Semua Bab The Substitute Bride He Broke.: Bab 1 - Bab 5

At half past nine in the evening, the streets of Harlow buzzed with the restless energy of people who had somewhere to be — vendors packing up their stalls, couples walking hand in hand beneath the amber glow of streetlights, cars crawling through the tail end of rush hour traffic. It was the kind of ordinary Tuesday night that asked nothing of anyone, the kind that promised a warm shower, leftover dinner, and the quiet mercy of sleep.Nora Voss was counting on exactly that.She adjusted the strap of her bag against her shoulder and exhaled slowly, her breath misting faintly in the cool evening air. Her feet ached inside her flats, she had been on them since seven that morning and the folder of unfinished reports tucked under her arm felt heavier than it had any right to. The walk from the bus stop to her apartment was only six minutes. She had timed it more times than she could count. Six minutes, and she could finally be at peace.She turned off the main road onto the quieter side s

(Three Years Later)The paper trembled slightly in her hand.Nora stood outside the hospital entrance and read the report again, even though she had already read it three times in the consultation room and once more in the corridor on the way out. The words didn't change. They didn't need to. Five weeks. She pressed her free hand flat against her stomach, slowly, the way you might press your palm to a windowpane to feel whether it was warm.Five weeks pregnant. No wonder the mornings had been so cruel to her lately. No wonder food had turned unreliable, her body staging small revolts at the smell of coffee, at the sight of the dinner she'd prepared, at nothing at all. She had thought it was exhaustion. She had thought it was the particular weight of being Nora Voss — Nora Wren now, though the name still caught in her throat sometimes like something that didn't quite belong there.She looked down at the paper again, and something cracked open in her chest, painfully, in the way of some

"Liam. Liam." Nora dropped her voice into the register that meant business and watched her four-year-old turn from the far end of the lawn with the particular expression of a child who had heard perfectly well the first time. "Come here. Now."He came at a run, which he did everything at, arms pumping, grass-stained at both knees already and the morning barely started. He crashed into her legs and she caught him, steadying them both, and pressed her lips briefly to the top of his head."Inside," she said. "Breakfast.""I wasn't going to fall," he informed her seriously."I know," she said. "Inside anyway."The kitchen was warm and smelled of butter and eggs, the radio playing low from the counter, the morning unfolding with the particular order she had built around herself over the years. Two of the housemaids moved through the space with quiet efficiency — one at the stove, one working through the dining room, while a third appeared at the doorway to collect Liam with the cheerful au