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Chapter 37: Too Quiet

Author: POLLY IRIS
last update publish date: 2026-04-05 21:42:11

Or so I thought......

I didn’t open the drawer.

I just stared at it.

For a long moment.

Then I leaned back on my hands and looked up at the ceiling.

“…no.”

Because if I opened that manuscript again right now, I already knew what would happen.

I wouldn’t sleep.

I wouldn’t think.

I’d just keep reading until I reached something I couldn’t unread.

And based on the direction Katherine’s story was going, that moment wasn’t far of

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  • Veiled Deception   Chapter 37: Too Quiet

    Or so I thought......I didn’t open the drawer.I just stared at it.For a long moment.Then I leaned back on my hands and looked up at the ceiling.“…no.”Because if I opened that manuscript again right now, I already knew what would happen.I wouldn’t sleep.I wouldn’t think.I’d just keep reading until I reached something I couldn’t unread.And based on the direction Katherine’s story was going, that moment wasn’t far off.So instead, I pushed myself up from the bed and walked to the window.The curtains were slightly open, letting in a thin slice of moonlight. The garden outside was quiet. Still.Normal.Everything looked normal.Which somehow made the house feel even stranger.I crossed my arms and leaned lightly against the glass.“Too quiet,” I muttered.Because it was.Not just tonight.Every night.The kind of quiet that didn’t f

  • Veiled Deception   Chapter: 36 The Interruption

    I was just about to turn the page when I heard it.A sound.Soft.But too deliberate to be nothing.I paused, my finger still resting on the edge of the paper.The room was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that makes even your own breathing sound suspicious.Then it came again.A creak.Not inside my room.Outside.In the hallway.I slowly lowered the manuscript.“…okay.”That wasn’t normal.The house had been silent for the past hour. Completely still. Like everything had gone to sleep—including the walls.Which meant one of two things.Either Damien was awake.Or someone else was walking around his house.Neither option made me feel better.I closed the manuscript carefully, sliding the pages together and placing them back into the drawer beside the bed. My movements were slower than usual, like making too much noise might somehow make things wo

  • Veiled Deception   Chapter: 35 What about ME?

    I didn’t want to read the next chapter.That’s the strange part.Up until now, Katherine’s story had been… complicated, but still warm. Romantic even. There were moments where I almost forgot the ending I already knew was coming.But twins changed things.Not just for Katherine.For the story itself.Because now I knew exactly who those twins were supposed to become.Sarah.And Samantha.Two little girls who, according to the manuscript, didn’t survive childhood.Which meant somewhere in these pages, things were going to go very wrong.I looked down at the stack of paper again.My fingers tapped the edge of the page slowly.“Maybe I should stop,” I muttered.Then I turned the page anyway.Katherine’s Manuscript — Chapter 7Pregnancy is not the glowing, magical experience people describe in novels.At least not for me.For me it felt like my body had been hijacked.The nausea started first.Every morning.Like clockwork.Damien noticed immediately.Of course he did.He notices everythi

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    I told myself I should sleep.That was a very reasonable thought considering it was well past midnight and I had already read more of Katherine’s autobiography than any sane person probably should.But the problem with stories—especially unfinished ones—is that they refuse to leave your brain alone.I stared at the manuscript sitting on the desk.Then at the door.Then back at the manuscript.Somewhere in this house Damien was sleeping peacefully, completely unaware that his entire romantic history was currently being reviewed by the woman he had practically kidnapped into marriage.The thought made me snort quietly.“Your life choices are questionable, Hailey.”Still.My hand reached for the pages again.Because if Katherine’s story explained anything about the man I was living with, I wanted to know.I flipped to the next chapter.Katherine’s Manuscript — Chapter 6There is a moment in every marriage where the quiet routine suddenly changes.Sometimes it is something small.A disagr

  • Veiled Deception   Chapter 33: Who are you?

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  • Veiled Deception   Chapter 22 — The Wrong Kind of Quiet

    The next morning, I woke to a tray already inside my room.That shouldn’t have been possible.My door was locked at night—at least, it always sounded like it was.Yet the tray sat near the window, steaming tea curling upward like nothing was wrong.My stomach turned.I got up slowly and checked the

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    The rest of the day, I treated the mansion like a map I intended to escape.If Damien thought “freedom within the grounds” was a gift, he was stupid.Or arrogant.Probably both.I ate nothing. Not out of pride—out of spite. I drank water because dehydration didn’t make rebellion poetic; it made it

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  • Veiled Deception   Chapter 18 — Secrets in the Silence

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