All Chapters of Married to My Enemy's Son: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Dinner was lamb again.Mrs. Park had apparently decided that every important night in this house required lamb. Nadia wasn't about to argue. The food was excellent, the table was set for three, and Cullen was in such high spirits that he practically carried the entire evening's conversation himself.The distraction was welcome. She just needed the dinner to end without being forced to fake small talk, her mind already drifting down the corridor toward the study—and the words she had finally resolved to say.Cullen rambled happily about his university preparations, a friend's recent acceptance letter, and the economics essay he’d been drafting with Caiden’s guidance. He proudly noted that the final draft had turned out "actually good" rather than just "technically acceptable," a milestone he'd been chasing for months. He glanced at Caiden, waiting expectantly for his verdict."It is better than acceptable," Caiden said, giving a rare nod. "That is an accurate assessment."Cullen turned

Nadia stood motionless in the middle of the study.The registered address on the document belonged to her mother—from the years before she left, before Nadia was even born.An unknown name tied to a familiar house meant only two things: either the name was a ghost meant to cover the real source, or her mother had known someone deeply corporate before Roland turned into the kind of monster you had to run from.She thought of her mother throwing two bags into the car, taking eleven-year-old Nadia by the hand, and driving north without looking back.She remembered the locked filing drawer she'd picked open at sixteen, reading every hidden page before replacing them exactly as she found them.None of those papers had mentioned Wolfe Meridian Corp.None of them said a word about 1994."My mother did not do this," Nadia said.Her voice wasn't defensive. It was sharp, stated like an absolute fact because she needed to hear it aloud before doubt could take root in the room.Caiden looked up f

Her mother answered on the second ring.The call lasted forty-three minutes. Nadia sat on the edge of her bed in the dark, her phone pressed to her ear as her mother finally spoke about 1994. Every word carried the exhaustion of someone who had spent thirty years holding the same secret and had finally decided to let it go.Nothing her mother said was what Nadia had expected. Her mother hadn't given Roland access to Wolfe Meridian Corp, nor was she the source named in the document. But she had known who the real source was: a man named David Carver. He had worked inside Wolfe Meridian Corp in 1993 and 1994, and for a brief eight months, he had been involved with her mother before she realized what he was doing and broke things off.During those eight months, Carver had listed her mother's address as his corporate contact without ever asking her. He never told her what it was for. Her mother hadn't known her address was on the document until after the company collapsed and Carver disap

Cullen came back from his university visit the following afternoon.He walked through the front door at three-fifteen, a bag slung over his shoulder and carrying the restless energy of someone who had come back changed.Nadia was up in the second-floor sitting room, fruitlessly trying to focus on her lesson plans.The past forty-eight hours had thrown so much at her that her mind simply wouldn't cooperate with unit planning.She caught the sound of his voice in the hallway, chatting with Mrs. Park, and then his footsteps on the stairs.When he appeared in the doorway, he had that exact look he always wore when he'd already sized up a room from a distance and was deciding how to break the news."You look different," he said bluntly."I've been here all day," she replied. "I look exactly the same.""You look different from two days ago," he insisted, crossing the room to claim his usual chair with an easy familiarity. "Something happened while I was gone.""A lot of things happened," sh

That morning, the estate was quieter than it had been in a long time.The tension that had clung to the house for weeks was finally gone.For the first time in months, it felt like everyone could finally breathe.Nadia came downstairs just after six.She paused in the kitchen doorway for a moment, letting herself take in the change.The house no longer felt like it was bracing for impact.Caiden stood by the coffee machine.He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and their eyes met.The look they exchanged was entirely different from any morning before.Nothing about the morning itself had changed, yet the heaviness they'd been carrying seemed to have lifted overnight."Good morning," she said."Good morning," he replied.Nadia quietly brewed her tea and took her place at the table.Caiden poured his coffee, sat across from her, and unlocked his phone while she opened her lesson folder.For twenty minutes, they fell back into their routine, sharing the comfortable, parallel silence s