The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 485

Mia's POV

The car stops.

Not the gentle deceleration of arriving home—the familiar turn into my building's garage, the echo of tires against concrete, the security light flickering overhead. This is different. The engine dies with a soft sigh, and then there's silence. The particular silence of somewhere that isn't meant for parking.

I open my eyes.

Water.

Through the windshield, past the hood of Kyle's car, past the low concrete barrier, there's water. The Hudson River, black and endless, reflecting the lights of New Jersey like scattered diamonds on velvet. The city skyline rises behind us—I can feel it more than see it, that particular weight of Manhattan at your back, all those millions of lives stacked on top of each other.

My head is clearer now. Still heavy, still wrapped in cotton, but the sharp edges of reality are starting to poke through. The nausea has settled into something manageable. My mouth tastes like champagne and regret.

The driver's door opens.

Cool air rushes in. October air. That specific autumn chill that makes you aware of your own skin, of every inch of exposed flesh. The dress Sophie put me in suddenly feels like nothing at all—just a few strips of fabric pretending to be clothing.

Kyle's silhouette moves past the windshield. Tall. Deliberate. That particular way he walks when he's thinking about something—each step measured, controlled, like he's calculating the distance between himself and whatever he's approaching.

He stops at the railing. Pulls something from his pocket.

A lighter clicks. Once. Twice. The flame catches, illuminating his face for a split second—the sharp line of his jaw, the shadows under his eyes, the way his cheekbones look.

I open the passenger door.

The cold hits me immediately. Brutal. Unforgiving. Goosebumps rise along my arms, my shoulders, that exposed strip of skin where Sophie's dress dips too low. My heels click against the pavement—unsteady, uncertain, the alcohol still doing strange things to my balance.

Kyle turns before I reach him.

His eyes find mine in the darkness. Gray. Always gray. Gray like the river, gray like the October sky, gray like something that refuses to be pinned down. The cigarette glows between his fingers—a small ember in all that black.

He moves.

Fast. Faster than I expect. His hands are already at his shoulders, already shrugging off that charcoal coat, already draping it around me before I can form a single word of protest. The fabric is warm. Warm with his body heat, warm with his scent—cedar and sandalwood and something smoky now, something that burns.

The coat swallows me.

Too big. The shoulders hang past my own, the sleeves drape over my hands, the hem falls somewhere around my thighs. I'm drowning in it. Drowning in him. The silk lining slides against my bare arms like a whisper, like a secret, like something too intimate for a public space.

"You'll freeze," he says.

"I'm fine."

"You're shaking."

Am I? I look down at my hands. They're trembling slightly, the fabric of his sleeves pooling around my fingers. Whether from cold or alcohol or proximity, I can't tell. Maybe all three. Maybe none of the above.

I watch him take a drag. The cherry glows brighter, illuminates the hollow of his cheeks, the tension in his jaw. He exhales slowly. The smoke curls up, caught by the river wind, dissolving into the night like it was never there at all.

"Give me one."

The words come out before I think about them. Before I remember that I don't smoke. Haven't smoked in years. Quit when I got pregnant with the twins, never started again.

Kyle's eyebrow lifts. Just one. That small movement I've seen a thousand times—in boardrooms and bedrooms and everywhere in between. The expression that means he's surprised but trying not to show it.

"You don't smoke."

"I do."

"Since when?"

"Since always." I hold out my hand. Palm up. Waiting. "FYI."

He studies me for a moment. Those gray eyes moving over my face, reading something there I can't see. Then his hand dips into his pocket—his coat pocket, the one I'm wearing now—and emerges with a pack. Marlboro Reds. The same brand he smoked in college, before he quit, before he started again, before whatever this version of Kyle is.

He shakes one out. Holds it toward me.

Our fingers don't touch when I take it. But almost. Close enough that I feel the heat of his skin in the space between us. Close enough that my breath catches in a way I'm going to blame on the cold.

"Do you know what day it is?"

I take another drag. Smaller this time. More careful. The nicotine is starting to work, cutting through the champagne fog, sharpening the edges of my consciousness.

"October 15th."

The number sits in the air between us. Heavy. Loaded.

October 15th. The day we stood in that courthouse—me in a borrowed dress, him in a suit that cost more than my semester's tuition—and signed papers that were supposed to mean forever. The day I became Mrs. Kyle Branson, even though no one was supposed to know. The day I thought my life was finally beginning.

"Our anniversary," I say. The word tastes strange in my mouth. Bitter. Like the smoke. "Or it would be. If we were still married."

"We're not."

"No. We're not."

Silence. The river laps against the rocks below. A tugboat moves in the distance, its lights blinking slowly, carrying something somewhere that has nothing to do with us.

Kyle finishes his cigarette. Flicks it toward the water. I watch it arc through the air—a tiny ember against all that darkness—and disappear.

"Seven years," he says quietly.

"What?"

"We would have been married seven years. Tonight."

Seven years. The number feels impossible. Ancient. Like something from a different lifetime, a different version of us. Seven years since that courthouse. Seven years since he slid a ring onto my finger with hands that shook slightly, even though he tried to hide it. Seven years since I thought I knew what my future looked like.

"A lot can happen in seven years," I say.

"Yes." His voice is barely a whisper. "It can."

I turn to look at him.