All Chapters of Brother-in-Law, I’m Your Dirty Secret: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Jia's POVLiam was watching me. Not the old way where he glanced at me with boredom and disgust. This was different. This was calculated. He studied my face when I spoke. He tracked my movements when I walked across the room. He asked questions that sounded casual but felt like tiny hooks trying to catch something hidden under my skin."Who drove you home from the hospital yesterday?" he asked at lunch, his eyes never leaving my face."The hospital driver." I did not blink."You were thirty minutes late.""Traffic.""On a Tuesday?""Yes, Liam. On a Tuesday."He stared at me for three more seconds before going back to his food. But his eyes kept coming back to me throughout the meal like a searchlight sweeping across dark water.Something had changed. He was no longer trying to hurt me. He was trying to catch me.I found Marcus alone in his study later that afternoon. He was standing near the bookshelf with his back to the door. I closed it behind me softly and locked it."Liam is diff

Mia's POVI had seen enough to know the truth. But knowing the truth and proving the truth were two very different things. And I was not a woman who made her move without the right cards in her hand.So instead of attacking, I did something smarter. I started positioning myself exactly where Jia wanted to be. Right beside Marcus Collins. In public. In front of everyone. Where the whole world could see me standing next to the most powerful man in the country.It started small. I showed up at Marcus's business dinner on Thursday night. I wore a fitted black dress with my hair swept to one side. I walked in on his arm like I belonged there. The other executives smiled politely and called me Mrs. Collins. Technically, I was Mrs. Collins. Just not his Mrs. Collins. I was Jack's wife. But Jack was gone. Jack had been gone for six months. And nobody at that dinner table knew the difference or cared enough to ask.I sat beside Marcus the entire evening. I laughed at the right moments. I asked

Marcus's POVThe mansion did not feel like home anymore. It felt like a battlefield where every hallway was a minefield and every closed door hid someone listening on the other side.I knew Liam was watching me. I could feel his eyes tracking my movements at breakfast, at dinner, in the hallways. He was not obvious about it.He had learned enough from me over the years to know that obvious surveillance was useless. He was subtle. Careful. Studying my body language the way I taught him to study opponents during business negotiations.And Mia was watching Jia. That was the part that kept a cold fist clenched permanently around my chest. Mia was Jack's wife, but she had long stopped behaving like anyone's wife. She was a predator wearing designer clothes and a fake smile. And she had her sights locked on the only person in this house who mattered to me.I found Jia alone in the garden library the following afternoon. The small glass room at the back of the estate where nobody ever went.

MARCUS'S POVI buttoned my jacket and walked through the mansion toward Liam's office. My footsteps were steady and even. My face was carved back into the mask that had protected me for twenty years. Whatever was waiting behind that door, I would handle it the way I handled everything. With control, precision, and absolutely nothing visible on the surface.I pushed the door open.Liam was sitting behind his desk. No whiskey this time. No casual leaning back in his chair. He was sitting upright, both hands flat on the desk surface, staring directly at the door like he had been waiting for exactly this moment."Sit down, Marcus." His voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm he had learned from watching me.I sat in the chair across from him. I crossed one leg over the other and rested my hands on the armrests. Relaxed. Unbothered. A man with nothing to hide."I want to ask you something," Liam said slowly. "And I want you to answer me honestly. Brother to brother.""Ask.""Do you beli

"Because you need things that belong entirely to you." His dark eyes held mine with a warmth that made my stomach flutter. "What do you actually want from your career, Jia? Not what Liam wants. Not what this family expects. What do you want?"Nobody had ever asked me that question before. Not once in my entire life. I stood there in the golden light and felt the answer rise up from somewhere deep inside my chest."I want to be known for my own work," I said quietly. "I want people to say my name and think of the surgeon who saved lives. Not the Collins wife. Not the woman who married a billionaire. Just me. Just Jia.""Then build that." His voice was firm and certain. "Build a future that does not depend on any man. Not Liam. Not me. Not anyone. I want you to have something that nobody can take away from you no matter what happens between us or what happens in this house."My eyes burned. That was exactly what I had been trying to build for months. And hearing Marcus say it out loud,