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38. The Memorial

last update publish date: 2026-07-20 18:01:11

One week had passed.

The headlines had changed, but the story hadn't.

Every news station in New York carried the same update, though the urgency that had consumed the city during those first desperate days had long since faded. The live broadcasts from the Hudson River had disappeared, the helicopters no longer circled overhead, and the rescue boats that had spent days combing the water had finally returned to their docks.

The search was over.

Authorities had searched every section of the colla
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  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   95. The report

    Damien's POV The call came while I was sitting behind my desk, pretending to work.Pretending was becoming an increasingly accurate description of my life whenever Claire was somewhere else in the penthouse. I had spent the better part of the morning looking through contracts that normally would have held my attention without effort, but every few minutes my mind wandered back to the previous evening.Her hand in mine.The way she had looked at me when I told her I wanted to court her.The small smile she had given me when she said she wanted to see where this went.I had replayed those words more times than I cared to admit.My phone vibrated against the desk.I glanced at the screen and immediately straightened.The number belonged to the police department.For a moment, I simply stared at it.The investigation into the ferris wheel collapse had never officially ended, but it had become something I rarely heard about. There had been no clear explanation beyond mechanical failure an

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   94. Olivia Knows

    Claire'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

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   93. The Morning After the Date

    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

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   92. The first real date

    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

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   91. The Rain

    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

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   90. Something more

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  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   2. A Wife By Contract

    Claire's POVDamien's words settled over the room with all the force of a collapsing building. "We will need to discuss the divorce arrangements this week."For a moment, I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. The candles flickered softly between us. The meal I had spent hours preparing filled th

  • The Wife He Chose Too Late   1. Fourteen days

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