All Chapters of The Substitute Bride Of The Blackwood : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Damien’s POVI noticed her at breakfast first.Not in the way I had been noticing things about her since the wedding, those small practical observations that any person would make about someone new in their space. This was different. This was the kind of noticing that didn’t have a clean category and therefore irritated me slightly.She came downstairs at seven fifteen with her hair still damp from the shower and a book under her arm that she clearly intended to read while she ate, which told me she was either very comfortable or very determined to appear so. I suspected it was the second one. I had watched enough people perform comfort in my house to know what it looked like when someone was working at it.But she wasn’t performing exactly.That was the thing I couldn’t quite file away properly.She sat down across from me and said good morning and poured her own coffee without waiting for anyone to do it for her and

The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, slipped onto the breakfast table by Helen without comment, thick cream cardstock with gold lettering that I almost mistook for another wedding announcement before I read it properly.“The Hargrove Foundation gala,” Damien said, not looking up from his coffee. “Saturday. We’ll need to go.”“We,” I repeated.“You’re my wife.” He said it simply, like that settled the matter entirely, which I supposed it did. “It’s the first major event since the wedding. People will be watching to see how we handle it.”“How we handle being married, you mean.”“How you handle becoming Mrs. Blackwood in front of people who already have opinions about it.” He finally looked up. “I should have mentioned it sooner. I’m telling you now so you have time to prepare, not because I think you need warning.”“I

I tried calling her three more times that week.The first time it rang twice and went straight to voicemail, which felt different from being ignored, more like the phone itself had been turned off entirely. The second time it didn’t even ring, just cut straight to the same flat recorded voice telling me to leave a message. The third time I didn't bother waiting for it to connect at all. I already knew what I’d get.I tried our old group chat next, the one with a few girls Victoria had grown up with, the kind of friends who knew everything about each other’s lives because they’d never stopped watching. I asked, carefully, if anyone had heard from her.Nobody had.One of them, a girl named Priya who used to come to our house every summer when we were kids, wrote back something that stuck with me longer than I expected. It’s weird. She never goes quiet. Even when she’s mad at the world she posts about being mad at the world.That was true. Victoria documented everything. Bad coffee. New

Charlotte POVHe skipped breakfast on a Tuesday, which wasn’t unusual on its own. Damien sometimes had early calls, meetings that ran into the morning, reasons that explained an empty chair across from me at the table.But then he skipped it again on Thursday, and this time Helen mentioned, almost as an afterthought while clearing the plates, that he’d already left for his study before sunrise, that he’d asked her not to bring anything up.I noticed the stair rail next.It was such a small thing I almost laughed at myself for noticing it at all. He’d always taken the stairs the same way, quick, even, barely touching the rail except to glance a hand along it out of habit. Now he gripped it. Properly gripped it, knuckles tightening as he went down, the way someone holds onto something when they’re not entirely sure their legs will cooperate without it.I watched him do it twice before I let myself believe I wasn’t

POV: CharlotteI gave up trying to sleep around one in the morning.There wasn’t anything specific keeping me awake, not the podium, not the word treatment, just the general restlessness that had settled into me since the gala, the kind that made the ceiling above my bed feel too close and the silence in the house feel too loud at the same time. I lay there for almost an hour trying to talk myself into drowsiness before I finally gave up, pulled on a sweater over my pajamas, and went downstairs for water I didn’t really want, mostly just for something to do with my hands.The kitchen light was already on.I almost turned around before I saw him properly, standing at the window above the sink with a glass in his hand, still in the shirt he’d worn to dinner, sleeves pushed up, looking out at something in the dark garden that probably wasn’t actually there.“You’re awake,” I said, because it seemed better than