Home / Romance / The Wife He Chose Too Late / Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

All Chapters of The Wife He Chose Too Late: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

120 Chapters

102. The First Crack

Tiffany's POV By the time Damien returned to the office, the announcement had already changed the atmosphere inside Laurent Group. People were trying to behave as though nothing had happened, but their phones kept lighting up on desks, conversations stopped whenever someone important walked past, and every few minutes another employee found an excuse to mention Claire's name. I heard it from the reception area, from the assistants gathered near the elevators, and from two senior managers who were discussing the announcement in voices they probably believed were discreet. I kept my expression neutral while I worked through Damien's schedule. There were interviews requesting his comment, requests for photographs, questions from investors who wanted reassurance that the announcement would not affect the company, and invitations from news programs hoping he would appear on air. I sorted what needed his attention and sent the rest to communications, but I found myself staring at hi

103. A Family Dinner

Claire's POV By the time Olivia and Emma arrived, the dining table had already become the subject of an argument.It wasn't a serious argument, although Damien had the particular ability to make even harmless disagreements sound like matters requiring a board meeting. He was standing beside the table with one hand resting on the back of a chair, looking at the plates Maria had arranged while Olivia inspected the place settings with the suspicion of someone who had been personally offended by the number of forks.“You have four forks,” Olivia said.Damien glanced at the table. “I can count.”“I know you can count. I'm questioning why.”“For dinner.”Olivia looked at me. “You see what I have to deal with?”I laughed as I came into the room. “You invited yourself.”“I was invited.”“By me.”“Exactly. Which means you have excellent judgment.”Emma followed her into the dining room carrying a bottle of sparkling water and immediately looked at the table.“I think Olivia is upset about the

104. The second report

Damien's POV The police report arrived just after nine in the morning, and I knew from the expression on Detective Reynolds's face that whatever was inside the folder had changed the investigation.He had asked to meet me at Laurent Group rather than discuss it over the phone. That alone was enough to make me cancel the meeting I had scheduled with two investors and ask my assistant to clear the next hour.When he entered my office, he carried a thin evidence folder beneath one arm and a tablet in the other. He didn't sit immediately. He stood beside the chair opposite my desk, looking toward the windows for a moment before turning back to me.“We received the technical analysis from the laboratory,” he said, setting the folder down. “The damage to the component wasn't consistent with an ordinary mechanical failure.”I leaned back in my chair.“We already knew someone interfered with it.”“We knew the component had been deliberately altered. We didn't yet know how precise the alterat

105. The Memory of Tiffany

Claire's POV The memory came back while I was looking through the photographs Emma had left on the coffee table.I had been sorting through them without any particular purpose, pausing over faces I recognized and others that belonged to people whose names still meant nothing to me. The photographs had become strange little windows into a life I had once inhabited without thinking about it. Sometimes I could look at one and feel absolutely nothing. Other times, something as small as a dress, a room, or the expression on someone's face could pull at a thread buried somewhere in my mind.I turned over another photograph. Tiffany was standing in the background.My fingers stopped.I had seen her face before, in photographs from the gala and in the memories other people had given me, but this time something changed.The room around me seemed to fall away.I was somewhere else.I recognized Laurent Group immediately, although I couldn't remember the exact date. The reception area outside o

106. The Assistant

Damien's POV I waited until the penthouse was quiet before opening Tiffany's employment file.Claire had gone to bed nearly an hour earlier. I could hear the faint movement from the bedroom whenever she turned over, followed by long stretches of silence. I had learned to recognize the difference between her sleeping peacefully and the restless nights that sometimes followed a difficult memory, and tonight she seemed calm.I wanted to leave it that way.The conversation we'd had earlier kept returning to me, particularly the detail she had remembered about Tiffany watching us across a room. Claire had been careful not to turn an incomplete memory into an accusation, and I respected that. She had told me exactly what she remembered and, just as importantly, what she didn't.That left me with something I could work with.Facts.I opened the personnel system on my laptop and pulled up Tiffany's employment record.Her file was shorter than I expected.I had appointed her myself.That fact

107. The Woman Who Wanted Him

Damien's POV By the time the rain began tapping against the windows, most of the executive floor had emptied.I liked the office better after everyone left. During the day, there were too many voices, too many footsteps, too many people appearing beside my desk with questions they could have answered themselves if they had bothered to read the emails I sent them. At night, the glass walls reflected the lamps and the city lights until it became difficult to tell where the office ended and the darkness outside began.Damien was still working.His office door stood open, and every so often I could see him moving behind the glass. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, and there was something almost painfully familiar about the sight of him like that. I had known him in expensive suits and formal dinners, under wedding lights, in airports and hotel rooms, in the quiet hours after arguments when neither of us knew what to say next.I had known him before Claire or at least, I h

108. The Nursery Door

Claire's POV The nursery door was still open when I reached the hallway, and the soft light spilling through it made the rest of the penthouse seem strangely distant.I stopped there for a moment, one hand resting against the frame.Inside, Damien was sitting on the floor beside the crib with his back against the wall, a screwdriver loose in one hand and a small instruction booklet lying open beside his knee. One of the crib's side panels was already attached, and several pieces of wood were arranged neatly beside him as though he had spent the last hour trying to convince himself that assembling furniture was a task worthy of the same concentration he gave everything else.He looked up when he heard me."You've been standing there for a while.""Have I?""Long enough for me to wonder whether I've assembled it incorrectly."I stepped inside and looked at the crib."It doesn't look incorrect.""That's not the same as saying it's correct."I laughed and crossed the room.The nursery sm

109. Our Son

Claire's POV The examination room was cooler than I expected. I sat on the edge of the table with the paper beneath me crinkling whenever I shifted, one hand resting over my stomach while Damien stood beside the chair with his coat folded over one arm. The blinds were half-closed against the afternoon sun, leaving the room washed in pale strips of light, and somewhere beyond the door a printer hummed before falling silent again. I had been trying not to wonder about the baby's sex. That was a lie. I had wondered every day. Damien had too, although he had been careful not to make a prediction. Every time I asked him what he thought, he found some diplomatic way of refusing to answer, which I had eventually decided meant he had an opinion and didn't trust himself to defend it. The doctor entered carrying the familiar tablet, smiled at us, and began preparing the equipment. "How are you feeling?" "Good," I said. "A little tired." "Anything unusual?" "Nothing that co

110. The Security Footage

Damien's POV The first thing I noticed when Detective Reynolds started the footage was how ordinary the corridor looked.That bothered me more than the damage itself.On the screen, the service passage behind the gala venue was nothing but concrete walls, a metal door, and a strip of fluorescent lighting that made everything look drained of color. There were no guests there, no music, no champagne glasses being carried past, none of the noise that had filled the rest of the building that night.Just an empty corridor then someone appeared.The image had been enlarged and enhanced, but the improvements only made the figure more distinct without making the person identifiable. The face remained hidden by the angle of the camera and the shadow beneath the brim of a cap. A long, light-colored coat moved across the frame, and one shoulder dipped slightly as the person walked.I leaned closer.The figure stopped at the restricted door.Reynolds paused the footage."We couldn't get the face

111. The Bracelet

Claire's POV The brush was halfway through my hair when I saw her.I stopped in front of the mirror, my hand still raised, because for one strange second the bedroom was gone and I was standing beneath the warm lights of the gala again. Music drifted through the ballroom, low enough that conversations carried easily over it, and people moved between the tables in dark suits and evening dresses while chandeliers threw small flashes of gold across the polished floor.Damien was near the entrance, speaking to two guests.I could see him clearly enough to recognize the expression on his face, the polite concentration he wore when he was listening to someone he needed to take seriously, and then my attention moved past him.Tiffany was standing nearby.I remembered looking at her without knowing why.She had one hand resting lightly against her waist, and when she lifted the other to adjust a strand of hair, something at her wrist caught the light. Gold, delicate and narrow, with a dark s

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