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NOT ALL TRUTHS STAY BURIED.
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2025-06-19 16:54:12Anais didn’t sleep.
Again.
She sat in the hallway just outside her room for what must’ve been hours, knees drawn up to her chest, the marble floor cold through the thin silk of her robe. The house was too quiet. It always was. But tonight, the silence felt alive—heavy, aware, watching.
There were some truths you could live with. Things you swallowed because they hurt less that way. But the folder in that drawer? That had torn something wide open.
Cassian had a daughter.
He’d hidden it.
And Anais had walked back into this marriage not knowing the half of the man she was married to.
She tried not to cry. Tears didn’t fix betrayal. They just made it look more poetic.
By morning, her robe was damp where it had clung to her arms. Her head pounded from the weight of unslept hours.
Still, she stood up, walked to the bathroom, and stared into the mirror like she was expecting to see someone else. She didn’t. Same face. Same quiet sadness behind her eyes.
She turned on the shower. Hot. Scalding.
The kind of water that burned away whatever softness she had left.
Cassian didn’t leave the house that morning.
Anais found him in the kitchen, dressed but distracted, phone in hand. He didn’t look up when she walked in. She didn’t say a word either.
She poured coffee. Black. No sugar. No milk. No grace.
The silence stretched so long it started to feel like a third person in the room.
Finally, Cassian said, without looking at her, “I’m sorry you found out that way.”
Anais didn’t respond. She took a slow sip instead.
He added, “I wasn’t hiding her from you. I was protecting her from everything that comes with me. My name. My family.”
“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?”
Cassian finally looked at her. There was no anger in his face. No defensiveness. Just a kind of raw honesty that, for once, didn’t feel practiced.
“I was twenty-one,” he said. “Stupid. Arrogant. I didn’t even know she existed until two years later. Her mother wanted nothing to do with me. No press. No involvement. Just my silence. I gave it to her.”
Anais sat down across from him. She didn’t touch her coffee again.
“You could’ve told me.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want to bring that mess into our lives.”
“But you were the mess,” she said softly. “You brought it in the moment you decided to keep me in the dark.”
Cassian leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I’ve made a lot of bad decisions, Anais. But I loved you. That was never one of them.”
She looked away. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because it hurts more when you say it like you mean it.”
Later that day, Irene summoned her to the top floor.
Not requested. Summoned.
The assistant barely met her eyes when she stepped off the elevator.
The boardroom doors were already open.
Irene sat at the head of the long table, back straight, heels crossed at the ankle, a folder neatly closed in front of her. No smiles. No charm. Just business.
“Sit.”
Anais did.
“We’ve received some questions,” Irene began. “About your recent interview. About your past. About your intentions.”
“My intentions?” Anais repeated.
“You’ve shifted the company’s public narrative,” Irene continued, tone crisp. “Some find that refreshing. Others—threatening.”
“Let me guess which ones Julien falls under.”
Irene’s mouth twitched. “Julien doesn’t speak for the board.”
“No. But he whispers loudly.”
Irene opened the folder. Inside was a list of press inquiries. Gossip blogs. Opinion columns. Some polite. Some brutal.
“Do you want me to apologize for existing?” Anais asked, calmer than she felt.
“I want you to understand,” Irene said, “that this world is full of vultures. Especially when they smell blood. If there are secrets you haven’t told us, now is the time to speak.”
Anais stared at her.
“Secrets?” she said. “Cassian’s the one with those.”
Irene didn’t flinch. “I know.”
Anais blinked. “You know?”
“I’ve been with this company a long time, Anais. Nothing here surprises me.”
“Then why ask me to own it?”
“Because Cassian won’t. And someone always pays the public bill.”
Anais stood. “Not this time.”
She walked out without waiting to be dismissed.
That night, the tension in the house was different. Not quiet. Not boiling. Just… waiting.
She found Cassian in his office, staring out the window like the skyline had answers he couldn’t find in people.
“Do you love her?” Anais asked.
He didn’t turn. “Who?”
“Your daughter.”
He nodded once. “I don’t know her well enough to say it the way a father should. But I care. I want to protect her.”
Anais stepped inside. “You’ve never once said her name.”
He turned now.
“Her name is Lina.”
The word landed like a confession. Heavy. Private.
Anais leaned against the doorframe. “Does she know who you are?”
“She knows I’m her father. That’s all.”
“No last names. No photos.”
Cassian shook his head. “It’s safer that way.”
“For her or for you?”
His lips pressed into a line.
She stepped closer. “You’re not the only one who lost something, Cassian. I carried our child. I broke carrying that child. And you let me mourn in silence while you kept another life locked away.”
“I didn’t know how to bring that part of me into us,” he said. “I thought I could keep them separate. I was wrong.”
Anais closed her eyes.
“I’m not asking you to fix it,” she said. “I’m just asking you not to lie anymore.”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Later, while brushing her hair in front of the mirror, Anais saw the notification light up on her phone.
One message.
Unknown sender.
What else do you think he’s hiding?
She froze.
Another ping.
Ask him about Southbridge. 2019. He won’t tell you. But I will.
Her chest tightened.
Who was doing this? Julien?
Someone else?
She typed back:
Who are you?
No reply.
At dinner, Cassian barely touched his food. The air between them was full of unspoken things, but Anais couldn’t decide which silence to break first.
Until finally, she said, “What happened in Southbridge?”
He stopped chewing. Set his fork down. Very slowly.
She watched the color drain from his face.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“You won’t tell me, will you?”
Cassian stood up. Left the table.
She followed him into the hallway.
“Cassian!”
He turned. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.”She yelled
But he didn’t. He just stared at her like she was someone he didn’t know how to speak to anymore.
“I trusted you,” she whispered.
“I never asked for your trust.”
She blinked.
“You asked for my silence. You married it.”
He looked away.
Anais felt something shift in her chest.
Whatever this was between them—it was unraveling. Fast.
And for the first time, she wasn’t sure if either of them wanted to stop it.
Latest chapter
Twice His Wife EVERYTHING LEFT UNSAID.
The air inside the study thickened like it was soaked in secrets.Anais didn’t speak. Couldn’t.Because the woman standing in the doorway wasn’t a ghost, or a hallucination.It was her mother.Alive.Alive, and real, and staring at her like nothing had ever gone wrong.She hadn’t aged like time expected her to. Her hair was darker than Anais remembered. Her eyes—still that steel-blue shade—narrowed as they took her in, like she was assessing her own reflection years removed.“Hello, Anais,” she said calmly.Julien stood beside her, smug and untouched, as if this had been the plan all along.“You’re supposed to be dead,” Anais managed.Her mother’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “A lot of things are supposed to be. Doesn’t mean they are.”Julien moved to the sideboard and poured two glasses of dark amber liquid, handing one to her mother. “She kept the right people close. Paid off the wrong ones.”“Why?” Anais asked. Her voice cracked. “Why would you fake your death? Let me think yo
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There’s a silence Anais had never heard before. Not the absence of noise, but the space between expectation and collapse. It’s the silence before something breaks.That’s what the morning felt like.She sat alone in her office at Vale Holdings, the light outside too still, too bright. Her phone buzzed, screen flashing with a number she didn’t recognize. She let it ring.Then it rang again.Same number.Something in her chest stirred.She picked up on the third try.“Anais Vale?” a deep voice asked.“Yes?”“This is Detective Moore, NYPD.”She froze.“There’s been a development in the Fallpoint investigation. We’d like you to come in.”Anais blinked slowly. “That was a sealed case.”“There’s new evidence.”She gripped the desk. “What kind of evidence?”The voice didn’t answer directly. “We’ll explain when you arrive.”Click.By the time Anais reached the station, Cassian was already there, pacing.He looked up when she entered—something dark and tight around his eyes.“You didn’t tell m
Twice His Wife THE WOMAN WITH THE BRIEF CASE.
Juliet Hale looked like a ghost no one had invited back.Her silver hair was tied in a smooth twist at the base of her neck, her long dark coat tailored so sharply it looked like it could slice through glass. She stood in the Vale Holdings lobby like it belonged to her—and maybe, at some point, it almost had.Anais watched from the security feed, frozen in the hallway.Julien and Dahlia flanked her like two lieutenants. Too smug. Too confident.Juliet lifted her chin and handed something to the front desk.A folder.Irene whispered beside Anais, “She’s requesting a board room. Immediate access.”“Under what grounds?”Irene looked at the screen again. “A clause from the original merger agreement—your father’s company and Vale Holdings.”Anais’s breath caught.That clause had been buried years ago. Sealed. Forgotten.But not erased.Juliet hadn’t come for a meeting.She’d come to take the floor.Cassian entered the hallway a moment later, tension carved into his shoulders.“She invoked
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Twice His Wife TERMS OF RESURRECTION..
It was after midnight when Anais called Irene.She hadn’t moved from the sofa in hours, the image of Julien and Dahlia stepping into that building with Harlan Quinn frozen on her phone screen. The soft blue glow of it had become the only light in the room.“I need to know where they went,” she said without preamble.Irene didn’t ask what had changed. “Already tracing.”Anais stared ahead, throat tight. “Do it quietly.”She hung up before Irene could respond.Cassian entered the room a minute later, his sleeves pushed up, hair slightly mussed. He looked at her the way people look at old war zones—half memory, half dread.“What happened?” he asked.She didn’t hand him the phone.Just said, “Julien and Dahlia are back. And they’re working with Harlan Quinn.”Cassian’s expression didn’t change. But she saw his hands stiffen by his sides.He walked to the fireplace and stood there silently for a long moment.“I should’ve buried them deeper,” he murmured.Anais stood slowly. “This isn’t jus
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Cassian watched Anais from the doorway.She was standing in front of the window in the study again, exactly where she’d stood the night Julien and Dahlia were thrown out. But today, her stance was different. Not just still—grounded. Like she had finally stepped fully into her skin.She wasn’t afraid of him anymore.And that realization sat heavier than any boardroom betrayal ever had.He leaned against the doorframe, silent.She didn’t turn to acknowledge him. She knew he was there.Finally, he spoke.“You haven’t asked me what’s going to happen next.”Anais lifted her chin, eyes still on the street below. “Because I’m not waiting on your answer anymore.”There was no bitterness in her voice. Just calm certainty.Cassian stepped in slowly, closing the door behind him.“You’ve changed.”She didn’t move. “No. I’m just not performing anymore.”He sat in the leather chair by the fireplace. A long pause settled between them.“I miss the way you used to look at me,” he said.She blinked onc
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