The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 517

Mia's POV

I didn't know then that the dream would take seventeen years to come true.

But here I am. Standing in front of this mirror. Waiting.

The door doesn't open so much as it surrenders.

"I told you—left at the third hallway, not the second—"

"The second hallway had better lighting—"

"Lighting is irrelevant when you're going the wrong direction—"

Scarlett and Sophie tumble through the doorway mid-argument, their voices tangling together like cats fighting in a bag.

"We're here," Scarlett announces, as if this weren't already obvious. "We got lost. Twice. This castle has too many rooms. Who needs this many rooms?"

"It's a historic estate," Sophie says. "It has exactly the right number of rooms."

"It has seventeen bathrooms. I counted."

"Why were you counting bathrooms?"

"Because I got lost trying to find one!"

"If Kyle is still in here, I swear to God—"

"He left." I'm still looking at the mirror. Still seeing the ghost of him standing behind me. "Five minutes ago."

"Good. Because I brought champagne and I refuse to share it with men." She sweeps in, a bottle of Dom Pérignon in one hand and her heels in the other. Barefoot. Of course. Scarlett has never met a pair of shoes she couldn't abandon within an hour of putting them on. Her emerald dress is already slightly wrinkled, her red hair escaping from whatever elaborate thing she'd tried to do with it.

She looks perfect. She always looks perfect, even when she's falling apart.

And then the arguing stops.

Because my mother has appeared in the doorway behind them.

She stops in the doorway. Just stops. Her hand goes to the doorframe like she needs it to hold her up. She's wearing lavender and in her other hand is a small velvet box that I recognize from somewhere deep in my childhood.

"Oh," she says. Just that. Just oh.

"Mom?" My voice sounds strange. Too small for this room.

"Give me a minute," she says. Her voice is steady but her eyes are not. "Just—give me a minute to look at you."

"Oh, honey." Mom stops three feet away from me. Her hand goes to her mouth. "Oh, Mia."

"Don't." I hold up my hand. "Don't cry yet. If you cry, I'll cry, and then Scarlett will have to redo my makeup, and she's already threatened to murder me twice today."

"Three times," Scarlett corrects. "But who's counting?"

"I'm not crying." Mom is absolutely crying. Tears streaming down her face, ruining the makeup she spent an hour on. "I'm just—looking at you. My baby. My beautiful girl."

"Mom—"

"Do you know how long I've waited for this?" She steps closer. Her hands find my face, cupping my cheeks the way she used to when I was small. "Not the wedding. I don't care about the wedding. I've waited to see you happy. Really happy. The kind of happy that comes from the inside."

I think about all the years she missed. The coma. The waking up to find her daughter divorced, alone,pregnant.

"I'm happy, Mom." My voice cracks. "I'm really, really happy."

"I know." She kisses my forehead. "I can see it."

"Okay." Scarlett claps her hands. All business. "We're on a schedule, people. Emotional breakdowns are allotted exactly three minutes, and we've already used two. Sarah, do you have it?"

My mother pulls back. Wipes her eyes. Straightens her shoulders in that way she has—the way that says I've survived worse than this, and I'll survive this too.

"I have it." She opens the velvet box.

Inside, nestled against cream silk, is a pair of pearl earrings.

They're old. I can tell by the slightly yellowed luster, the way the gold settings have softened with age. Small, simple, elegant. The kind of jewelry that whispers rather than shouts.

"These were your grandmother's," Mom says. "She wore them on her wedding day. And her mother wore them before that. Four generations of Williams women, all walking down the aisle in these earrings."

"Mom—"

"Something old." She lifts one earring from the box. "For the past we carry with us. For the women who came before. For all the love that brought you here."

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