All Chapters of The wife I forgot to love: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

220 Chapters

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE, Perfect Evening

Camila had been planning it since Saturday afternoon.Damian did not know that. He came home on Sunday to candles again and music again and the smell of something from the good restaurant two streets over because Camila had ordered his favourite and plated it herself and the distinction mattered to her in a way she would not have said out loud.She was wearing the blue dress this time. Not the red one from the rosemary chicken evening. Different dress. Different energy. The blue one was quieter and more deliberate and she had chosen it specifically."Sit down," she said when he came through the door. "Everything is ready."He sat.She brought the food and the wine and sat across from him with the particular warmth of a woman who had decided the evening was going to be exactly right and had done everything in her power to make it so.And it was right. That was the honest truth of it. The food was good. The wine was the one he preferred. The music was low and the candles were lit and Ca

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO, Seen

It was Jordan who told her.Wednesday morning. Before the first setup of the day. Jordan found Helena in her corner with her script and her coffee and sat down across from her which she never did. Jordan Park did not sit. She moved. She stood. She directed from a kind of permanent forward momentum that made sitting feel like a foreign language to her.So when she sat down Helena put the script in her lap and waited.Jordan looked at her for a moment."The platform saw the rough cut of your first three scenes," she said. "They came back yesterday. They want to know if you are available for the second season."Helena looked at her."We have not finished the first season," Helena said."I know that," Jordan said. "They know that. They are asking anyway." She looked at Helena with the direct eyes of a woman who said exactly what she meant and nothing decorative around it. "They used the word compelling. Specifically about you. I am telling you this not so you get comfortable but so you un

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE, Uninvited

Helena was at the catering table pouring coffee when she heard the heels.She did not look up immediately. Sets had all kinds of people moving through them. Producers. Visitors. People with clipboards and people without. She had learned not to track every new sound.But then Jordan's voice came from across the floor."Can I help you."Not a welcome. A question with a wall behind it.Helena looked up.Camila Calloway was standing at the entrance to the main floor in a grey coat that cost more than Helena's first month of rent. She was looking around the set with the composed interest of someone who had walked into rooms like this before and found none of them particularly intimidating.Her eyes found Helena.She smiled."I was in the area," Camila said. "I thought I would stop by and see what all the fuss was about."Jordan looked at Helena. Then back at Camila. "This is a closed set.""Of course," Camila said pleasantly. "I will only be a moment. I just wanted to say hello to Helena."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR, What You Did

Damian found out on a Thursday.Not from Camila. She had not mentioned it. Three days had passed since she went to the set and she had said nothing about it and he had noticed the silence the way you notice a room where something has been moved but nobody will tell you what.It was Marcus who told him.They were having lunch at the place near Damian's office when Marcus put down his fork and looked at him with the expression he used when he had been sitting on something and had decided he was done sitting on it."Did you know Camila went to Helena's set," Marcus said.Damian looked at him."What," he said."Three days ago. She showed up on set. Jordan Park nearly had her removed." Marcus picked up his fork again. "Someone on the crew told someone I know. I heard it yesterday."Damian set his glass down."She did not tell me," he said."I know she did not tell you," Marcus said. "That is why I am telling you."The restaurant noise continued around them. Cutlery and conversation and the

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE, Something In The Air

Helena knew something was wrong before anyone said a word.She walked in and two crew members stopped talking. Not rudely. Just suddenly. Like a switch.She poured her coffee. The catering assistant who always saved her the good cup did not save it today.She told herself she was imagining it.She was not imagining it.Jordan found her twenty minutes before the first setup."Walk with me," Jordan said.Helena followed her to the small production office at the back of the warehouse. Jordan closed the door."There is something you need to know," Jordan said. "And I need you to hear it from me before you hear it from someone else.""What is it," Helena said."There is a rumour going around," Jordan said. "Industry circles first. Now online." She looked at Helena directly. "Someone is saying your casting was not based on merit. That you have a personal relationship with someone in authority here. That the role was not earned."Helena stared at her."Who is saying this," she said."I do no

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX, Without Asking

Damian saw it on a Saturday morning.He put his coffee down and read it twice. Then he searched properly. Found the original post. Found the thread beneath it. Found how far it had already moved.He called Marcus."Did you see the rumour about Helena," he said the moment Marcus picked up."I saw it last night," Marcus said. "I was going to call you this morning.""Who do you think started it," Damian said.Marcus was quiet for exactly one second. "You already know the answer to that.""Say it," Damian said."I am not going to say it," Marcus said. "Because you living in the same apartment as that answer is your problem not mine."Damian stood up from the table. "I want to address it. Publicly. I need someone whose name carries weight in the industry.""Richard Voss," Marcus said immediately. "He owes you.""That is what I was thinking.""Damian." Marcus's voice shifted slightly. "If you call in that favour for Helena. For your ex wife. Camila is going to find out.""I know," Damian sa

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN, Olive Branch

The message came on a Wednesday evening.Helena was at her kitchen table with leftover pasta and her script for Thursday when her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen.Camila Calloway.She put her fork down.She looked at the notification for a moment without opening it. Then she picked up the phone and opened it.It was not words first. It was pictures.Four of them.Damian and Camila at what looked like a rooftop dinner somewhere. Damian smiling. Not the polite smile Helena had seen him give at events and business dinners. The real one. The one that reached his eyes. Camila beside him with her head tilted toward him and her hand on his arm and the particular ease of two people who were exactly where they wanted to be.The second picture was candid. Someone had caught them laughing at something. Damian's head was thrown back slightly. Helena had not seen him laugh like that in the last year of their marriage.The third was quieter. Just the two of them somewhere private. A kitchen

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT, Signed

Helena arrived on set Thursday morning with the pictures still on her phone. She had not deleted them. She had not looked at them again either. They were just there. Sitting in the back of her mind the way certain things sit. Not loudly. Just present. Like a song you cannot stop hearing even when the music has stopped. She poured her coffee. Smiled at the crew. Found her corner. Opened her script. She was fine. She was working. Jordan found her before the first setup. "My office," Jordan said. "Now." Helena followed her to the production office. Jordan closed the door and turned around and for one second Helena thought something was wrong. Jordan's face was doing something she could not immediately read. Then Jordan held out a document. "Sign this," she said. Helena took it. Looked at the header. Season Two. Her name. The production company. The streaming platform. Her hands were very still on the paper. "This is the contract," she said. "That is the contract," Jordan

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE, What Eleanor Knew

The house was smaller than Helena expected. She did not know what she had been expecting exactly. Damian lived in glass and clean lines and spaces that announced themselves. She had assumed his mother would live somewhere similar. The kind of home that said we have always had money and we have never had to think about it. But Eleanor Graves lived in a terraced house on a quiet street with a blue front door and window boxes and a garden that someone clearly loved. Helena stood outside it for a moment before knocking. Then she knocked. Eleanor opened the door almost immediately. As if she had been waiting just on the other side of it. She was smaller than Helena imagined. Warm eyes. Silver hair worn simply. The kind of woman who looked at you and made you feel immediately that she was actually seeing you and not just looking in your direction. "Helena," she said. "Come in. Please." Helena stepped inside. The hallway was warm and slightly cluttered in the way of a home that was ac

CHAPTER THIRTY, The Lake

Helena woke up on Sunday with the text still on her phone.She had looked at it three times before going to bed. We need to talk. Four words. Damian's number. She had not replied. She still had not replied.She made coffee. Stood at the window. Looked at the city waking up slowly outside.She thought about Eleanor's house. About the photograph in the hallway. About a nineteen year old boy at a lake who went under and never fully came back up. About everything she had been given the shape of yesterday that she still needed the full truth of.She picked up her phone.She looked at the text.She put the phone down without replying.She got dressed. She needed air. She needed coffee that was not made in her own kitchen. She needed to walk outside and let the Sunday morning do something useful to her head.She found the café three streets from her apartment. Small. Warm. The kind of place that smelled like roasted beans and did not play music too loudly. She pushed the door open and joined

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