The Wife He Never Expected Novels & Stories

Smile thin as a blade. “Lucas Harrington,” he greeted smoothly. “You look well.” Lucas didn’t return the smile. “Adrian Cole.” Amara felt the tension shift instantly. This was no rumor. This was history. Adrian’s gaze moved to her. Assessing. Calculating. “So this is the wife,” he said. “You do have a talent for unexpected decisions.” “Say what you want and leave her out of it,” Lucas said coldly. Adrian chuckled. “You always did overestimate your control.”

He said: it is not about surgery. I said: I understand. He looked at me with the specific expression of someone who had been half-expecting to be redirected and was recalibrating for the absence of redirection. He said: my wife has been offered a position. He told me about it with the specific quality of someone whose feelings about a situation were ahead of his understanding of them, who was reporting events as a way of trying to understand the feelings rather than because the facts required reporting.

Her hand was on his arm, her face tilted up toward his. They weren't touching inappropriately, but the intimacy in their posture made my chest tight. I turned away before they could see me and walked back inside on with my legs shaking. "Isn't that Jason Hartley's wife?" someone whispered behind me. "Poor thing. Everyone knows he never got over Isabelle Brown." "I heard he only married her because his family pressured him to move on." "She must know she's just a replacement." I kept walking, head high, dying inside.

"The arrangement was always for you to marry Miguel Antonio. That was the deal we struck with his family. A wife is a wife, Mara. It doesn't matter which sister he gets. The merger goes through either way." I felt like I couldn't breathe. "A wife is a wife?" I whispered. "Mother, he doesn't want me. He wanted Clara. This entire marriage is built on a lie, on deception. How am I supposed to live with that? How am I supposed to wake up every morning next to a man who didn't choose me, who thought he was getting someone else?"

Making decisions he believed were protecting their family. For months, every time she looked at her father, she saw the debt. The papers. The marriage she never chose. Sitting beside him now, she saw the tired man who had been carrying his own regrets. He had lost something too. His health. His confidence. The life he thought he had built. Jessica lowered her eyes. After everything she had learned, she expected anger to come first.n She expected to sit beside him and wonder how he could have allowed things to get this far. But anger wasn't what she felt.

Outside the window Calloway Street was grey and wet and going about its morning without any awareness of what was happening on the internet in Anita Hargrove’s name. The story the photographs told was simple. Wife of prominent businessman photographed outside anniversary dinner with former flame while husband remains inside. Husband later seen calmly retrieving her. Wife declines to return. That last part was the one that kept appearing. Wife declines to return. As though I had made a scene. As though I had been unreasonable. As though Donald had come outside with nothing but dignity and concern and I had refused him. I put the phone face down. The boy’s face.

From the time I was 22 until I turned 30, Brianna Everly and I had a wedding every year. The only thing we never had was a marriage certificate. She said she was afraid of marriage, terrified that we'd end up like her parents. So I gave her eight years to prepare herself—until our eighth wedding, when Brianna showed up in the wrong wedding dress. It looked just like the wedding dress she'd always worn for our ceremonies, except for one detail. The name embroidered along the neckline wasn't mine. It was my best friend, Leon Stratford's. I was about to confront Brianna when my brother, Dominic Sterling, grabbed my arm. "Harrison, it's been eight years. What's the point of digging into it no

Absolutely not. Is it even reasonable his own ex-wife remarrying someone from a family he's known his whole life? Mid-thought, he smacked his own forehead. Unbelievable. I actually just encouraged another man to pursue my own wife?! table flip. Sunnyside Court. Joy, apron on, worked through the kitchen. On the counter, pre-ordered fresh ingredients sat cleaned and prepped. Walter, energized after his nap, had gone downstairs with his caregiver to find someone for chess.

Before the wedding, the coordinator, Rachel Bennett, called me. "Ms. Lane, we tailored the suit to the groom's measurements. Are you sure you want us to change the size?" "Yes," I said. "The groom's changed." My wedding to Caleb was two days away. I'd chosen the venue, designed the invitations, and picked out both my dress and his suit on my own. Every time I tried to involve Caleb in the planning, he only got annoyed. "You know I'm not into all the ceremony. "Don't bother me with this little stuff." Then yesterday, I found an old proposal video on his computer. It was five hours long. Four of those hours showed Caleb painstakingly setting everything up himself. For the final hour, he excite

He’s staring at me in shock. For the three years we have been married, I have never raised my voice at him. Never questioned him. Not even on the countless nights he came home reeking of other women’s perfume. Not even on occasions I found lacy underwears in his car. I’ve always stayed silent. But not tonight. “What I do with my time is none of your concern” he says slowly, as if he’s explaining to a child. “And when I ask you a question, you answer it. Why are you still awake Maria? Have you been drinking?”