All Chapters of Too Close To Handle: Chapter 71 - Chapter 78

Chloe stood apart, frozen, her fists clenched until her knuckles blanched. Fury coiled in her chest like fire. No… not her. It can’t be her.From the sidelines, whispers spread like sparks:“Impossible… she’s the president’s wife?”“No wonder she wore the Crimson Fate at the anniversary…”“What if we lose our jobs because we bullied her?”“She’s not shallow, not like you,” Clara said proudly, her voice rising above the murmurs. “She’s better. I always knew she was different.”Onstage, oblivious to the storm brewing in Chloe’s chest, Abigail leaned closer to Edward, her cheeks flushed. “What are you doing?” she whispered, mortified yet glowing.“Why hide now?” Edward answered gently, smiling down at her. “This was always our agreement.”She gave a small laugh, tears bri

The soft hum of the hospital lights filled the silence. It was the kind of silence that felt alive — heavy, fragile, almost sacred. Edward lingered at the doorway for a moment before finding his voice.“Red…” he whispered.The word trembled in the air. Abigail didn’t move. She was sitting upright on the bed, her body still, her eyes fixed on the window where a pale dawn was breaking. The world outside was waking, but the room felt like it existed somewhere else — in that quiet limbo between yesterday’s grief and tomorrow’s numbness.Her eyes were swollen, their edges red from hours of crying. Even without tears, her face still carried the ache of them — the hollow exhaustion of someone who had lost something too big to name.Edward stepped inside, his hand tightening around the small container he carried. The faint steam from the soup brushed his fingers. He had held it too tightly on the way up, as if warmth could anchor him to something real.He didn’t know what to say. What could a

When Abigail left the hospital, she didn’t know where to go. Her body simply moved — as if her heart, not her mind, was steering her.The road blurred beneath the soft drizzle of morning rain until she found herself standing before her grandmother’s grave. It was the only place that had ever felt like home.She knelt beside the cold marble, tracing the faint letters of her grandmother’s name with trembling fingers. The scent of wet grass lingered in the air.“If you were still here,” she whispered, her voice breaking, “I wouldn’t be this lost.”She closed her eyes.Images flooded her — the gentle hands that once brushed her hair, the lullabies that promised the world wasn’t as cruel as it seemed. But those hands had been gone for years, and the world had proved itself cruel over and over again.When her grandmother died, everything else had followed — her parents’ affection, her place in the family, her sense of belonging. They’d sent her away to the convent, to a life measured by sil

Days passed quietly in the orphanage.The rhythm of life there was simple — bells in the morning, prayers before breakfast, laughter echoing faintly from the courtyard where children played.Abigail had always thought of silence as punishment. But here, in these soft, measured days, silence began to feel like something else — a kind of mercy.She woke each morning to the scent of bread baking in the kitchen. The air was cool, filled with the sound of small feet running down the halls. Sometimes one of the younger girls would peek through the door, eyes wide with curiosity.“Are you the lady from the rain?” they would ask, and she would smile faintly, nodding.“Yes. The one who forgot her umbrella.”They would giggle and disappear again.At first, she barely spoke to anyone. She spent her hours helping in the garden behind the chapel, her hands finding comfort in the soil — planting, watering, tending. There was something about watching things grow that eased the ache inside her, even