Chapter 11: Unwanted Sympathy

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

Last Updated : 2026-07-02

Chapter 12: The Empty Bedroom

Charlotte’s POVHe knocked on my door at eight thirty.I wasn’t asleep. I had been lying in the dark for about an hour doing the thing I had been doing every night since I moved into this house, staring at the ceiling and turning things over in my mind until they stopped making sense and started just being noise. The heir clause. Eleanor’s dinner. The question I had asked Damien in the library that he had walked away from without answering.I sat up when I heard the knock.“Come in,” I said.He opened the door but didn’t come in fully. Just stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame, still dressed, which told me he hadn’t been anywhere near sleep either. The corridor light was behind him and I couldn’t read his expression properly from where I was sitting on the bed.“I said I would talk to you tonight,” he said. “I should have come earlier.”“It’

Last Updated : 2026-07-03

Chapter 13: Society’s New Target

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

Last Updated : 2026-07-03

Chapter 14: The First Rescue

The shareholder dinner was exactly what Damien had warned me it would be, the room colder than the gala, the people sharper, less interested in pretending to like me and more interested in deciding whether I was worth their time at all.I sat between two women I’d never met, both polite enough at first, asking the usual questions. How was I settling in. Did I like the city. Was the house big.It was the third question from the one across from me that changed things.“So how long had you and Damien actually been seeing each other,” she asked, swirling her wine like the question meant nothing. “Before the wedding, I mean. Or did it all happen rather fast.”“It happened fast,” I said.“Mm.” She smiled in a way that didn’t reach her eyes. “Must have been a whirlwind. One day you’re the sister nobody really talks about, and the next you’re Mrs. Blackwood.” She turned to the woman beside her like she was sharing a joke. “Funny how life works out for some people.”A few of the women near us

Last Updated : 2026-07-04

Chapter 15: The Sister Who Vanished

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