The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 519

Mia's POV

The music begins.

Not the wedding march—not yet. Something softer. Strings and piano, weaving together in a melody that sounds like remembering. Like the first warm day after winter. Like coming home to a place you didn't know you'd been missing.

I don't know who chose this song. Scarlett, probably. Or maybe Sophie. Or maybe Kyle, in one of those moments when he pretends not to care about details but secretly obsesses over every one.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the way it feels—the notes washing over me, through me, becoming part of my heartbeat.

The doors open.

The October air hits my face first. Cool and crisp, carrying the scent of fallen leaves and late-blooming roses and something else—something clean and bright, the particular smell of autumn in New York. The sun is low, hanging just above the treeline, casting everything in gold.

The garden stretches before me.

Two hundred chairs, arranged in curves that echo the shape of the rose arch at the end of the aisle. Two hundred faces, turning as one, mouths opening in those small sounds people make when they see a bride—the gasps and whispers and soft oh's.

But I don't see them. Not really.

I see the aisle. White carpet, strewn with petals—not just rose petals, but something else. Something smaller, more delicate. Forget-me-nots. Tiny blue flowers scattered among the white, catching the golden light like fallen pieces of sky.

Something blue.

Sophie.

My mother's hand tightens on my arm.

"One step at a time," she says. "Just one step. Then another. Then another. That's all any of us can do."

I take a breath.

And I step forward.

The aisle is longer than it looked from the doorway.

Or maybe it's not longer. Maybe it's just that every step takes a lifetime. Every heartbeat stretches into something vast and immeasurable. Every breath contains entire years—all the years I've already lived, all the years I'm about to live, compressed into these few seconds of walking toward a man.

The faces blur as I pass.

Morton, in the third row, his hand clasped in Scarlett's. She's already crying again, her mascara ruined, her face transformed by something that looks like pure, uncomplicated joy.

Thomas. He's sitting at the end of a row, dressed in a navy suit that fits him perfectly, his posture relaxed in that deliberate way that means he's trying very hard to look relaxed. Our eyes meet as I pass, and he smiles.

He nods once. A small gesture. A benediction.

Go, that nod says. Be happy. I'm okay.

I blink back a fresh wave of tears.

And beside him—

Nate.

I almost don't recognize him at first. He's let his hair grow longer, and there's something different about the way he holds himself. Looser. Less guarded. Paris has changed him, softened some of those sharp edges that used to cut everyone who got too close.

He catches me looking. Raises one hand in a small wave. That crooked smile I remember—the one that used to infuriate me and charm me in equal measure—flickers across his face.

Between them, there's an empty seat. And on that seat, a single white rose.

For Carol, I realize. Nate's wife. The woman he loved and lost.

I just keep walking.

But Gas is here.

She's sitting in the front row, next to my mother's empty chair, her golden fur brushed until it shines, a collar of white flowers around her neck. She's gotten old in the past year. But when she sees me, her tail starts wagging. That familiar thump-thump-thump that I've heard a thousand times before.

I know you, that tail says. I

And beside her—

The children.

Alexander is standing at the edge of the aisle, vibrating with barely contained energy. He's supposed to be the ring bearer, but he's already fumbled the pillow twice during rehearsal and dropped the rings once and nearly chased a butterfly off into the hedges. Right now, he's bouncing on his toes, his little suit already wrinkled, his hair already escaping the careful styling Scarlett spent twenty minutes on.

"MAMA!" he stage-whispers. It's not a whisper at all. It carries across the entire garden. "MAMA, YOU LOOK LIKE A PRINCESS!"

A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd.

"Alexander," Ethan hisses beside him. "We're supposed to be quiet."

"I AM being quiet. This is my quiet voice."

"That is absolutely not your quiet voice—"

"Shh," Madison whispers. She's between them, her flower basket still half-full because she got distracted examining the botanical composition of the petals and forgot to scatter them. Her dark hair is braided with tiny white flowers, and Eleanor is tucked under her arm, dressed in a tiny matching flower collar that someone (Sophie, probably) spent an absurd amount of time creating.

She looks up at me as I pass.

Our eyes meet.

And in her gaze.

I reach out as I pass. My fingers brush the top of her head, just for a moment. A touch. A promise.

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