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All Chapters of Five Years As A DoorMat Wife: Her Time To Shine: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

51 Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 1The water was colder than Silver had imagined death would be.She'd always thought dying would be warm—like slipping into sleep, like the romance novels promised. But the Crystalbrook River in December was different, its icy rivers penetrating her body to cause ice cold damage to her lungs.Above her, the night sky fractured into pieces through the broken surface. She could see the bridge—the beautiful, bridge where she'd stood just moments ago, laughing. Actually laughing, because for once, for one single evening, Seris had looked at her like she was a person instead of an obligation."You planned this whole thing," he'd said, something almost like warmth in his voice. "The lantern release, the winter festival. It's... nice."Nice. Such a small word. But from Seris Ashford, it had felt like a declaration of love.Silver's lungs screamed. She kicked toward the surface, but her designer gown—the one she'd spent three weeks choosing because Kate had mentioned Seris liked emera

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Silver woke to sunlight.That was the first wrong thing. There shouldn't be sunlight. There should be darkness, cold, the crushing weight of water filling her lungs. There should be nothing at all.She bolted upright, gasping, her hands flying to her throat. Dry. Her clothes—dry. Her hair, fanned across silk pillowcases, completely dry."What—"The room swam into focus. Somehow she was in her bedroom. In the Ashford estate.No. This wasn't possible.Silver threw off the covers and stumbled to the mirror. Her reflection stared back, wide-eyed and pale. But she was too young.Her hand flew to her face, touching skin that was smoother, softer. The fine lines that had started appearing around her eyes—from smiling at people who didn't smile back, from crying into pillows at 3 AM—were gone. Her hair was longer, falling past her shoulders instead of the shoulder-length cut she'd gotten last month in a fit of desperate reinvention.This was impossible."Miss Winters?" A knock at th

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Kate Bridgerton had been awake since five in the morning, and it was entirely Seris Ashford's fault.Not that she'd ever tell him that. Seris had enough on his mind today without her adding to it. His wedding day. *Finally.*"Katie, if you don't stop pacing, you're going to wear a hole in the carpet," her oldest brother Darius called from the doorway of her bedroom, coffee mug in hand. "And Mom will kill you.""I'm not pacing," Kate protested, even though she absolutely was. "I'm... deciding.""You've changed outfits four times." Her second-oldest brother, James, appeared behind Darius, smirking. "It's not even your wedding.""Which is exactly why I need to look perfect!" Kate gestured at the explosion of clothing covering her bed, chairs, and most of her floor. "I can't upstage the bride, but I also can't look like I didn't try. It's a delicate balance.""You're overthinking this," Darius said, but his expression was fond. At thirty, he'd seen Kate through enough social anx

Chapter 4

Chapter 4The Cathedral of Saint Catherine was obscenely beautiful.Kate had been inside exactly three times before today but she'd never seen it like this. Every surface seemed to glow with candlelight. It was excessive. Elegant. Exactly the kind of wedding the Ashford family would throw.Kate smoothed down her navy dress for the hundredth time and tried not to fidget. Her entire family had claimed two rows on the groom's side—her parents, all six of her brothers, various sisters-in-law and a nephew who was already getting restless despite the ceremony not having started yet."Katie, stop twitching," her mother whispered, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "You look lovely.""I'm not twitching," Kate whispered back, even though she absolutely was. She couldn't help it. Something felt... off.Maybe it was the text conversation with Silver this morning. That strange question: *Does he seem happy to you?* What kind of bride asked that on her wedding day?Or maybe it was the fact that K

Chapter 5

Chapter 5Kate tuned them out, her attention caught by movement at the altar. Seris had pulled out his phone.At his own wedding.She watched his expression shift—just slightly, just a micro-expression that most people would miss but Kate had known him long enough to read. Surprise. Then something else. Something that might have been relief.He tucked the phone away and leaned over to whisper something to Julian, who's eyes widened.Kate's stomach dropped. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.The organist, clearly growing impatient, played a few experimental notes. The guests started shifting, murmuring. The ceremony was supposed to start ten minutes ago.Kate checked her phone. No messages from Silver. No messages from Seris.She opened her text thread with Silver and typed: *Everything okay?*No response.Around the cathedral, the murmuring was getting louder. Kate could hear snippets of conversation:"—never known a Winters to be late—""—maybe she's just nervous—""—reme

Chapter 6

Chapter 6The Bridgerton family home was, by any reasonable measure, one of the quieter residences in the city's affluent north quarter. It had thick walls, sensible insulation, and neighbors who had long since learned to interpret unusual sounds from the property as simply "something the Bridgerton children were doing" and leave it at that.This had served the family well through six boisterous sons and one daughter who had, at various points in her life, decided to learn the violin, take up competitive fencing, and once—memorably—attempt to breed racing pigeons in the attic.None of those incidents had prepared the walls of Kate Bridgerton's bedroom for what happened after the Cathedral of Saint Catherine.The door slammed hard enough to shake the framed photographs on the hallway wall.Then came the sound of something hitting the floor—a crash, soft enough to be a pillow, followed immediately by something harder. A book, probably. Or possibly two.Then silence.Then the sound of Ka

Chapter 7

Chapter 7"No," Darius agreed, keeping his voice very gentle. "He's probably not picking up for anyone right now.""But I'm not just anyone." The words came out small, surprised, like she hadn't quite expected to say them aloud. "I'm his—I'm me. I'm Kate. I'm the person he calls."The three brothers looked at each other again."He'll call when he's ready," Darius said. "He just needs—""He needs support! He needs someone to tell him that this isn't his fault, that she's the one who—" Kate stopped, something sharpening in her expression. She set the phone down, very deliberately, and then looked up. "She did this because of someone else.""...What?""There has to be a reason." Kate was pacing again, faster now, her bare feet barely registering on the carpet. "People don't just—normal people don't cancel their weddings on the morning of the ceremony because they changed their mind, that's not—there's a person. There's a man." She stopped. "Or a woman. I'm not making assumptions.""Katie

Chapter 8

Chapter 8Kate pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller, a habit she'd had since childhood. "He's going to be so angry. Except he won't *look* angry. He'll just look like nothing, and that's always the worst part, when he looks like nothing—""He knows how to handle himself," Darius said."I know he does. I just—" Kate stopped. Pressed her lips together. "I texted with her this morning. She was so nice. She apologized for being distant, she said she wanted to be friends, she said—" A sound escaped Kate that was not quite a laugh and not quite something else. "She said I was a good person. While she was already planning to do this."The brothers absorbed this."Okay," David said, from his position in the doorway where he'd been leaning with the studied casualness of someone pretending he wasn't invested. "I'll allow that the texting-you-while-on-the-way-to-the-airport thing was genuinely unkind.""Thank you," Kate said, with great feeling."Or," Patrick offered—the four

Chapter 9

Chapter 9"I just think it's worth noting that—""Thank you, Theo," Kate said, with the weary grace of someone who had long since accepted that their youngest brother processed difficult situations by talking about them continuously until they lost meaning. "I agree. It was cold. Thank you."Theodore, gratified, returned to his potatoes.Their mother waited until the table had settled back into its careful quiet before saying, with the precision of someone who had chosen her moment: "He'll call, darling."Kate looked up."He always calls you," their mother continued. She reached across the table and covered Kate's hand with hers, briefly. "This isn't the end of anything. It's just a bad day. He'll get through it, and you'll be there when he's ready.""I know," Kate said."And perhaps," their mother added, with only the faintest emphasis, "when he does call, we might focus on being supportive rather than planning geological revenge scenarios."Across the table, four of Kate's brothers

Chapter 10

Chapter 10Paris in December was the kind of beautiful that felt almost rude.Silver stood at the window of her hotel room in the seventh arrondissement, a cup of tea cooling in her hands, watching the city move below her in the grey morning light. The Eiffel Tower was visible from this angle if she pressed close to the glass, which she had done exactly once before deciding it felt too much like the behavior of someone who needed the comfort of a landmark to feel real.She didn't need that. She was fine.She was completely fine.Her phone sat on the bed behind her, screen facing up, and she was not looking at it. She had looked at it approximately forty times in the last hour, which was why she had moved to the window. Distance was a strategy. Distance was intentional.The tea had gone cold.She turned away from the window and sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone.The chat with Seris was open from the last time she'd checked it, which had been eleven minutes ago. She kne

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