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Chapter 83
publish date:
2026-04-27 00:11:20
Latest chapter
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 84
Maria: By the time Noah sent the second text, Daniel was already watching me. Not obviously, that was never his style. He didn’t reach or lean or ask too quickly. He just noticed, and somehow that was always worse than anything more obvious would have been. My phone lit up again. Noah: Can we meet? I stared at the screen a second too long, and Daniel set his coffee down. “You’ve gone quiet.” I slipped the phone face down on the table. “Noah texted. He wants to meet.” That got his attention in the smallest possible way. Nothing dramatic, just stillness, the kind that always meant he was thinking too much and saying too little. He nodded once, like I had confirmed something inconvenient, then stood and reached for his coat. “Don’t.” “That wasn’t a suggestion.” “It was advice.” “You have a very strange way of giving it.” “And you have a very consistent habit of ignoring useful things.” He held my chair out for me anyway, calm as ever, and I stood slowly, already irritat
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 83
Maria: Noah’s name sits on my screen long enough to make everything else in the room feel briefly irrelevant. “You’re marrying Daniel Rothfield?” I read the message once, then again, slower this time, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something easier to answer if I give them enough time. They do not. Same sentence. Same disbelief. No accusation, which somehow feels worse. Morning light filters through the windows, catching on the new ring and throwing tiny lavender reflections across the table. Lily is still talking. Something about coffee. Something about not letting Daniel parade me around the city before I have had enough caffeine to survive it. I hear maybe half of it. The rich, bitter scent of her espresso drifts between us. I am still staring at Noah’s name. Because this, somehow, feels more consequential than the headlines. More than the photographs. More than the ring still sitting on my hand like evidence. The metal feels cool and foreign against my skin,
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 82
Maria: The first thing Lily sends me the next morning is a photograph of my own public embarrassment. Daniel is on one knee. I am staring down at him like I have forgotten every useful thought I have ever had. The ring is caught in the light. His hand is wrapped around mine. It looks intimate. It looks sincere. It looks, to my great personal irritation, like I believed him. The headline underneath it is worse. “DANIEL ROTHFIELD PROPOSES TO MARIA WALKEK AFTER YEARS OF PRIVATE HISTORY.” I read it once. Then again, slower. After years of private history. Not sudden engagement. Not society alliance. Not strategic merger in couture. History. I sit up straighter, phone in hand, and feel something cold and precise settle into place. Morning sunlight spills across my bed, warm on the sheets but doing nothing to ease the chill crawling up my arms. That was what he sold them. Not an engagement. Not a convenient arrangement. A history. Something soft enough to romanticize. Something o
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 81
Maria: By the time my mother told me to change because dinner apparently required “more effort than that,” I should have known something was off. Not wrong exactly. Just off in that specific way rich families perfected. Too much calm. Too much coordination. Too many people acting normal while very obviously hiding something. I was halfway down the stairs when she stopped me, looked me over once, and made a face. “No.” I paused. “No what?” “No to whatever this is.” She waved a hand at my dress like it had personally insulted her. “Go back upstairs and wear something better.” I stared at her. “We’re having dinner with the Rothfields, not attending my coronation.” “That is not the point.” “Then what is the point?” She smiled, which was immediately suspicious. “Just go upstairs, Maria.” That was the first warning. The second was Lily. She had texted me twenty minutes earlier telling me to wear something nice, keep my mouth shut, and for once in my life let things happen withou
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 37
Maria: His name sits on my screen like a question I’m not ready to answer. I don’t pick up immediately. I stare at it, thumb hovering, like I need a few more seconds to gather myself into something presentable. Something that doesn’t sound like I just cried hard enough to give myself a headache.
What We Pretended To Be Chapter 34
Maria: Isabelle does not do quiet events. I should have known that before we even got here, but the moment the car turns into the driveway, it becomes obvious. Lights everywhere. Not harsh, not loud, just… intentional. The kind that makes everything look softer and more expensive than it probably
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
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