All Chapters of His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

FLASHBACK TO 4 YEARS AGO... THE NIGHT ALTHEA JUMPED TO HER DEATHThe moment Althea stepped backward, the world seemed to slow into fragments, raindrops suspended in the air, wind howling like a living beast, Dominic screaming her name, echoing in her bones.Then the cliff vanished beneath her feet. The sea rose to swallow her.Cold. Violent. Unforgiving.The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. Darkness swallowed her instantly, dragging her down, down, down into a cold that felt like death itself. Althea fought, her arms flailing against the current, her legs kicking wildly, but the waves battered her relentlessly. Salt water filled her throat. Her body spun in the blackness like a broken doll.Is this how it ends?Her fingers brushed her stomach as a surge of primal fear shot through her.My darling. She thought intently, praying fervently. Hold on. Please, hold on…A wave slammed her against a rock, and she felt a sharp agony explode across her side. Her vision blurred. The worl

Three days later, the prominent figure had finally awakened.The sun had barely risen above Helena’s private island when the most powerful security convoy Althea had ever seen descended on the clinic grounds. Black cars lined the driveway. Armed personnel stood like statues. The atmosphere crackled with tension, like electricity seeking a place to strike.Althea stood at the far end of the corridor, clutching her tablet, trying to blend into the shadows as she always does. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Helena had wanted her to stay in her quarters until the commotion died down. A newly stabilized patient, no matter his political influence meant protocols, debriefings, demands.But curiosity tugged at her.The life she had saved, the man with the fatal trauma, the impossible case had survived the night, and word had finally reached his family.Althea had no interest in politics. She only wanted to check on her patient quietly.But as she stepped around the corner, she froze.There he

The room still smelled faintly of antiseptic and salt from the ocean breeze that slipped through the cracked window. The afternoon sun spilled across the tiled flooring, warming the room in a soft, golden glow.August Devereaux, who had stared down his mortality only a few days earlier, now walked the length of the room with the restless steps of a man reborn.It has been two days since arriving and Michael leaned against the wall, arms crossed, silently observing his father in amusement. The difference between the man slumped and gray on the hospital bed for so long and the one pacing today was staggering.“What’s with the energy, old man?” Michael teased. “You’ve been on your feet for hours.”August shot him a glare. “Old man?” He retorted dryly. “I nearly died, not aged thirty years. And watch your tone, boy. I’m still your father.”“Yes, yes,” Michael said, straightening mockingly. He then let out an exaggerated sigh. “The miraculous, newly recharged, youthful and radiant August D

Three weeks had passed since August Devereaux was finally discharged from Helena’s island and returned to the city. His recovery had captured the attention of the world, the media hounding him relentlessly for answers about who had saved him.True to his word, August had kept Althea’s identity a secret. “Dr. Miracle Hands saved me, and I’m eternally grateful,” he said to one reporter. “That’s all I have to say.”Althea, sitting in the lounge of the island clinic, turned away from the television at the mention of her name. She picked up the charts in front of her, eyes scanning patient data almost instinctively. She stood up and carried her coffee in one hand, heading towards her small office at the other end of the hall.She had a surgery in two hours and as her routine, she wanted to be fully prepared.However, she stopped mid-hallway, a slight frown appearing on her face, when a familiar figure caught her attention, who is talking to Helena with a smile on his face. The man’s postur

That night, Althea slipped out to the veranda overlooking the sea. The night breeze lifted her hair, cooling the sweat still clinging to her skin. She didn’t even remember walking there, one moment she had been staring blankly at her lab notes, the next her feet were carrying her outside, to the only place where she could breathe. To let herself be vulnerable.The sea whispered against the rocks below, a rhythm she had clung to many nights during her years in hiding.It steadied her, but it didn’t silence the pounding in her chest. Everything inside her felt too full, the fear, the hope, the dread, the longing—all tangled until she couldn’t separate them anymore.She hugged her knees, staring at the moon, feeling it watched her silently, a witness to a thousand nights of survival. Tonight, it felt heavier.She turned before Helena had even approached her. Her senses were sharper with the years of surviving and running had carved a survival instinct into her bones.“That sense of yours