All Chapters of The wife I forgot to love: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

220 Chapters

CHAPTER FORTY ONE, The Morning After

Helena woke up at seven to a phone that had not stopped.She lay in bed for a moment and looked at the ceiling and listened to it buzz against the nightstand. Then she picked it up.Four hundred and twelve notifications.She sat up.The clip had not slowed down overnight. It had accelerated. Someone with a larger following had shared it at two in the morning and it had jumped again from there. The comments were still running. Still the same thing in different words. Who is this woman. Where did she come from. I have watched this three times. I cannot stop watching this.Helena put the phone down on the bed and sat with it for a moment.Then she called Jordan.Jordan picked up on the first ring."You have seen it," Helena said."I have been watching it since midnight," Jordan said. "Are you all right.""Yes," Helena said. "I do not know what to do with it.""I will tell you exactly what to do with it," Jordan said. "The journalist who contacted you last night. Do you still have the mes

CHAPTER FORTY TWO, Her Own Words

The journalist's name was Claire Mensah and she arrived seven minutes early. Helena noticed that. People who arrived early to interviews were either nervous or they were the kind of professional who used the extra minutes to settle the room before the subject arrived. Claire was already settled when Helena walked in. Water on the table. Recorder placed but not yet running. Notepad open but pen down. Not nervous then. Helena sat across from her and they shook hands and Claire smiled with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times and still meant it each time. "Thank you for agreeing to this," Claire said. "Thank you for reaching out," Helena said. Dana was at the far end of the table with her own notepad. Present but not central. There if needed. Claire looked at Helena directly. "I watched the clip four times before I contacted you. The first time because someone sent it to me. The second time because I could not quite believe what I had seen. The third and fo

CHAPTER FORTY THREE, The Room He Ran

Robert Laine's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building in the centre of the city. Helena noticed the floor number when she stepped into the lift. The fourteenth floor. The same floor Damian had asked her for a divorce on eighteen months ago. Different building. Same number. She stood in the lift and almost laughed at that. Then the doors opened and she walked out and stopped thinking about it. His assistant led her to a corner office with large windows and a round table instead of a desk. Robert Laine was already standing when she walked in. He was in his sixties. Trim. A face that had spent decades watching people and learning them quickly. He extended his hand. "Ms Graves," he said. "Thank you for coming." "Thank you for the invitation," she said. They sat at the round table. His assistant set water down and left. Robert Laine opened a folder. Then he closed it again and pushed it to the side. "I am not going to read from notes," he said. "I do not think that

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR, Old Friends

Camila found out about the feature film on Friday morning. She was at breakfast with Diane Holt when Diane mentioned it. Casually. The way people mention things they assume everyone already knows. "I heard Helena Graves is being considered for the Markov film," Diane said. "Robert Laine apparently called Elena directly after the showcase clip." Camila set her coffee cup down. "Is that so," she said. "The chemistry read is next week," Diane said. "Elena apparently wants her badly. Which is interesting because the male lead is already confirmed." She looked at Camila over her cup. "Did you know her. Helena Graves. She was married to Damian wasn't she." "Yes," Camila said. "Briefly." Diane moved on to something else. Camila did not move on. She sat with her coffee and her pastry and her composed face and thought about Elena Markov and Robert Laine and a chemistry read happening next week and the male lead already confirmed. She knew the male lead. Everyone in the ind

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE, What She Saw

Robert Laine's assistant led Helena to a rehearsal room on the third floor at five minutes to ten. The room was simple. A long table. Six chairs. Good lighting. The kind of space that was designed to strip everything back and show exactly what you had. Thomas Ade was already there. He stood when she walked in and extended his hand. He was taller than she expected. Easy in his body the way actors who had been doing this a long time tended to be. His handshake was direct. "Helena," he said. "Thomas. Good to meet you." "Good to meet you too," she said. She looked around the room as she set her bag down. That was when she saw Nadia Cross. Nadia was sitting slightly apart from the table with a coffee and a quiet expression and eyes that had already been on Helena from the moment she walked in. She smiled when Helena looked at her. Warm. Practiced. "Nadia Cross," she said. "Supporting cast. I hope you do not mind me sitting in. Elena wanted a full room." "Not at all," Hel

CHAPTER FORTY SIX, One Line Back

Nadia called Camila at two in the afternoon. She had been putting it off since the chemistry read ended. She had gone for lunch alone and sat with her food and replayed the morning in her head and tried to find the thing Camila had told her to look for. She had not found it. She called anyway. Camila picked up on the second ring. "Nadia. How did it go." "The read was this morning," Nadia said. "I sat in." "And," Camila said. Nadia was quiet for a moment. "She was good Camila." A pause. "Good how." "Elena stopped them mid scene and gave her a note and she took it immediately and ran it again and the second time the whole room went still." Nadia paused. "Elena told her welcome to the production in the room. Directly. Robert Laine looked like he had been holding his breath." Silence on Camila's end. "I did not find what you said I would find," Nadia said. "There were no cracks. There was nothing unstable about her. She was completely present and completely real and T

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN , What He Asked

Victor Ames worked out of a small office on the second floor of a building that looked like nothing from the outside. That was intentional. He was fifty one years old and had spent twenty three of those years finding things people did not want found. Not a private investigator in the conventional sense. He did not follow husbands to hotels or photograph people through windows. He worked at a different level entirely. Information. History. The things people buried carefully and believed were gone. He was very good at his job. He read Camila's message on Wednesday morning and replied with four words. I will look into it. He did not ask what she wanted him to find. In his experience people like Camila always wanted the same thing. Something that could be used. Something that could shift a story from one direction to another without leaving fingerprints. He opened his laptop and typed Helena Graves into his search window. He started reading. Helena was in her first pre-pr

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT , The Sunday Before

Helena made pasta on Sunday evening and Cassidy arrived at seven with wine she had picked specifically and bread from the place two streets over that Helena had mentioned once six months ago. Cassidy remembered everything. That was one of the constants of her. They ate at the kitchen table with the city outside the window and talked about small things first. Cassidy's job. A difficult colleague. A film Helena wanted to see. The kind of conversation that did not need to go anywhere because just being in the same room was enough. Then Cassidy poured more wine and looked at her sister directly. "The messages," she said. Helena looked at her pasta. "Do not look at your pasta," Cassidy said. "Talk to me." Helena looked up. "They are just messages." "They are not just messages," Cassidy said. "You replied. You have not replied to anything from him since the divorce. Not once. And now you are having a conversation." "It is not a conversation," Helena said. "Helena." "It

CHAPTER FORTY NINE, Five Days

Dana arrived at Helena's apartment at eight forty five. She had a coffee in each hand and her work bag over her shoulder and the expression of someone who had already assessed the situation on the way over and had a plan. Helena opened the door and Dana walked straight in and set the coffees on the kitchen counter and opened her bag. "Sit down," Dana said. Helena sat. Dana put her notepad on the table. "How many shares as of right now." Helena checked her phone. "Fourteen hundred." "Platform," Dana said. "Three of them," Helena said. "It started on one and jumped." "Comments." "I stopped reading them at seven thirty," Helena said. Dana nodded. "Good. Do not read them again. Not today. Not for the next five days." She looked at Helena directly. "Here is what we are going to do. Nothing." Helena looked at her. "Nothing." "Nothing," Dana said. "No statement. No denial. No reaction. Not from you and not from anyone on your behalf. You do not post. You do not comme

CHAPTER FIFTY , What He Saw

Damian woke up on Tuesday with the photograph still in his head. He lay in bed for a moment and let it sit there and then he got up and made coffee and opened his laptop and pulled it up again. This time he was not caught off guard. This time he looked at it properly. He started with the angle. The photograph was taken from slightly below and to the left which created a framing that suggested closeness without confirming it. He had enough experience with professional photography to know that framing could be constructed. It did not have to be real to look real. He looked at the lighting next. Helena's face was lit from the right. Adrian's face was lit from the left. Slightly different temperatures. Not the kind of thing most people would notice. The kind of thing you only saw if you were looking for it. He sat back. He looked at Helena's arm. The way it was positioned in the photograph suggested she was leaning into Adrian. But the angle of her shoulder was wrong. If she

...

3 4 5 6 7

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP