All Chapters of Secrets of a Hidden Marriage: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

230 Chapters

Chapter 155: No Kiss Scenes — and Then She Found Her Props in a Pile on the Sidewalk

By evening, the team is locked in.I spend the afternoon hunting down every person I need, collecting confirmations like I'm defusing a bomb with a checklist. Leads, supporting cast, stage crew, lighting — all of it assembled in a single day out of pure stubbornness and the specific motivation that comes from having made a very public, very stupid bet.At seven, I pull everyone into one of the journalism lecture halls and hand out scripts.The school has assigned us Romeo and Juliet — which, fine, is a classic for a reason, and at least every person in this room already knows the bones of it. I'll play Juliet. Tyler Nash takes Romeo without hesitation, flashing that easy grin that I'm already counting on to carry half our crowd appeal. Chloe gets cast as the Nurse — supporting, steady, exactly what she is in real life, which makes me feel slightly better about everything."We have two weeks," I tell the room, script in hand, sta

Chapter 156: He Kicked Me While I Was Down

"Stop."My voice comes out harder than I planned — sharp enough that the two guys carrying my costume rack actually freeze mid-step, caught between my command and Felicity's.I step forward, planting myself between them and the door."Put it down," I say. To them. Then I turn to Felicity. "I filed the application at seven this morning. I have the permit. I have the key. For the next two weeks, this auditorium is assigned to my team. So I'm going to need you to take your people and your props and leave."Felicity looks at me the way you look at a child who's said something adorably incorrect."Oh, Allie." She tilts her head, almost sympathetic. "You actually think a piece of paper matters here? The Performing Arts Department has standing priority on every performance space on this campus. It's been that way for twenty years." She pauses, letting it land. "And the faculty member directing our rehearsals this semester is Professor Caldwell. Who,

Chapter 157: I Can't Afford to Make an Enemy of Your Nephew

The entire afternoon disappears into manual labor.Props cart after props cart, costume rack after costume rack — we haul everything from Harmon to Aldridge in the kind of heavy, wordless silence that falls over people when they're too tired and too angry to talk. The Aldridge Auditorium is smaller, older, the kind of space that smells like decades of budget cuts and fluorescent lighting that flickers if you look at it wrong. The stage is half the size. The acoustics are worse. The seats are uncomfortable and there aren't enough of them.But it's ours. Nobody's throwing our props out of this one.Chloe moves beside me, carrying a box of stage lighting cables, her jaw tight with the specific tension of someone who has been holding their tongue for two hours and is running out of room.She lasts until we set down the last load."We should have fought harder," she says, flat and controlled. "Taken it all the way to the administration, made it pu

Chapter 158: She Called Him Uncle and I Felt Everything

Robert sends us ahead."Go get Adam," he tells me with a wave of his hand, warm and easy, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "You two head straight to the dining room. Chen and I will welcome the guests."Liam follows his father downstairs and I stand in the upstairs hallway alone, staring at the door at the far end.Adam's room.I take a breath. Then another.The irritation I've been carrying since the auditorium is still there — hasn't cooled, hasn't softened, just sits in the center of my chest like a coal that's been banked but not extinguished. I've spent the entire car ride and the first twenty minutes in this house trying to be professional about it. Mature. Measured.I walk down the hallway.With every step, the coal burns hotter.I stop at his door. Lift my hand. Prepare to knock.The door swings open before my knuckles make contact.Adam Hart fills the doorway — fresh-changed, hair still slightly damp, that same unreadable expression locked into place like armor h

Chapter 159: After All, I'm His Aunt — I Should Let Him Have It

Liam doesn't let go of my hand.He picked it up off my lap somewhere between the introductions and the moment Joanna's smile recalibrated, and now it's resting on the table between us — his hand over mine, fingers relaxed, completely unhurried — like a flag planted in quiet, unmistakable territory.Joanna is still staring."She looks so young," she says, in English, like I'm not sitting four feet away and perfectly fluent.Liam tilts his head, the faintest trace of amusement crossing his face. "There's an expression — an old bull grazes on the freshest grass. You've probably heard the American version."I almost choke on my water.Did Liam Hart — controlled, composed, never-says-anything-without-calculating-it Liam Hart — just call himself an old bull at his own dinner table, in front of his father and a retired military colonel, to score a point?He did. He absolutely did.I press my lips together hard and stare at my plate.Across the table, Elizabeth Hart — who arrived an hour ago

Chapter 161: Lunch Is the Least I Can Do

"Keep rehearsing," I tell them. "I'm handling the costumes."I'm already moving toward the door."Allie—" Chloe's voice follows me into the hallway. "Where are you going?"I don't stop. "I'll be back."I hit the stairwell at a run, phone already at my ear, scrolling fast through my contacts for a name I haven't dialed since the Midnight Crown set wrapped. The evening air hits me when I push through the exterior door — cool, sharp, the city alive and completely indifferent to the catastrophe I'm currently sprinting through.George Smith picks up on the second ring."Allie." His voice is warm, faintly surprised. "First time you've called since the production ended. I was starting to think you'd forgotten I existed.""I need a favor," I say, breathless, already walking fast toward the street. "A big one. Can I come to you right now?"A beat. Then, without asking a single question: "I'm in a meeting that ends in twenty minutes. Come straight up."Smith & Co. Entertainment occupies the fou

Chapter 160 : Everything Was Fine — Until It Wasn't

Adam looks up from the closed pen box.His eyes are sharp, guarded — but underneath the guard, something raw moves through them, quick as a current, before he locks it away."Did Allie complain to you?" he asks. Flat. Controlled."She didn't say a word." Liam's voice is easy, unhurried — the tone of a man who has already won and doesn't need to announce it. "You made it obvious enough on your own."Adam says nothing."You took food off her plate, Xiao Han." Liam lets that sit. "You. A grown man who has never once, in his entire life, wasted energy disliking anyone. You reached across a dinner table to take the last shrimp away from your uncle's wife." He tilts his head. "That's not indifference. That's effort."Adam's jaw works once. "I just don't like her.""You've said that." Liam crosses his arms, studying him with the patience of someone who has known this face since it was twelve years old and unguarded. "You've also

Chapter 162: Miss Brooks, You're Something Else

When the check comes, George reaches for his wallet.I get there first."I said I was treating." I slide the bill toward me before he can object. "It's beef noodles, not a mortgage. I can handle it."George looks at me for a moment — that quiet, measuring look he has, the one that seems to be doing math behind it — and then puts his wallet away without a word. The corner of his mouth lifts just slightly.We don't linger. There's no time. The audition clock is running and we both know it.The Smith & Co. prop warehouse is in an industrial building three blocks from the entertainment district, and it is nothing like what I expected.I expected a storage room.What I get is a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar.Shelves stretch from floor to ceiling in every direction — row after row of props organized by era, by category, by color. Period furniture. Theatrical weaponry. Lighting rigs and fabric b

Chapter 163: I Don't Just Want to Win — I Want to Destroy Her

The moment the costume rack rolls under the stage lights, everything shifts.I watch it happen in real time — my team, who forty minutes ago looked like soldiers standing in a bombed-out field, transforming into something else entirely. Tyler lifts a doublet from the rack and holds it up against his chest and lets out a low, reverent whistle. One of the stage crew runs her fingers along a prop sword hilt with the focused attention of someone cataloguing something beautiful. Chloe moves through the costume rail methodically, checking each piece, and I can see from the set of her shoulders the exact moment she realizes these aren't just replacements.They're better.Everything Felicity destroyed was borrowed school inventory — old, worn at the seams, serviceable but faded. What George sent over is production quality. The fabric has weight. The detailing is hand-stitched. The costumes look like they were built for this exact play, for these exact people

Chapter 164: Julian Ford Just Walked Into My Auditorium

Eight fifty AM.Ten minutes to curtain.I'm standing in the wings of Aldridge Auditorium looking out at the seats, and I'm counting.Fourteen people.Fourteen — including our stage crew, Chloe's study group friends who came as a loyalty gesture, and one freshman who wandered in thinking it was a different event and hasn't figured out his mistake yet.Chloe appears at my shoulder, close enough that I can hear her without her having to raise her voice. "Felicity's souvenirs worked," she says quietly. "She had people stationed at every path leading here. Anyone who even glanced toward Aldridge got intercepted and handed a gift bag with directions to Harmon."I exhale slowly through my nose."How bad is Harmon?""Standing room. Line out the door." She pauses. "I'm sorry, Allie."I look at those fourteen faces scattered across three hundred seats and feel something hollow open in the center of my chest — not defea

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