Home / Romance / MISTLETOE,MOONLIGHT AND MY SECRET / Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

All Chapters of MISTLETOE,MOONLIGHT AND MY SECRET: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

49 Chapters

TWO MEN AND A NAME(MAYA'S POV)

"Say her name again," I said, already reaching for my coat with my free hand. "Exactly what he said. Word for word.""He said, tell her Marguerite sends her regards. That's it. That's exactly what he said." Denise's voice had gone thin and fast, talking herself through panic in real time. "Maya, is that your mother's actual name? Because you've never once told me your mother's name in three years, and I feel like that should have registered as strange before tonight."My whole body had gone cold in a way that had nothing to do with the suite's air conditioning."It is," I said. "That's her name."Across the room, Ren was already on his feet, all the grief that had softened his face an hour ago replaced by a sharper, more alert look."That's not a courtesy," he said. "Nobody uses your mother's given name unless they're speaking for her directly. She doesn't hand that out to messengers.""Then who sent them.""I don't know. I genuinely don't know, and that frightens me more than if I di

Last Updated : 2026-10-03

WHAT WAS WAITING (MAYA'S POV)

The shop's front window glowed dim orange from the sign light Denise always left on, and through the fogged glass I could see two shapes standing just inside the door, still as the mannequins in the toy display beside them."Stop the car here," I said, before we'd even fully turned onto Main Street. "Not right in front. I want to see them before they see us."Julian pulled to the curb half a block down without arguing, and for a moment the three of us sat there in the idling warmth, snow falling steady past the headlights, watching the shop like it belonged to someone else's story."Talk to me," Ren said quietly. "What do you see.""Two men. One's older, gray at the temples. The other's younger, maybe my age." I studied the shapes through the frosted glass, some old, buried instinct sharpening my eyes in a way I hadn't let it work in years. "The older one's wearing a coat I don't recognize. Do you know him."Ren was quiet a moment too long. "I might. Hard to say from here.""That's no

Last Updated : 2026-10-04

THE MAN NAMED CORWIN(JULIAN'S POV)

"You have a name," I said, before the man could say anything else to Maya. "Use it."He turned his attention to me slowly, unhurried, the same deliberate stillness I'd been watching Ren use all night, except colder, older, a version of the same discipline worn in for decades instead of years."Corwin," he said. "And you're the human everyone's talking about.""Everyone.""You'd be surprised how small the world gets, once you're part of the piece of it Maya comes from." Corwin's eyes moved back to her, and his expression eased, not into warmth exactly, but into weary familiarity. "You look like her. More than I expected. She used to stand exactly like that when she was cornered too. Chin up, ready to argue her way out of something she already knew she couldn't.""You know my mother," Maya said."I've known your mother since before you were born." Corwin's gaze didn't leave her face. "She sent me herself, this time. Not Ren. Ren was the gentle approach. I'm what happens after the gentle

Last Updated : 2026-10-05

AFTER THE DOOR CLOSED(MAYA'S POV)

Denise met us at the door before we'd even reached it, flour still dusted across one sleeve, eyes red-rimmed from crying she'd clearly been trying to hide."Is it over?" she asked. "Are they gone?""They're gone." I pulled her into a quick hug, feeling her shake against me, adrenaline finally catching up to her now that the danger had passed. "You did everything right tonight. Take tomorrow off. I mean it.""You can't run this place alone with a broken freezer and a due date closing in.""One more day won't sink it. Go home. Sleep." I squeezed her shoulder toward the door, and she went, still shaking slightly, throwing one last look back at the shop before the cold swallowed her up outside.Behind us, Chloe came around the corner from the back room, a rolling pin still in one hand like she'd forgotten to put it down, and the second she saw me her whole face crumpled."You're okay." She dropped the rolling pin onto the counter and crossed the room fast, wrapping both arms around me, ca

Last Updated : 2026-10-07

WHAT TO TELL HER(JULIAN'S POV)

I called my mother back before we'd even reached the car, snow still falling steady around us, Maya's hand cold in mine as I waited for the line to connect."Finally." My mother didn't bother with a greeting. "Bianca called me twenty minutes ago asking why there were reports of a disturbance outside Maya's shop tonight. I would like to know why I am hearing about this from a journalist instead of from my own son.""It's handled.""Handled is not an explanation, Julian. Handled is a word people use when they don't want to give one." Worry ran under her voice, dressed up as irritation the way it always was with her. "Two men. Unfamiliar. Standing outside her shop for the better part of an hour before anyone called it in. Bianca has a source at the county dispatch, apparently, which is precisely the kind of detail I did not need to learn tonight."I looked at Maya, who'd gone very still beside me, watching my face for whatever came next."They were people she used to know," I said, choo

Last Updated : 2026-10-07

WHAT THE WOLF KNOWS (MAYA'S POV)

Julian went with Corwin's men to check the shop's back door one more time before we turned in, which left me alone in the suite with Ren for the first time since the marriage story had spilled out of me in front of a fire that wasn't real."You should sleep," Ren said. He'd taken the armchair across from the sofa, close enough to guard the door without crowding the room. "Whatever's coming tomorrow, you'll want your strength for it.""I'm not tired." That was a lie. I was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the hour, a bone-deep tiredness that came from a night of being seen from every direction at once. "You've been quiet since the shop.""I've been thinking.""About what?""About the Alpha." He said it plainly, watching my face for the flinch he clearly expected and got. "You told Julian it was my father's title. It isn't. It's yours. Or it will be, someday, if you ever go home and claim it. You lied to him in the one sentence that actually mattered, and you did it so smo

Last Updated : 2026-10-08

THE LONGEST DAY(JULIAN'S POV)

I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of Maya on the phone, low and businesslike, negotiating with someone about flour deliveries like the day ahead didn't have a deadline attached to it. "Denise, I don't care what he charges for a rush order, pay it. We are not closing for New Year's because I was too cheap to cover a Tuesday." A pause. "Good. Call me when it's confirmed." She hung up and caught me watching her from the bed, morning light cutting hard and clean through the curtains, no fire in the grate, only a space heater she'd dragged in from somewhere. "You're running a bakery at seven in the morning on the day my mother might tell forty people you're a fraud," I said. "That's either very brave or very reckless." "You've asked me that before. My answer hasn't changed." She sat on the edge of the bed, still in yesterday's exhaustion, and pressed her palm flat against her stomach the way she did without noticing anymore. "If I sit here thinking about tonight, I'll come

Last Updated : 2026-10-09

WHAT I COULDN'T EXPLAIN(JULIAN'S POV)

The Christmas market filled the town square in exactly the kind of chaos Maya had promised me weeks ago, back in her shop, back when the worst thing either of us had to worry about was a broken freezer. String lights crossed overhead in uneven loops, cider steamed in paper cups at every stall, and somewhere near the tree a man in a Santa hat was murdering the same three carols on a violin with a persistence that bordered on heroic. "You weren't exaggerating about him," I said, nodding toward the violinist, who had just launched into a version of "Silent Night" that bore only a passing resemblance to the original. "I told you. Nobody's ever had the heart to ask him to stop." Maya tucked her hand into the crook of my arm, cheeks pink from the cold, looking more unguarded than I'd seen her look in days. "This was the deal, remember. Cider. A tree lighting. You promised to attempt festive.""I believe my exact words were 'no reindeer sweater.'""And yet here we are, sweater-free, pract

Last Updated : 2026-10-09

ARMOR(MAYA'S POV)

Julian told me about Bianca at four o'clock, three hours before the dinner, standing in the middle of the suite with his phone still in his hand like the words might be easier to say if he had something to hold onto."She's seated across from you," he said. "Not beside you, where she could be dismissed as making conversation. Across from you, where every question looks intentional.""Your mother arranged that.""My mother arranges everything. That's not new information." He set the phone down, finally, and crossed to where I stood by the window, my reflection ghosting over the snow outside. "I should have told you this morning.""You should have let me have this morning first. I know why you didn't." I turned to face him, and something in his expression eased slightly at whatever he saw in mine. "I'm not angry, Julian. I'm grateful. I got six hours of not being afraid. That's more than I've had in five days.""And now?""Now I get dressed." I said it simply, though my hands weren't qu

Last Updated : 2026-10-10

THE LONG WALK IN(JULIAN'S POV)

The private dining room's doors were already open when we reached them, forty places set, candlelight throwing long shadows across white linen, and my mother standing just inside like she'd been carved into the doorway waiting for us."You're late," she said, though the clock hadn't yet finished striking seven."We're exactly on time." I kept my voice even, Maya's hand steady in mine despite everything. "You've simply never liked waiting, even for things that haven't happened yet."My mother's eyes moved past me, cataloguing Ren, then Chloe, with the swift, merciless efficiency of a woman counting variables she hadn't planned for."I don't recall inviting extra guests.""You didn't," Maya said, before I could answer for her. "I did. Ren and Chloe are here because I wanted people in that room who actually know me, since apparently everyone else has spent all week deciding who I am without asking."Something flickered behind my mother's composure, surprise, maybe, or the respect she res

Last Updated : 2026-10-11

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