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Chapter 79
publish date:
2026-04-25 02:02:44
Latest chapter
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 90
Maria: For a while after Daniel stopped speaking, the room stayed still. Not tense, not calm either — just spent. Whatever sharpness had been left in the argument had burned itself out somewhere between his silence and mine, and what remained was quieter than anger and heavier than either of us seemed interested in naming. I sat at the edge of the bed with half my hair still pinned and the weight of the day still clinging to me, and watched my husband pour himself another drink like the motion mattered more than the glass. He looked tired in a way I had never seen on him before. Less polished, less composed, like holding himself together had become expensive and he was finally feeling the cost of it. I hated that he was right. I hated more that I had known it before he said a word. For a while neither of us reached for anything else. He drank. I took apart what was left of my wedding one pin at a time, setting each one on the bedside table in a neat little line like control could
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 89
Daniel: By the time the reception began to thin, I had perfected the expression required to survive my own wedding. It turned out marriage, at least in public, was mostly posture. A hand at Maria’s back. A measured smile. Just enough warmth to satisfy the room. We moved through congratulations like we had rehearsed it, which, in fairness, we had. Family first. Investors second. Friends somewhere after that. Everyone eager to congratulate us on a union they believed meant romance, legacy, inevitability. It was remarkable what people would project onto two attractive people standing close enough together in expensive clothes. Maria was good at it. Better than good. She moved through the room with that particular grace of hers, all polish and dry wit and elegant restraint. My mother was emotional. Hers was worse. Isabelle had already cried twice and was pretending she had not. Lily looked insufferably pleased with herself. Marcus looked like he was enjoying a private joke at everyone’
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 88
Maria: He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The room behind him was still warm and loud and comfortably careless. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed too hard at something Marcus had probably said. My mother was still talking to Daniel’s mother with the kind of intensity usually reserved for political negotiations and floral arrangements. Nothing had changed. And yet somehow everything had. I looked at him, then at the phone in his hand. He turned the screen toward me just enough. “WALKER HEIR SEEN WITH SUSPECTED EX BOYFRIEND, NOAH. CLOSURE TALK OR REKINDLING?” Another headline sat beneath it. “WALKER HEIR SEEN IN PRIVATE PARK WITH RUMORED EX WHILE ENGAGED TO ROTHFIELD BILLIONAIRE SON.” For one brief, ugly second, all I could think was Evelyn. Of course. Of course she had smiled like that. Of course her surprise had arrived dressed as gossip and timed for maximum damage. I lifted my head and found her across the room. Champagne in one hand. That same pol
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 87
Maria: I answered Daniel the next morning because at some point ignoring him had started to feel less principled and more juvenile. His messages were still there when I opened my phone. Practical. Clean. Three simple questions about the house, as if we were discussing a renovation and not the architecture of an entire life I had not fully admitted was about to become mine. “Would you like anything changed before you move in?” “Do you need a workspace?” “What would make it feel more like yours?” I stared at them longer than I should have. Morning light spilled across the kitchen counter, warm on the marble. Then I typed the first honest answer that came to mind. “A room with natural light. Shelving. Somewhere quiet enough to think.” I read it once, nearly deleted it, then sent it. His reply came almost immediately. “Done.” I frowned at the screen. Then another message. “Anything else?” I should not have smiled. It was barely eight in the morning and I was standing in my k
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 86
Maria: Three days after the engagement, I learned two things very quickly. The first was that people became deeply invested in your personal life the second a ring appeared on your finger. The second was that half of them would absolutely use a sick pet as an excuse to ask invasive questions with a straight face. By Wednesday the clinic had become unbearable. A woman brought in a perfectly healthy golden retriever, let me examine him for ten full minutes, then asked if Daniel Rothfield was as attractive in person as he looked in photographs. A man with a cat who very clearly just needed less food spent more time congratulating me than listening to anything I said about his pet’s diet. One woman came in, looked at my hand before she looked at my face, and asked if the wedding would be before summer. By noon I had handed my schedule to Ada and given up entirely. She took the file from me, scanned the afternoon bookings, and looked at me over the top of it. “Congratulations. You’re of
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 85
Maria: By the time Noah sent the location, I already knew agreeing had been a bad idea. That did not stop me from going. It was the park, which felt pointed in the way only familiar places can when you return to them under the wrong circumstances. The same one we used to end up in when neither of us wanted to go home yet, when everything between us was still easy enough to leave unnamed and still be understood. I got there early, which should have told me something. I was late to almost everything, not disastrously, just enough to be consistent and faintly annoying. Noah used to account for it without complaint. Lily called it a personality defect. My mother called it poor upbringing. I called it manageable. And yet there I was, sitting on a bench we had claimed through nothing but repetition, ten minutes before I needed to be, waiting for a man I had already said goodbye to. That was how I knew this was costing me more than I wanted to admit. The park hadn’t changed. Same path, s
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 29
Maria: Lily is still talking when the car slows to a stop. She has been talking since we left my room. About my dress, about my hair, about how if anyone cries tonight it should be me and not my mother because apparently that would be “on brand.” I let her fill the space because it keeps me from
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 19
Daniel:I don’t check my phone when I wake up.That part is intentional.There’s a rhythm to my mornings — quiet, ordered, predictable. If I start letting small things interrupt it, everything else follows. I’ve learned that the hard way.So I get up. Shower. Dress. Coffee.Same sequence. Same pace
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 18
Maria:“I don’t think I’m competing with him anymore.”It doesn’t sound dramatic.That’s what makes it worse.Noah says it like he’s stating something obvious. Something he’s already accepted.I try to respond.“That’s not—”The rest doesn’t come.Because I don’t know what I’m correcting.He doesn’
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 16
Maria:I almost turn back.Not dramatically. Just a quiet pause at the gate, hand hovering near the bell like I forgot why I came.It shouldn’t feel like this. It’s just dinner.But it’s not just dinner.It’s his space. His world. Somewhere I’ve never really been, even when we used to know each oth
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