365 DAYS AS HIS WIFE의 모든 챕터: 챕터 21 - 챕터 30

**CHAPTER 022***CASSIAN'S POV*The room was completely silent.My mother stood in front of me with that look on her face — the one that had been making me confess things since I was seven years old — and I knew there was no version of this conversation where I walked away without spilling the truth.I exhaled slowly."It's Isolde, Mom," I said. "Rosa's twin sister. The person on that bed is not Rosa."My mother stared at me.Then she let out a sound. Short. Sharp. Something between a laugh and a scoff that came from somewhere deep in her chest."I knew it," she said quietly. Then louder — "I KNEW it, Cassian."She turned away from me and pressed both hands flat on the dresser, head dropping slightly, and for a moment she just stood there. Breathing. Processing. And I watched her shoulders rise and fall and knew — the way you always know with her — that the quiet was not peace. The quiet was the thing that came right before everything that wasn't quiet.She turned back around."I push

CHAPTER 024“She wasn’t my wife,” he said.I stared at him.He still hadn’t turned around. Still standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets, back to me like the door was already more interesting than anything I had left to say.“She wasn’t your wife,” I repeated slowly. “Then who was she?”The silence was starting to get on my nerves, so I pushed.“Mr. Cross.” I shifted forward slightly on the bed. “If she wasn’t your wife, then who— I’m just curious. I’m not trying to pry. I just want to understand—”“Rosa.”“Please.” The word came out smaller than I intended. “Please just tell me. I won’t bring it up again after this, I promise, just—”He turned around.And whatever was left of my sentence died completely.Not anger. Not the red-edged fury from the study. Something quieter than that and somehow much harder to look at—something that had been pressed down for a very long time under a very great weight and did not appreciate being disturbed.“Listen to me carefully,” he said, his vo

**CHAPTER 026**I stood in the doorway and stared at him.“What… what are you doing… what are you doing in my room?” I asked.He uncrossed his legs. “Waiting for you.”“Why?”“Because you weren’t here when I came.” He said it simply, like that answered everything. Like showing up in someone’s bedroom and sitting on their bed while they were gone was a perfectly normal sequence of events that required no further explanation.I walked in slowly and closed the door behind me. “Mr. Cross, why are you actually in my room?”He stood up, straightening his jacket. “I’m not going to work today.”I blinked. “What?… why?”“I’m staying, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.” He looked at me directly. “Plus… what I said to you yesterday—the way I spoke to you—that was out of line. I’m making it up to you today.”I stared at him.Michael Cross… the Michael Cross… wants to make it up to me…He literally wants to make it up to me.What the hell was wrong with this man? He literally chan

CHAPTER 028Mrs. Weldon stood on the path about four feet away.Cream coat. Handbag on her arm. Hair pinned up just so, not a thing out of place, the same perfectly composed exterior she always carried — except her eyes. Her eyes were doing something I had never once seen them do in all the months I'd spent under her roof.They were desperate. Wet at the edges. Fixed on my face like she'd been looking for it for a very long time and had only just found it.Something moved through my chest before I could stop it. Something warm and involuntary that bypassed every wall I'd built since walking out of that mansion and went straight for the part of me that remembered her sitting across from me at breakfast when no one else would. The way she'd touched my shoulder once after a particularly bad dinner. The small, quiet kindnesses she'd offered in a house that had very few of them."Mrs. Weldon," I said, and my voice came out softer than I intended.She exhaled. Long and slow, like she'd been

***CHAPTER 030*** I almost said no. The word was right there, sitting at the front of my mouth, ready — because I'd seen what happened the last time I asked about that woman. I'd seen his face close like a door being shut from the inside, and I was not entirely sure I wanted to be responsible for putting that look on his face a second time. But my mouth opened anyway. "Are you sure?" I said. "Because if it's going to hurt you — if it's something you're not ready to talk about — you really don't have to. I'm not asking you to—" "Do you want to know or not," he said. Not unkind. Just direct. The way he said most things. I pressed my lips together. "Yes," I said quietly. "I want to know." He stayed at the door. Didn't come in. Didn't move closer. Just stood there with one hand still resting on the door frame and looked at me with those steady hazel eyes and said nothing for a moment. I waited. "Her name was Sarah," he said. Something in the room shifted. Just slightly. Like t