Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins: Kabanata 421 - Kabanata 430

Kyle's POV"I am not drunk. I am—" Morton paused. Considered this. "—okay yes I'm very drunk. But in my defense, my baby brother just got married and I was the best man and there were many, many toasts.""How many?""Seventeen. I counted." He let go of the doorframe. Tried to walk in a straight line toward the chair. Failed. Course-corrected. Overcorrected. Ended up doing this weird zigzag pattern that would have been funny if he wasn't also clearly about to fall over.Dr. Norbu stepped aside smoothly. Like he'd anticipated this exact scenario.Morton collapsed into the chair the doctor had just vacated. His long legs sprawling out. His head falling back against the cushion."This chair is comfortable," he announced. "Why is hospital furniture so comfortable? Regular furniture should be this comfortable. I should buy hospital furniture for my house.""Morton," I said. "Why are you here?""Because you're my best friend." He lifted his head. Looked at me with bloodshot eyes. "I have so

KyleI've been watching her for too long.Long enough that I've memorized the exact shade of late afternoon light filtering through the living room windows—that honey-gold that makes everything look softer, warmer, more forgiving than it has any right to be.I'm hoping she'll look my way. That her eyes will find mine across this small universe of afternoon sunlight.Or maybe I'm hoping she never stops spinning. That she stays exactly like this—head thrown back, smile breaking across her face like sunrise, arms spread wide like she's trying to embrace the whole damn world.I don't know which outcome I want more.She's spinning. Really spinning. The kind of unself-conscious rotation that only children do, except she's doing it too. Her sundress—pale blue cotton that skims her thighs—flares out with each turn, creating this bell-shaped silhouette that makes my chest tight. It's not a performance. There's no audience in her mind. She's not thinking about how she looks or who might be watc

KyleThey smell like everything innocent and good in the world.Alexander smells like apple juice—the kind that comes in those little boxes with the bendy straws. There's a faint stickiness to his neck where he didn't wipe his mouth properly. Graham crackers, too. I can smell the sweet, wheaty scent clinging to his shirt. And underneath it all, that particular smell of child-sweat that somehow manages to be sweet instead of sour. Like sun-warmed grass and playgrounds and pure, unfiltered energy."Hey, buddy," I manage to say.Alexander doesn't notice. His arms squeeze tighter around my neck."You're really here!""Alex, breathe," Mia says from across the room. "He needs to breathe too.""Oh." Alexander loosens his grip slightly. "Sorry, Daddy. Sometimes I forget about breathing. Mama says I talk so fast the words trip over themselves.""It's okay," I tell him,

Kyle's POV"You look beautiful."The words slip past my lips before I can stop them.Because she does look beautiful—standing here in this particular quality of light that streams through the living room windows, wearing that simple blue dress that somehow makes her seem more radiant than any designer gown ever could. Her hair is pulled back loosely, wisps escaping to frame her face in that careless way that looks deliberate but isn't. Her skin is bare of makeup except for a thin sheen of perspiration from the dancing, and it makes her literally glow, catching the afternoon sun like she's made of something more precious than flesh and bone.Color floods her cheeks immediately. I watch, fascinated, as the blush spreads from the apples of her cheeks upward across her cheekbones, even reaching the delicate tips of her ears which turn a charming shade of pink that reminds me of roses just beginning to open."Don't," she says."Don't what?""Don't talk like that." Her eyes threaten to slid

Mia's POV"Come here," Kyle says again, and this time his hands pull gently.I let him pull me forward. My knees slide across the cold tile, and then his arms are around me, wrapping and encircling and holding. One arm spreads wide between my shoulder blades while the other settles lower around my waist, his fingers pressing into the soft part above my hip. He pulls me against his chest and my face hits his shoulder, my nose pressed into fabric that smells like hospital laundry detergent—that industrial clean smell that never quite leaves.His chin comes down and rests on top of my head, and I can feel his heartbeat thudding too fast against my cheek through layers of cotton and skin. My hands hover uncertainly before they find his back, fists closing around fabric.We sink down together in a graceless collapse, my knees giving out, his knees giving out, until we're just sitting there, slumped and tangled together on the kitchen floor. The tile is so cold it radiates up through everyt