The Contracted Wife And Her Secret Twins

CHAPTER 2

Damian’s footsteps faded down the hall, and I pressed my back against the headboard, wrapping the blanket tighter around me. My pulse hammered in my ears. I had seen the message. Sienna Vale. Calling him. Planning a meeting. Planning… her intrusion into my life.

I clenched my fists, the weight of my growing belly pressing against the nerves that screamed at me to fight or flee. I shouldn’t feel threatened. After all, Damian was mine—technically. By contract. But the truth was undeniable: he never truly belonged to me.

I pulled my knees to my chest, rocking slightly as memories clawed at me. My life had been a collection of compromises, each one eroding my confidence until it was nearly unrecognizable. Three years of silent obedience. Three years of learning how to exist in the margins of someone else’s life. Three years of love hidden, nurtured like a secret garden in a world that refused to recognize its beauty.

And now, those feelings were tangled with fear, anger, and a fragile hope. Hope that these twins—our twins—could change everything.

My hand drifted to my stomach, smoothing the fabric of my blouse over the tiny swell that had yet to show. I could already imagine their small fingers curling around mine, their tiny mouths forming cries that only I would hear first. But the reality was harsh. Damian didn’t want them. He didn’t want me. And Sienna… she was everything he wanted, everything he had ever wanted.

I could hear the faint hum of traffic outside, but inside, the apartment was silent except for my shallow breathing. The quiet was deceptive. It felt like the calm before a storm, the kind that would tear through my carefully constructed existence.

My phone buzzed beside me. A message from Linda. “Elena, are you alright? You seemed off today.”

I stared at it, my vision blurring. No. I wasn’t alright. I wasn’t okay. My life was unraveling one small thread at a time, and the tapestry I had tried to hold together was beginning to fall apart.

I typed back the smallest possible lie: “I’m fine.” And I pressed send, because the truth—that I was carrying Damian’s children while he flirted with the woman he truly desired—was too dangerous to confess.

I stood, moving slowly to the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. The city sprawled beneath me, a sea of lights that seemed to mock me with their indifference. My reflection stared back, pale and drawn, yet fierce in a way only fear could ignite.

My mind wandered back to the beginning of this arrangement. The contract. Damian’s cold, calculated words. “This is a business marriage. Don’t mistake it for love.” I had signed, knowing that my love for him was unrequited, believing that proximity, patience, and silent devotion could carve a place for me in his life.

Three years later, I realized how naive that hope had been. He hadn’t even noticed me—not really. During the day, I was invisible. At night, I was… a convenience, a temporary pleasure, a warm body to occupy the same bed. And now, carrying his children, I wondered if even that small claim on him would survive the intrusion of Sienna.

The sound of a car door outside made my heart skip. He hadn’t returned yet, but the tension in the air was suffocating. My fingers traced the line of my jaw, my mind racing with every scenario. Would he notice? Would he suspect? Or would he continue to treat this pregnancy as an inconvenient mistake, a problem to be ignored until it disappeared?

A knock at the door startled me.

“Elena? Are you in there?” Linda’s voice, cautious and gentle, filtered through the wood.

I opened the door, forcing a calm I didn’t feel. Linda’s eyes immediately softened when she saw me, concern etching her features.

“You look… exhausted,” she said. “Do you want me to make you some tea?”

I shook my head, forcing a small smile. “I’m fine. Really.”

Her gaze lingered. “Elena… if there’s anything, anything at all, you can tell me. You know that.”

I nodded, feeling the weight of her gaze settle like a protective shield around me. She’s the only one who knows. The only one who can be trusted.

Once she left, I sank back onto the couch. My hands rested on my stomach, and for the first time, I allowed myself to imagine life differently. Not the life Damian and Sienna had dictated for me, but a life where I had choices. Where my children could be safe, loved, and protected—regardless of the contracts, the boards, or Damian’s desires.

The night dragged on, each tick of the clock a reminder that the world outside our apartment didn’t care about my growing secrets, my fears, or my tiny miracles within.

And then, the sound I had dreaded all evening: Damian’s key in the lock.

I froze. My body tensed, every nerve screaming for me to hide, to retreat, to vanish. But there was no escaping him. No escaping the reality of this contract, this marriage, and this life that had become both my cage and my battlefield.

The door opened. He stepped inside, tall, precise, every inch the man I had once thought I loved. But his eyes immediately fell to his phone on the side table, the glow of Sienna’s name still lighting the screen.

A jolt of anger and fear surged through me. My stomach tightened—not from the babies, but from the suffocating realization that I was still, somehow, invisible.

Damian didn’t speak at first. He just watched, calculating, assessing. And then… he smiled.

Not at me. Not at my presence. But at the screen.

I gritted my teeth, a quiet fury building behind the calm mask I had perfected over years. He could choose her. He could flirt, plan, and pretend she mattered more. But I had something he didn’t. I had the truth, the bond, the life that grew within me.

And that was enough… for now.

Because soon, he would learn that no contract, no desire, no Sienna Vale could erase what had already begun.

And as he set his phone down and turned his gaze toward me, I realized with cold certainty: nothing in this marriage would ever be simple again.