All Chapters of The Wife He Never Saw: Carrying His Secret Twins In Silence: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Elena's POVI barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those two tiny dots on the ultrasound screen, pulsing with life I never meant to create. By the time my alarm went off at four thirty, I'd already been awake for an hour, staring at the ceiling of the guest bedroom where I slept most nights.Tristan preferred it that way. Our arrangement was simple: I existed in his penthouse like a ghost, taking up as little space as possible. The master bedroom was his domain. I was only invited in when he needed me, and even then, it was always on his terms.I dragged myself to the bathroom and immediately regretted it. The nausea hit me like a wave, and I barely made it to the toilet before I was violently sick. Morning sickness. Of course. As if this situation wasn't complicated enough.When the wave passed, I brushed my teeth three times and studied my reflection in the mirror. Dark circles shadowed my green eyes. My brown hair hung limp around my face. I looked exactly like what I w

Elena's POVI didn't go home. I couldn't face Tristan's penthouse, couldn't stand the thought of waiting in that sterile space for him to return from whatever he was doing with Serena. Instead, I drove aimlessly through the city until I found myself at a small café near the university where I'd once studied.Marco was already there when I arrived, sitting at a corner table with two cups of hot chocolate. He stood when he saw me, his face breaking into a warm smile that faltered when he got a closer look at my expression."Elena." He pulled me into a gentle hug. "What's wrong?"I held it together for exactly three seconds. Then I was crying into his shoulder, all the fear and hurt and exhaustion of the past few days pouring out of me."Hey, it's okay," Marco murmured, guiding me into a chair. "You're okay. I've got you."When I could finally speak, I told him everything. Not about the pregnancy, not about the contract marriage, but about the suspension, about Serena's cruelty, about fe

The drive home from St. Mary's was the quietest forty minutes of my life.Damien knew. He had not said another word after the doctor left the room. He had simply helped me into my coat, collected my discharge papers, and walked me to his car with a hand hovering near my back without actually touching it. That hand told me everything. It was the gesture of a man recalculating everything he thought he understood.I pulled my coat tight around my middle and stared out the passenger window. The city moved past in streaks of yellow and white light. Damien drove the way he did everything, with total control, both hands on the wheel, eyes forward. I could feel him glancing at me every few minutes. Short looks, clinical, like he was checking a monitor reading.I did not look back. I watched the lights and breathed and told myself to hold it together until I reached the guest room. Just get to the guest room. Then I could fall apart in peace.The penthouse was dark when we arrived. Damien turn

Damien's POVI found out from the hospital system.Not from Elena. Not from Marco. From an automated notification that flagged her name in a cross-city emergency database because I was listed as her emergency contact and the system did what systems do. It sent an alert to my phone at ten forty-seven in the evening while I was sitting in the penthouse with a glass of scotch I had not touched, staring at the floor-to-ceiling windows and the city beyond them.I read the notification twice. Then I was already moving.I did not think about the lipstick or the argument or the red light. I did not think about what I would say when I got there. I drove the way I move in a crisis, fast and focused and with everything else shut down to a single point. Get there. Everything else comes after.The ER was bright and loud in the way emergency rooms are at night, a different energy from daytime, more tired, more urgent. I found the desk and gave Elena's name and the nurse looked at me and then at som

Elena's POVDamien drove me home from the hospital without speaking.He had been there when I came out of the room, standing by the nurses' station with his hands in his pockets, looking at nothing in particular. He had taken my discharge papers and carried them to the car and opened the passenger door, and I had gotten in, and we had driven home in the same silence we had been building between us all evening.At the penthouse, he said goodnight. Just that. Goodnight. Then he went to his room and closed the door and I went to mine and lay on top of the covers in my hospital discharge clothes and stared at the ceiling until my body finally gave up and pulled me under.I slept without dreaming, which was the only mercy the night offered.He was gone when I woke.I knew before I checked. The penthouse had a particular quality of silence when Damien was absent, something that went beyond just the absence of sound. It was the silence of a space that had stopped holding its breath.I lay st