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CHAPTER 53
publish date:
2026-07-04 13:23:49
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Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 54
JONATHAN'S POVThe investigator I hired, a quiet, unassuming man named Foster who came recommended by a colleague who had once needed similar discretion during a messy divorce, asked for two weeks before he could deliver anything conclusive. Two weeks felt like an unbearable, impossibly long length of time to carry this particular weight alone, and yet I understood the necessity of patience if I wanted proof clean enough to survive whatever denial Anna or Lucas might eventually offer.Foster had asked few questions during our brief meeting, taking careful notes with the efficient detachment of a man who had heard a hundred versions of the same story before mine, wives and husbands and business partners all suspected of the same quiet betrayals. There was something almost comforting in his lack of curiosity, as though my particular heartbreak was simply another entry in a long, unremarkable ledger rather than the singular catastrophe it felt like from inside my own chest.He had asked,
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 53
JONATHAN'S POVI spent three days trying to talk myself out of what I had seen, constructing increasingly elaborate explanations for a hand resting on an arm, a closeness that could, if I squinted hard enough at the memory, be explained away as nothing more than two friends comforting each other during a difficult stretch for this family.I replayed the image constantly, at my desk during meetings I barely absorbed, lying awake beside a wife I no longer knew how to look at without suspicion coloring every ordinary interaction. Each time I replayed it, I found some new detail to doubt, the angle of the light, the brevity of the moment, the possibility that grief over Lucas's strange, distracted behavior lately had made me see intimacy where only friendship actually existed.It did not work particularly well. Every explanation I built collapsed the moment I actually looked at Anna across the dinner table, at the careful way she avoided lingering too long in conversation with Lucas whene
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 52
JONATHAN'S POVI noticed the pattern before I understood what it meant, the way a man notices a draft in a house long before he locates the open window causing it.Anna had grown distant again, in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of the weeks after the accusation I had made without evidence, except this time I had made no accusation at all. She excused herself from rooms more often than she used to. Lucas found reasons to leave whenever I entered unexpectedly, always polite, always plausible, and always somehow slightly too quick.I told myself I was imagining things, that months of scandal and suspicion had trained me to see betrayal in ordinary behavior. I had been wrong before, badly wrong, and I did not want to become a man who accused his wife of infidelity every time she left a room without explaining herself.I thought back to the foundation dinner, to the warmth I had genuinely felt dancing with her, the honesty in her voice when she thanked me afterward. That warmth had f
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 51
ROSE'S POVI spent the following week turning the photographs over in my mind more often than I actually looked at them, calculating and recalculating the exact moment that would extract the most value from what I now held.Timing mattered more than the evidence itself. I understood this the way I understood most things worth understanding, through years of watching wealthier, more comfortable women make careless mistakes with information they did not respect enough to handle properly. A scandal revealed at the wrong dinner party, in front of the wrong witnesses, could collapse into gossip and sympathy for Anna before I ever extracted anything useful from it. Delivered with precision, in private, to Jonathan alone, it could reshape everything.I made lists in my head, running through every possible scenario the way a chess player considers moves several steps ahead of the current position. If I revealed everything to Jonathan directly, would he believe me, or dismiss it as another man
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 50
ROSE'S POVI did not respond to the message immediately. I had learned, over years of navigating situations where information was currency, that eagerness was the fastest way to lose leverage before a negotiation even properly began. I let the message sit unanswered for a full day, watching to see whether whoever had sent it would grow impatient enough to reveal something about themselves in the process, the way most people eventually did when a silence stretched longer than they expected.I spent that day going through my own notes again, cross referencing dates against Celia's reports, trying to imagine who else might have reason to watch this particular house closely enough to notice what I had noticed. A private investigator hired by Anna's own family, perhaps, worried the arrangement might collapse before the debts were fully settled. A rival of Jonathan's, looking for leverage in some business matter entirely separate from his marriage. Neither possibility fully satisfied me.Th
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 49
ROSE'S POVI had learned a long time ago that people underestimated women like me, and I had learned to use that underestimation the way other people used money or connections, quietly, patiently, and to devastating effect when the moment finally called for it.Jonathan believed the meeting at the café had settled something between us, that his agreement to a proper paternity test meant I would sit back now and wait obediently for whatever verdict his doctors decided to hand down. He had always been like that, confident that kindness offered on his own terms erased whatever debt he actually owed. He had humiliated me in front of half the city when he married Anna instead of even considering what we once had, had let his lawyers threaten me the first time I tried to claim what was rightfully my son's, and I had no intention of simply waiting patiently for his mercy now.I remembered the early years with him clearly, before the arrangement with Anna's family had reduced our history to a
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 3
"Anna, are you okay?" My mom asked carefully."Are you trying to force me to get married to someone?" I asked pained by their words. "Yes!" They both chorused.God, the shamelessness of my parents. "Mom, Dad, I just returned from school yesterday. Heck, I am supposed to be having some respite her
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 2
I woke up with a start as the alarm clock beside me blared out its harsh sound. With an annoyed grimace, I stabbed hard on the alarm clock and silenced it."How the fuck do you still work?" I asked confused as I stared at the old alarm clock I had used as a kid."God damnit." I cursed again when it
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 1
ANNA'S POV"Mom, Dad I am home!" I announced as I took the stairs two at a time. In no time, I arrived at the top of the stairs leading to my parent's room."Mom Dad!" I called out again feeling so excited to be meeting my parents after almost six months. There was so much excitement in me that I
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 30
JONATHAN'S POV My phone beeped indicating that I have a message. I took my phone to check it. Going through the message, what I read took me by surprise. So, she is related to the manager. A lot of questions has been roaming in my head concerning the incident that day. I told lucas to investigate
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