Lahat ng Kabanata ng Lawfully Wedded Nanny (BWWM): Kabanata 91 - Kabanata 100

The smoke detector shrieked overhead, but neither of them moved. The air between them was already scorched enough.Then, three sharp knocks rattled against the front door.They both froze.Richard’s head jerked toward the sound, jaw still locked tight. Monet blinked, her hands still trembling around the spatula. The silence between them was ruptured, suspended, until the knock came again—harder this time, insistent.Richard swore under his breath, Monet stayed rooted to the spot, her chest heaving, her eyes burning as the smoke detector kept wailing.The knock came again, sharp and more forceful. Richard cursed under his breath, but his steps were clipped as he crossed to the door and yanked it open.George Clayton Jr. stood there, pressed and polished as ever, but the bruise still ghosted along his jaw. His eyes went first to Richard, then past him into the kitchen where Monet stood, a knife forgotten on the cutting board.“George?” she asked softly, relief blooming in her voice. “W

The windowpane had grown cold beneath her fingertips. Outside, the garden was little more than a blur of shadows, dawn still three hours off, but Monet couldn’t sleep—not after another night of circling thoughts that pressed against her ribs like a weight.She told herself she’d only sat down for a moment, just until the children settled, just until her pulse slowed. But here she was, hours later, wrapped in the same silence that had greeted her the night before.Richard’s face haunted her—the way it had darkened at the mention of Hannah’s name, the stiffness that had returned to his shoulders since George’s visit, the unspoken fury wrapped around the punch he hadn’t confessed. It was all stacking up, the subpoena, the pending custody battle, the storm swelling around this house. And she was standing in the middle of it, uncertain if she was ballast or kindling.Her chest squeezed as she thought of the children. They were the only tether keeping her from packing a bag and vanish

The game ended with Meredith’s team winning by a slim margin, the final whistle cutting through the cool spring air. Cheers broke out across the sidelines as the kids clustered together, flushed and beaming.While the children rushed for juice boxes and snacks, parents began gathering folding chairs, shaking out blankets, and packing up coolers. The casual hum of end-of-match cleanup filled the field.Monet bent to fold Carter’s blanket, the sun pressing at the back of her neck. Richard and Maxwell had already packed the folding chairs and coolers into the truck. She didn’t see the other woman approach until her shadow fell across the grass.“Here, let me,” the mother said, her smile glossy and a shade too sharp. She stooped quickly, scooping the blanket from Monet’s hands with a practiced efficiency. “You’ve got enough on your plate, don’t you?”Her tone wasn’t kind—it was dipped in honey but carried a bite beneath it.Florence, who had been tucking away her gloves into her bag, look

The house was tranquil at dawn. Even the town beyond their windows seemed to hold its breath, as though it sensed the heaviness pressing down inside. Monet sat on the edge of her bed, the hem of her nightgown twisted between her fingers, her mind replaying the lawyer’s words from yesterday like a needle caught in a groove.Kyle.He was going to play a role in her future with the children, whether she wanted him to or not.She swallowed hard, pressing her palm against her chest as if to still the uneasy rhythm of her heart. The last time she had seen him, she had cut the cord clean, or so she thought. But now the court was summoning him like a ghost she hadn’t buried properly, a ghost who still had the power to unravel her.A half-written letter lay on the nightstand. She had started it hours ago, when the shadows still clung to the room and sleep refused to come. Richard, she had written at the top, though she hadn’t gotten much further. The words had knotted in her throat, all the th

The door clicked shut behind her, and the library fell into a silence so thick Richard could hear his own pulse pounding in his ears.Not from this fight. Not from you.Her words lingered, sharp as glass, slicing through the armor he’d worn so long it felt like skin. He braced his hand harder against the mantel, the carved wood digging into his palm until his knuckles ached.She didn’t understand. Or maybe she did, and that was worse.He shut his eyes and could see it—Monet standing in Juliet’s gilded circle, her chin lifted, her voice steady. He hadn’t been there, but he knew that world too well. The smiles like knives, the whispers coiling under chandeliers. Hannah had flourished under that same scrutiny, polished and the leader of her peers. And now Monet—sweet, reckless Monet—had walked straight into the lion’s den, and all he could think was how they would devour her.A tremor of rage went through him, not at her, but at the image of Juliet’s pearls catching the light, at the tho