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All Chapters of My Dead Husband's Secret Life: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

Their words kept replaying in my mind. From dawn to dusk, I sat at the wake without moving.I knew everything now.Stefan Harbor wasn't dead. The grave I had tended for five years was empty. The man I had mourned for five years had been alive all along, living with Rachel Johansen and raising a child with her as her husband.Everyone had known. Everyone had hidden the truth from me and my daughter.Maybe I had already cried every tear I had over the years. My heart couldn't summon even the faintest ache anymore. All I felt was a slow, suffocating numbness.I reached out and touched Natalie's photo. She wore her school uniform and sat up straight, smiling brightly at the camera.She rarely smiled after that, especially after Stefan's car accident on her birthday.She had been five years old that year. On her birthday, she wore a little dress and sat beside the cake, waiting for her father to come home.I called Stefan. He was out of town, but he said he was already on his way. H

Chapter 2

The next day, I woke to find the doctor standing beside my bed with my test results in hand. "Ms. Johansen, your condition is critical. The bone cancer has metastasized throughout your body. Why didn't you seek treatment sooner?"I stared at the ceiling for a long time before answering. "I didn't want to."At first, I had planned to undergo treatment only because Natalie couldn't do without me. After Natalie was gone, I no longer wanted to live either.The doctor fell silent for a moment before urging me to be admitted as soon as possible.I asked, "How much longer do I have?"He didn't answer. He only told me not to think too much about it.I nodded. Once the nurse left, I pulled out my IV and went to pay for my medication.I still needed to keep some of it on hand. When the pain struck, it would at least spare me some suffering.My steps came to an abrupt halt when I reached the payment hall.A few steps away, Stefan was steadying Rachel. He carried a thermal food container

Chapter 3

The day I got back, my hair started falling out even worse than before. Every time I washed it, I found a fistful in the sink. When I looked in the mirror, a patch above my forehead had already gone bare.I bought a wig. Once I put it on, I went to the courthouse.I wanted to divorce Stefan. Even if our marriage had all been a lie, I wanted to be the one to end it.After the clerk checked the records, she pushed the marriage papers back across the counter and spoke in a flat voice. "There's no record of your marriage. This document is a forgery."I stood frozen at the counter as a ringing filled my ears.My friend had already admitted the truth over the phone, but hearing it confirmed still felt like a slap in the face all over again.I hadn't spent the past five years as a widow. Even the marriage itself had been fake.…I took the forged marriage papers home with me. The moment I opened the door, I stopped dead on the threshold.Angeline had answered the door. The instant sh

Chapter 4

Stefan's expression changed instantly. "What happened to your hair?"I reached up and straightened my wig but said nothing.My mother scrambled to her feet to smooth things over. "She hasn't been well lately, that's all. She's just losing some hair. Don't scare the baby."Rachel gently rocked the baby and kept up her act of concern. "Lauren's gotten so thin lately too. Her complexion looks terrible."I didn't look at her. My gaze slid past them all and settled on the end of the hallway.Natalie's door stood open, but the room beyond it was empty. The bed, toys, and desk were gone. Even the stickers had been peeled from the walls, every last one. It was as if she had never existed at all.Stefan noticed it too. His face changed at once as he stared into the room. "Why is Natalie's room empty?"My mother's expression froze.My stepfather spoke up. "She's staying somewhere else for a few days.""Staying where?""At a friend's place.""Which friend?"My mother immediately cut i

Chapter 5

My mother's broken sobbing filled the living room.She cried so hard she could barely breathe, but in the end, she forced the words out anyway. "I'm sorry. We failed to watch over Natalie properly. She's gone…"The instant my mother said that, the entire living room fell silent.Stefan held me in his arms, as if he had not understood what she meant. Two seconds passed before he jerked his head up. "What did you say?"No one answered.Rachel stood beside the sofa, her arm trembling as she held the baby.Angeline stood frozen in place, her phone still pressed to her ear, unable to utter another word.My stepfather kept his head down, his face drained of color.My mother finally broke down and sank to the floor in tears. "It was a car accident a few days ago… We couldn't save her…"The words came out in broken fragments, one after another, as if only now had she finally remembered that the girl had been her granddaughter too.Stefan went completely rigid. I lay half-conscious in

Chapter 6

I opened my eyes to a quiet hospital room. The curtains were half drawn, and light pooled at the foot of the bed. I shifted slightly, and a sharp, needling pain shot through my bones.Then I saw Stefan standing beside the bed. His eyes were red, as though he hadn't slept all night, and stubble shadowed his jaw.He gripped a crayon drawing pad in his hands, its corners crushed beneath his fingers.The first thing I did after waking wasn't to see my parents. It wasn't to confront Stefan either.I gathered every last piece of evidence I had. I didn't have much time, and I had no intention of giving any of them a chance to catch their breath or salvage their reputations.I handed everything over to a lawyer.Angeline sent me a long message.She claimed she had made a foolish mistake in the heat of the moment. Stefan and Rachel had come to her together and begged for her help. She had thought I was too stubborn and single-minded, and she had worried I might actually do something dras

Chapter 7

The situation escalated immediately.The moment the words "deleted footage" came out, everything changed. There was no cleaning this up anymore.I turned over every piece of evidence I had directly to the police.…That afternoon, my mother came.She dropped to her knees outside my hospital room, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. "Lauren, I was wrong. I was really wrong. Blame me, hate me, whatever you want. Just stop going after Rachel. She only just gave birth. She hasn't even recovered yet, and the baby still needs to nurse."I lay in bed and watched her. Suddenly, I remembered the day Natalie died. I had signed those papers alone outside the ER while my mother stood beside me and cried.Back then, she had been crying for her granddaughter. Now she was kneeling in front of me, crying over whether Rachel would survive this.I said, "Get up."She thought I was giving in and immediately lifted her head to look at me.Then I said, "Kneeling won't do you any good."Her

Chapter 8

The moment the anonymous video surfaced, there was no burying the truth any longer.The footage was not especially clear, but it was clear enough to identify the three people beside the car and make out the items already loaded into the back seat.My team immediately ran a technical verification and handed a backup copy over to the police. An official case was opened soon afterward.The moment the news broke, the entire internet erupted.Angeline was the first to crack. She had always been the most afraid of facing legal consequences. The moment the police summoned her, she barely held out before she began cooperating.She handed over a batch of chat records. In those messages, the most active voices were not Stefan's at all. They belonged to my mother and Rachel.My mother had written: [If we're cutting ties, cut them clean. Don't leave anything behind to tangle us up again later.]Rachel had written: [I don't want to hide behind her forever. You clearly love me.]There was an

Chapter 9

In the courtroom, Stefan stood with his voice hoarse, as though every word cost him something. He confessed fully to the fraudulent marriage and was ultimately sentenced to five years.I thought that would be the end of it. But what he said next still hit me like a blow to the chest."I'm sorry. I secretly came to see the two of you many times. Once, I really wanted to go in and let her know I was her father."But Rachel said the moment I showed my face, everything would fall apart. She and the baby would both be finished. So in the end, I couldn't bring myself to go inside."The entire courtroom fell silent. The only sound left was the faint rustle of pages turning.I lowered my eyes to the memorial photo in my arms and slowly tightened my grip.My daughter had not simply waited for a father who never came.He had come. He had stood outside the door, heard her calling for him, and walked away anyway.…After the proceedings, Stefan asked to see me one last time.The doctor s

Chapter 10

The day Stefan went to prison, the sky outside was clear.But as I lay in my hospital bed after hearing the news, I felt almost nothing.I knew I had not won anything. I had only finally reclaimed, for myself and for Natalie, a truth that had come far too late: none of it had ever been our fault.A few days later, my mother asked to see me one last time. I thought about it for a long while before I finally agreed.When she walked into the room, her hair had gone mostly white, and she had grown terribly thin.The moment the door closed behind her, she dropped to her knees. "Lauren, I was wrong. I should never have played favorites. I should never have treated you and Natalie as if you were the ones who could be sacrificed. If I could, I would give my own life to make things right for both of you."She sobbed, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.I listened in silence. A long moment passed before I said, "You don't need to kneel to me."She looked up, her eyes brimming with tear

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