The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 516

Mia's POV

If the world kept shrinking, if everything fell away, piece by piece, what would be left?

I used to think about this question differently. At fifteen, I would have said love. At twenty, I would have said success. At twenty-three, standing in a city hall wearing a dress I'd bought on sale, signing a contract that called itself a marriage, I would have said survival.

But now, at thirty, standing in the bridal suite of the Oheka Castle with afternoon light streaming through windows that have seen a century of weddings, I know the answer.

My children. My dog. My friends. My family.

And Kyle.

The woman in the mirror doesn't look like someone who has been through what I've been through.

She looks... beautiful.

I don't say that often. I don't think it often. But today, in this moment, I can admit it.

I am beautiful.

Scarlett and Sophie had mobilized their entire fashion network for this dress. Sophie called in favors from Paris. Scarlett threatened a designer she'd known since her modeling days. The result is something that shouldn't exist—a gown that looks like it was dreamed rather than made.

The neckline plunges in a clean, sharp line to just below my collarbone. Modest and scandalous at once. The ivory silk clings to my body, following every curve, every line, every imperfection I've learned to call character. It hugs my waist, my hips, my thighs—and then flares out like a trumpet, like a promise, like something about to take flight.

There are no beads. No crystals. No overwrought embroidery trying too hard to be memorable. Just silk. Just cut. Just the confidence of something that knows exactly what it is.

I look like a bride.

I look like the bride I should have been. The bride I'm finally ready to be.

At fifteen, I was a hopeless romantic.

I believed in fairy tales the way other people believed in gravity—as a fundamental law of the universe, something you didn't question because questioning it would make the whole world fall apart.

I believed that somewhere out there, a prince was waiting. That love would be like the movies—sweeping and dramatic, full of grand gestures and perfect timing. I believed that when I found the right person, everything would click into place, and I would live happily ever after.

The phrase itself never struck me as strange. Happily ever after. As if happiness were a destination rather than a journey. As if "after" were a place you could arrive at and stay forever.

I wanted to be loved.

Not just loved—consumed. I wanted someone to look at me the way heroes looked at heroines in the books I read under my covers at night. I wanted passion. Fire. The kind of love that burns so bright it leaves scars.

And there was only ever one answer to that wanting.

Kyle Branson.

I wanted him before I knew what wanting really meant. Before I understood that desire could be a trap as much as a gift. Before I learned that the heart doesn't care about logic, about self-preservation, about all the sensible reasons why you should walk away.

I wanted him so badly that I made a stupid decision.

You know what happened next. You've been here for all of it—the contract marriage, the betrayal, the fall down the stairs, the loss, the divorce, the four years of raising two children alone while the man I loved pretended to be dead.

You've watched me break and rebuild and break again.

So I won't rehash it. I won't make you sit through the grief a second time.

But I'm here anyway. Standing in this room. Wearing this dress. Waiting for what comes next.

That has to count for something.

A knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door opens.

And there he is.

Kyle fills the doorway the way he fills every room—not just with his height, his broad shoulders, the physical fact of him, but with something else. Something that has to do with presence, with gravity, with the way certain people seem to warp the air around them just by existing.

He's wearing a black tuxedo. Custom, obviously. The fabric fits him like a second skin, the jacket tapering at his waist, the trousers breaking perfectly over his shoes. When he slides his hands into his pockets, the material pulls across his biceps—biceps that have returned over the past six months.

The man I'm about to marry. Again.

His eyes move over me. Slowly. Taking in the dress, the hair, the careful makeup that Scarlett spent an hour perfecting. I feel the weight of his gaze like a physical thing—warm and heavy and achingly familiar.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," he says.

"I haven't run away, if that's what you're checking." I try to keep my voice light.

My eyes never leave his in the mirror. "I'm willing to be your wife. This time for real."

He laughs. A soft sound. A sound I never heard enough during our first marriage.

His eyes meet mine in the mirror's reflection, and I watch him study my face the way an artist studies a painting, looking for the brushstrokes beneath the surface.

"I believe you," he says. "But that's not why I'm here."

He steps closer.

In the mirror, I watch him move. Watch the space between us shrink. Watch his reflection grow larger behind mine until we're framed together—the woman in ivory silk and the man in black, two halves of something that took seventeen years to become whole.

"You know it's bad luck," I say, turning to face him directly. "The groom seeing the bride before the ceremony."

His mouth curves. That half-smile I know so well—the one that used to make my heart stutter at fifteen, at twenty-two, at twenty-six. The one that still makes it stutter now.

"I don't think there are many grooms," he says, "who already have three children with the bride. Or who have already married her once before."

"Twice," I correct him.

"Twice?"

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