บททั้งหมดของ The Wife He Chose Too Late: บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 80

Claire's POVThe first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was smiling.I didn't know why at first. I lay still beneath the blankets, staring at the ceiling while the pale morning light slipped through the curtains, and for several seconds I couldn't understand what had put that expression on my face. Then the memory came back, not as a picture or a complete scene, but as a feeling. Damien's hand against my cheek. His lips against mine. The hesitation in the way he'd kissed me, as though even after everything we'd been through, he was still waiting for me to decide whether he was allowed to be close.I touched my lips with my fingertips. It had felt familiar. That was the part I couldn't stop thinking about.Not simply the kiss itself, but the strange sensation that somewhere beneath the empty spaces in my mind, there was a woman who knew him. A woman who knew the sound of his voice when he was tired, the way he smiled when he was trying not to laugh, the warmth of his hand and

Claire's POVBy the time evening arrived, I had almost convinced myself that I wasn't nervous.I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom, looking at the woman staring back at me and wondering why choosing what to wear for dinner suddenly felt like such an important decision. It wasn't a business dinner and it wasn't a family gathering and it wasn't even some grand occasion.It was simply dinner with Damien, yet somehow, that felt like enough to make my stomach flutter.I had changed twice already before finally settling on a simple dark dress that Olivia had bought for me. I ran my fingers through my hair, letting it fall over my shoulders, then stared at my reflection for another moment.The kiss from the previous night came back to me and so did the kitchen. The memory of Damien stealing food and my own laughter. The realization that I had loved him during those ordinary moments.I still couldn't believe how strange memory was. It wasn't returning in some neat sequence. There was

Tiffany’s POVI spent the entire evening telling myself that I wasn't jealous.It was a ridiculous word, and I refused to let it belong to me. Jealousy was for insecure women who watched another woman walk into a room and immediately wondered whether they were being replaced, women who questioned their own worth because someone else had received the attention they believed belonged to them.I wasn't insecure and I knew exactly who I was.I'd known Damien long before Claire had ever become his wife. I had been the woman he was supposed to marry, the woman whose name had once appeared beside his on invitations, contracts, and wedding arrangements. I had been the woman everyone expected to become Mrs. Blackwood.Claire had simply come afterward with a contract and a convenient arrangement. A woman who had filled a space that I had left empty or at least, that was what I kept telling myself as I stood across the street from the restaurant and watched Damien help Claire into the car.I had

Claire's POV The penthouse was unusually quiet that evening not empty. I had learned that Damien's penthouse was never truly empty. There was always the faint hum of the city beyond the windows, the distant movement of traffic several floors below, the quiet sounds of someone moving through another room. But tonight, there was no television playing, no phone conversation drifting from Damien's office, and no Maria in the kitchen making enough noise to remind us that dinner would eventually appear whether we were hungry or not. I was curled into the corner of the living-room sofa with a book resting open in my lap, although I had been staring at the same page for several minutes without absorbing a word. My mind had been doing that lately. Wandering and searching. Sometimes I wondered whether I was helping my memories return or simply thinking about them so much that I was creating memories that had never existed. That frightened me. The last thing I wanted was to give Damien som

Claire's POVI woke the next morning with the sound of rain against the windows and for several seconds, I didn't move. I lay beneath the covers, staring at the ceiling while the previous night's memories moved through my mind in fragments. The song and the dancing and Damien's arms around me. His heartbeat beneath my cheek and the kiss and the words that had come afterward.I think I'm starting to understand why I still might.I turned onto my side and stared at the empty space beside me it wasn't my room that bothered me it was everything I couldn't remember about the room. I knew I had lived in this penthouse and I knew Damien and I had shared a life here and I knew I had loved him but I didn't know how we had gotten from two people entering a contract marriage to two people dancing together in this room.There were pieces everywhere. The problem was that they weren't connected. I remembered stealing his dessert and I remembered calling him my husband and I remembered laughing with