All Chapters of UNMARRIED : Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

The phone wouldn't stop ringing.Eleanor Whitmore stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the answer button, her heart already racing before she knew why. It was the registry office. They'd called three times in the last hour. Three times.She'd missed all three.Something cold settled in her stomach. Something she couldn't name. Something she didn't want to name.The phone rang again.She answered."Mrs. Whitmore?" The voice on the other end was clipped. Professional. Urgent. "This is Cynthia from the Civil Registry. You came in this morning to renew your marriage certificate?""Yes." Eleanor's voice came out smaller than she intended. "Yes, that's correct."There was a pause. A pause that stretched too long. A pause that made the cold thing in her stomach twist."Mrs. Whitmore, I need you to come back to the office. There's... there's a problem with your certificate."Eleanor's hand tightened around the phone. "A problem? What kind of problem?"Another pause. Longer this time.

She woke before the alarm.It wasn't gradual. It wasn't gentle. One moment she was asleep, and the next she was wide awake, her eyes open in the darkness, her body rigid beneath the sheets.For a second just a second she didn't remember.Then she did.Victoria. Five years. Ethan isn't mine. The certificate is forged.The weight of it crashed down on her chest, heavy and suffocating. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She could only lie there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the heat of Julian's arm draped across her waist.He was still asleep. His breath was warm against her neck. Slow. Steady. Content.The same position they'd slept in for years. The same intimacy she had once cherished. The same man who had promised to love her forever.She wanted to shove him off. She wanted to scream. She wanted to claw at his face and demand to know how he could do this to her.She didn't move.She lay perfectly still, feeling the weight of his arm, the heat of his body, and thought about e

She didn't confront him that night.She wanted to. God, she wanted to. She sat on the kitchen floor, her back against the cabinets, her hands over her mouth, her tears falling silently, and every part of her screamed to wake him. To drag him out of bed. To make him look her in the eye and explain how he could do this to her.She didn't move.She couldn't.Because if she confronted him, she would have to face the truth. All of it. The forged certificate. Victoria. Five years. Ethan. The barren lie. The surgery that never happened. Everything she had built her life on would collapse in a single moment, and she wasn't ready to stand in the rubble.Not yet.So she sat on the kitchen floor until her legs went numb. Until her tears dried. Until the cold from the tiles seeped into her bones and settled there like a second skin.Then she stood.She walked back to the bedroom. Julian was still asleep. His breath was slow. Steady. Content. He had no idea. No idea that she knew. No idea that the

She didn't know what to say.She knelt there, holding Ethan, the photo of Victoria and the newborn baby clutched in his small hand, and her mind went blank. Every lie she'd ever told. Every mask she'd ever worn. Every performance she'd perfected over six years. All of it vanished. She was just a woman. A woman holding a child who wasn't hers. A child who was looking at her with confused, trusting eyes."Mama?" Ethan's voice was small. "Who is she?"Eleanor's throat closed. She couldn't tell him the truth. Not now. Not like this. Not when he was eight years old and holding a photo of the woman who gave birth to him, the woman who abandoned him, the woman who let Eleanor raise him for eight years.She couldn't break him.So she did what she'd been doing for six years.She lied."She's an old friend of Daddy's," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "From before you were born."Ethan frowned. "But she's holding a baby. Is that me?"Eleanor's heart stopped.She looked at the photo a