All Chapters of The Wife He Chose Too Late: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

49 Chapters

1. Fourteen days

Claire's POVThe receptionist smiled as she handed me a small envelope. "Don't lose that," she said. "Most mothers end up keeping their first ultrasound forever."I looked down at the photograph tucked safely inside the envelope and felt something tighten deep inside my chest.Forever.It was such a simple word, such an ordinary word and yet it seemed to belong to a life I had never allowed myself to imagine."Thank you," I said quietly.The receptionist's smile softened as she wished me luck before turning her attention to the next patient.A few moments later I stepped out of the clinic and into the heart of Manhattan.The city moved around me with its usual relentless energy. Yellow taxis crawled through traffic, businessmen hurried along the sidewalks with coffee cups in hand, and somewhere nearby a siren wailed before disappearing into the distance.Everything looked exactly the same as it had an hour ago. Nothing about the city had changed but everything about my world had.I sli

2. A Wife By Contract

Claire's POVDamien's words settled over the room with all the force of a collapsing building. "We will need to discuss the divorce arrangements this week."For a moment, I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. The candles flickered softly between us. The meal I had spent hours preparing filled the penthouse with the scent of garlic and rosemary. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittered beneath the darkening sky.Everything looked exactly as it had thirty seconds ago and yet somehow everything felt different. I stared at my husband.My husband.The phrase suddenly felt fragile and temporary like something that was already slipping through my fingers. Damien seemed completely unaware of the damage he had done. He was watching me carefully, but not because he knew he had hurt me. He was simply waiting for a response, waiting for a practical conversation, waiting to discuss lawyers and paperwork and financial settlements and waiting to discuss the end of our marriage.I

3. The Wife in Everything But Name

Claire's POVThe next morning, I left the penthouse before Damien not because I had an early meeting and not because my schedule demanded it but because I couldn't bear the thought of sitting across from him at breakfast while pretending his words from the night before hadn't lodged themselves beneath my skin.We will need to discuss the divorce arrangements this week.The sentence had followed me into my dreams and it had been waiting for me when I woke up and it was still there now as I stepped into Laurent Group headquarters with a coffee in one hand and a carefully constructed smile on my face.Work has always been my refuge before I became Damien's wife, I had been his executive assistant even after our marriage, old habits had a way of lingering. Organization made sense, schedules made sense, spreadsheets and meetings and deadlines made sense.People were far more complicated, especially when you happened to be in love with one of them.The executive floor was already buzzing wi

4. A Dinner for Two

Claire's POVThe message remained open on my phone long after I had finished reading it.Outside the penthouse windows, Manhattan glittered beneath the deepening evening sky, its countless lights stretching toward the horizon like stars scattered across black velvet. Normally I loved this view. There was something reassuring about watching the city continue its restless movement no matter what was happening in my own life. Tonight, however, I barely noticed it.My attention remained fixed on the message Damien had sent.Dinner tonight. We need to discuss what happens after the divorce.The words were simple enough. There was nothing cruel about them. Damien had always been direct, and if there was one thing I could never accuse him of, it was dishonesty. Four years ago, when he had first proposed our arrangement, he had made the terms perfectly clear. The marriage would last four years. At the end of those four years, we would go our separate ways.The problem was not that Damien had

5. The Woman Who Left Him

Claire's POVThe moment I saw the name on Damien's phone screen, something inside me went completely still.Tiffany Morgan.For a second, I wondered if I had imagined it. The restaurant seemed to fade around me, the soft glow of candlelight and the murmur of nearby conversations becoming distant and indistinct as my attention fixed on those two words.Tiffany Morgan.I had never met her not once and yet I knew far more about her than I ever wanted to.Over the past four years, her name had surfaced often enough that avoiding it had become impossible. It appeared in old newspaper articles whenever journalists revisited the story of Damien being abandoned on his wedding day. It appeared in whispered conversations that conveniently ended whenever I entered a room. It appeared in awkward silences whenever someone accidentally brought up the past in Damien's presence.Most of all, it appeared in my own thoughts because no matter how hard I tried not to compare myself to her, I always did.

6. The Morning After

Claire's POVDamien wasn't home, of course he wasn't.I stepped inside anyway, but the apartment felt different. Larger somehow. Colder. The silence seemed to stretch endlessly through the empty rooms, and for the first time since discovering I was pregnant, fear settled heavily in my chest. It wasn't fear for myself, and it wasn't even fear of the divorce.It was fear that I had waited too long.I stood in the foyer for several moments without moving. Rainwater dripped from the hem of my coat onto the marble floor. My hair clung damply to my shoulders, and my shoes were soaked through.Normally, Damien would have complained if I tracked water into the penthouse, not because he cared about the floor, but because he cared about routines.He liked things where they belonged, he liked order, structure, and predictability.For four years, I had fit neatly into that structure, but now, for the first time, I wasn't sure where I belonged anymore.The realization followed me as I hung my coat

7. The Explanation

Claire's POVDamien stood in the foyer for a moment as though he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to be there and the sight alone told me more than I wanted to know.His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt was creased in places that suggested he had been wearing it far longer than intended. Dark shadows lingered beneath his eyes and his normally immaculate appearance carried the unmistakable signs of a man who hadn't slept.For four years, I had learned to read Damien the way other people read books. I knew when he was irritated before he spoke. I knew when he was worried before he admitted it. I knew when he was exhausted before he acknowledged it himself and right now, Damien Laurent looked exhausted.The problem was that exhaustion didn't answer any of the questions that had kept me awake all night.For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The apartment seemed strangely quiet despite the sounds of Manhattan drifting through the windows behind us.I folded my arms across my chest

8. Back In His World

Claire's POVI barely slept again but the difference was that this time I wasn't staring at an empty side of the bed. Damien had eventually come upstairs sometime after midnight. I knew because I heard him moving quietly through the bedroom while he assumed I was asleep.Neither of us had spoken and neither of us had attempted to continue the conversation and somehow that felt worse because no matter how many times I replayed yesterday's discussion in my head, I kept arriving at the same conclusion.Tiffany Morgan was coming to Laurent Group not as a visitor and not as someone passing through but as an employee.The thought followed me all the way to work.By the time my car pulled into the underground parking garage I had already spent nearly an hour trying to convince myself I wasn't bothered by it.Tiffany needed help that was what Damien had said. Tiffany needed a job that was what Damien had said. Nothing was happening between them that was what Damien had said too.The frustrati

9. The First Encounter

Claire's POVBy noon, I had accomplished almost nothing. On paper, my morning had been productive. I had answered emails, approved schedules, finalized travel arrangements for three executives, and reorganized next week's board meeting agenda.In reality, I couldn't have told anyone what half of those emails contained because my attention kept drifting. Unfortunately, I knew exactly where it was drifting.Every time the elevator doors opened, my eyes lifted automatically and every time someone walked past my office, I looked up and every time I heard laughter from the executive corridor, I found myself wondering if Tiffany was the reason for it.The realization irritated me because I had never been insecure before at least not professionally.For years, Laurent Group had been my territory. I knew every department, every executive, every client, and every crisis before it became a crisis.I belonged here, yet somehow Tiffany had managed to make me feel like a guest in my own world befo

10. The First Attack

Claire's POVThe problem with Tiffany Morgan was that she never did anything obvious because if she had openly flirted with Damien, I could have been angry if she had insulted me in front of other people, I could have defended myself and if she had behaved like the villain I wanted her to be, at least I would have known where I stood.Instead, she smiled, she complimented people, she remembered names and she thanked assistants and held doors open and laughed at exactly the right moments.By the end of her second day at Laurent Group, half the executive floor seemed to adore her and I was beginning to understand just how dangerous she really was.The morning started with a strategy meeting in one of the larger conference rooms overlooking Midtown.I arrived twenty minutes early, as I always did.Years of working beside Damien had taught me that preparation solved most problems before they had the opportunity to become problems.The presentation was already loaded onto the screen. The f

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