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16. Second Choice
publish date:
2026-06-23 15:14:28
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The Wife He Chose Too Late 22. The Wife
Claire's POVThe charity gala was only a few weeks away and it felt as though the entire company had gone into panic mode.By Monday morning emails were piling up faster than I could answer them and people kept stopping by my office with new questions, new requests and new problems that needed attention.As usual most of it eventually landed on my desk.I sat at the conference table surrounded by contracts, schedules, guest lists, seating plans and more coffee than any one person should probably drink in a day.Part of me found it almost funny because in eleven days, I wouldn't be working here anymore or at least, that was the plan yet people were still handing me new projects as if nothing was changing."Claire." One of the board members pushed a folder toward me. "Can you look through this before we send it to Damien?"I took the folder without even thinking about it. "Of course.""Thank God."The older man leaned back in his chair. "Nobody knows how Damien likes things done better
The Wife He Chose Too Late 21. The Gala
Claire's POVThe next morning wasn't much different from the mornings that had come before it. I hadn't slept well and I had spent far too much time lying awake thinking about things I couldn't change and no matter how hard I tried to focus on something else I kept going back to the same conversation.Have you thought about what you want after the divorce?Damien hadn't asked the question to be cruel if anything, he had sounded concerned and that was probably what bothered me most because if he had been angry, I could have argued with him. If he had been cold, I could have blamed him for it but instead, he had asked the question quietly, as though he genuinely wanted to know the answer and for some reason, that made it harder to forget.By the time I arrived at Laurent Group, I had done my best to stop thinking about the conversation from the night before. There wasn't much point dwelling on it anyway. The company wasn't going to slow down because my marriage was falling apart. Client
The Wife He Chose Too Late 20. A Lie
Claire's POV"Why do you seem different lately?"The question followed me for the rest of the day.I never really answered Damien. I blamed it on being tired and threw myself into work until he eventually gave up trying to get a real answer from me. I hadn't expected him to accept it so easily. Part of me had wanted him to push harder. I had wanted him to challenge the excuse and force the conversation I kept avoiding. Instead, he allowed me to retreat behind spreadsheets, schedules and a mountain of work that neither of us truly cared about.Maybe that was my fault or maybe after four years of pretending everything was fine, even I had started believing it. Most of the executive floor was empty by the time I finished what I was doing. The phones had gone quiet and only a handful of people were still working.I was collecting documents from the printer when voices carried down the hallway outside.Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored them.Working at Laurent Group had t
The Wife He Chose Too Late 19. Growing Distance
Claire's POVI didn't sleep.The apartment remained dark and silent long after midnight, but every time I closed my eyes, I found myself back in the foyer watching Damien walk out the door with Tiffany beside him and the words I never managed to say were hanging between us yet again. At some point during the night, I stopped being angry because anger required energy. What remained was something quieter, something heavier.I lay awake staring at the ceiling and forced myself to face a truth I had spent weeks avoiding. Every time I worked up the courage to tell Damien about the baby, something seemed to get in the way. Sometimes it was a crisis at work. Sometimes it was a meeting that couldn't wait. Sometimes Tiffany appeared at exactly the wrong moment. And when none of those things happened, I found another excuse to stay quiet. The pattern had become impossible to ignore. The more I thought about it, the more foolish I felt. I had spent four years convincing myself that if I was pa
The Wife He Chose Too Late 18. Too Late Again
Claire's POVThe entire drive home, I repeated the same sentence over and over in my head.I'm pregnant.Three simple words. Three words that should have been easy to say but instead, they felt impossibly heavy.Every time I worked up the courage to tell Damien, something seemed to get in the way. A crisis at work. A meeting that couldn't wait. Tiffany showing up at exactly the wrong moment. And if none of that happened, I found a reason to convince myself it wasn't the right time. But I couldn't keep doing that. Tonight I was finally going to tell him.By the time I reached the penthouse I had made my decision. If I started thinking about it, I might lose my nerve again.I dropped my handbag onto the kitchen island and walked directly to the refrigerator. The apartment was quiet. Damien hadn't arrived yet.Beyond the windows, Manhattan was beginning to light up for the night. Normally I would've stood there for a few minutes just taking it all in. Tonight I barely glanced outside. My
The Wife He Chose Too Late 17. The Threat
Claire's POV"Does Damien know he's going to be a father?"The question sat between us.I suddenly wanted out of that room. My fingers pressed against the edge of the ultrasound photograph hard enough to crease the paper.Tiffany sat comfortably in her chair as though she hadn't just reached into the most private part of my life and dragged it into the open.The worst part was that she already knew the answer because she wouldn't have asked otherwise.I should have walked out the moment she returned the photograph but instead, I stood there staring at her, trying to understand what she wanted because this conversation wasn't about curiosity and it sure as hell wasn't about concern.Tiffany Morgan didn't care whether I was pregnant. She cared what my pregnancy meant."That's none of your business."A faint smile touched her lips. "I'll take that as a no."My patience finally snapped. "Why do you care?" The question came out sharper than I intended.Tiffany didn't appear offended if any
The Wife He Chose Too Late 6. The Morning After
Claire's POVDamien wasn't home, of course he wasn't.I stepped inside anyway, but the apartment felt different. Larger somehow. Colder. The silence seemed to stretch endlessly through the empty rooms, and for the first time since discovering I was pregnant, fear settled heavily in my chest. It wasn
The Wife He Chose Too Late 5. The Woman Who Left Him
Claire's POVThe moment I saw the name on Damien's phone screen, something inside me went completely still.Tiffany Morgan.For a second, I wondered if I had imagined it. The restaurant seemed to fade around me, the soft glow of candlelight and the murmur of nearby conversations becoming distant an
The Wife He Chose Too Late 4. A Dinner for Two
Claire's POVThe message remained open on my phone long after I had finished reading it.Outside the penthouse windows, Manhattan glittered beneath the deepening evening sky, its countless lights stretching toward the horizon like stars scattered across black velvet. Normally I loved this view. The
The Wife He Chose Too Late 3. The Wife in Everything But Name
Claire's POVThe next morning, I left the penthouse before Damien not because I had an early meeting and not because my schedule demanded it but because I couldn't bear the thought of sitting across from him at breakfast while pretending his words from the night before hadn't lodged themselves bene
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