to me again through small things: the way she walked into a room without knocking, the way she stole food from other people's plates, the way she could tell when I was upset before I had even decided whether I was upset. She made the penthouse feel less like the carefully controlled world Damien and I had created after the accident and more like a place where people actually lived.The problem was that Olivia knew me, or more accurately, she knew the version of me I couldn't remember being, and today she had apparently decided that gave her the right to interrogate me.She walked through the front door carrying a large paper bag i
Claire's POV I woke with the strange certainty that I had been somewhere beautiful.For a few seconds, I didn't move. I lay beneath the sheets with my eyes closed, listening to the quiet hum of the penthouse around me and trying to hold on to whatever had brought me out of sleep. There had been lights strung through trees, water running over dark stone, the city spread beneath a glass terrace, and Damien laughing as he carried my shoes because my feet hurt.I smiled before I even opened my eyes.The memory wasn't complete. It never was. Mine came in pieces now, little flashes that appeared without warning and vanished before I could examine them properly. But the garden had felt different. It hadn't felt like one of those memories I had to chase.It had simply been there and so had Damien.I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.“You went on a date with your husband,” I whispered to myself.The words sounded ridiculous and I laughed quietly.Technically, he wasn't my husband anym
Claire's POVI knew something was different the moment I came out of the bedroom and found Damien standing in the living room without his jacket.That alone should not have meant anything. Damien had spent enough years walking around the penthouse in shirtsleeves that I had seen him dressed that way more times than I could count. Except, apparently, some part of me still remembered what his casual clothes meant, because I stopped halfway across the room and looked at him.He was wearing dark trousers and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves folded neatly to his forearms. His hair was slightly messier than usual, as if he had run his fingers through it one too many times. He was holding his watch in one hand, studying the face with an expression of concentration that seemed completely out of proportion to the simple act of putting it on.“You're nervous.”His eyes lifted immediately. “I’m not nervous.”“You've checked the time three times since I walked out.”“I was checking whether you
Claire's POV“Your heartbeat.”The words came out quietly, but Damien reacted as though I had shouted them. He didn't move and neither did I.The rain continued hammering against the windows, filling the silence between us with a steady, rushing sound. Candlelight flickered across his face, catching the surprise in his eyes.“You remember it?” he asked.I frowned. “I think so.”He didn't reach for me and he didn't ask me to explain. He simply waited.I closed my eyes again. The feeling was still there.Warmth.A shoulder beneath my cheek and the faint smell of his shirt.Rain striking glass and beneath all of it, that steady rhythm. Thump. Thump. Thump.I opened my eyes. “I was here.”“Yes.”“On this sofa?”“Not this exact sofa.”I looked at him. “What do you mean?”“We've replaced it.”I laughed softly. “Of course we have.”“You hated the old one.”“I did?”“You said it was uncomfortable.”“Was it?”“Terrible.”“Then why did you keep it?”“Because you liked it before you hated it.”I
Claire's POVThe problem with Tiffany Morgan was that she never did anything obvious because if she had openly flirted with Damien, I could have been angry if she had insulted me in front of other people, I could have defended myself and if she had behaved like the villain I wanted her to be, at le
Claire's POVBy noon, I had accomplished almost nothing. On paper, my morning had been productive. I had answered emails, approved schedules, finalized travel arrangements for three executives, and reorganized next week's board meeting agenda.In reality, I couldn't have told anyone what half of th
Claire's POVI barely slept again but the difference was that this time I wasn't staring at an empty side of the bed. Damien had eventually come upstairs sometime after midnight. I knew because I heard him moving quietly through the bedroom while he assumed I was asleep.Neither of us had spoken an
Claire's POVDamien stood in the foyer for a moment as though he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to be there and the sight alone told me more than I wanted to know.His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt was creased in places that suggested he had been wearing it far longer than intended. Dark






Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.
Ulasan-ulasanLebih banyak