Read The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins novel by Artemis Z.Y. Updated 2025 -26 - The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 484

The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 484

Did I fall asleep in Kyle’s car?

My eyes are closed, but I can still hear sounds. The soft hum of the engine. The whisper of tires against wet pavement. Something classical playing very low on the stereo—strings, maybe, or piano, the notes blurring together like watercolors.

I try to open my eyes. Fail. Try again. My lids feel weighted, sewn shut by exhaustion and champagne and whatever that shot was called. The Bad Decision. How fitting.

I shift in my seat, adjusting my position, and my stomach lurches a warning. The nausea hasn’t fully passed. It’s still there, coiled and patient, waiting for the wrong movement.

“You’re uncomfortable.”

Oh. That’s Kyle’s voice. Low and close and somehow both question and statement at once.

I should nod. I think I do. My head feels disconnected from my neck, floating somewhere above my body. I’m not sure the motion actually happens.

Something changes. A mechanical whir. Cool air suddenly rushing against my face —he’s lowered the window. The night pours in, crisp and sharp, carrying the particular smell of autumn in New York. Fallen leaves and distant rain and that metallic edge the city always has, even in the quiet hours.

“October,” I hear myself say. The word comes out dreamy, distant, like I’m speaking from underwater.

“Yes.” His voice is soft. Patient. “It’s October.”

I extend my hand toward the window. My fingers find the cold, let it wrap around them, let the night air kiss my palm. The sensation travels up my arm, through my chest, settling somewhere behind my eyes where the champagne fog is thickest.

Better. This is better.

I manage to open my eyes.

And that’s when I realize.

Kyle is looking at me.

Not at the road. Not at the dashboard or the rearview mirror or any of the places a driver’s eyes should be. At me. His face half-turned, the streetlights sliding across his features in intervals-shadow, gold, shadow, gold-creating a kind of strobe effect that makes him look almost unreal. Like something my drunk brain has conjured from memory and longing.

His eyes catch me first. Always his eyes. Gray as storm clouds, gray as the ocean before it swallows you, gray as the sky right before it breaks open and ruins everything. They’re moving over my face with that particular intensity he has—the one that makes you feel examined, understood, seen in ways you didn’t ask to be

seen.

The air in the car changes. Tightens. Or maybe that’s just the heat rolling through my body, every nerve ending suddenly awake despite the alcohol still swimming in my blood. When his gaze drops to my mouth—just for a second, just a flicker-I know with absolute certainty that if he leaned over right now, if he closed the distance between us, I would let him kiss me.

All the years. All the reasons why this is a terrible idea.

“I”

“I—”

We speak at the same time. The words collide in the space between us, tangling together before either can land.

I swallow what I was going to say.

“Eyes on the road.”

He holds my gaze for another beat. Two. Long enough that I can see the conflict in his expression-the want barely contained beneath the control The muscle in his jaw twitches once, twice. Then he turns away, and whatever was burning in his eyes gets tucked away, hidden behind that careful mask he wears so well.

The streetlights keep sliding past. Shadow. Gold. Shadow. Gold.

I press my cheek against the cool window. The glass vibrates slightly with the motion of the car, a gentle tremor that travels through my skull. My eyes drift closed again, but I’m not sleeping. I’m floating in that in-between place where everything feels soft and nothing quite hurts.

“How far?” I murmur.

“Twenty minutes. Maybe less. Traffic’s light.”

Twenty minutes. An eternity. A blink.

I shift again, and the leather seat creaks beneath me. Sophie’s dress has ridden up

-I can feel the cool air against my thighs where the fabric has bunched. I should fix

it. Should tug it down. Should care about dignity and propriety and all the things I was raised to care about.

I don’t move.

Kyle’s hand appears in my peripheral vision. Just his hand-long fingers, broad palm, the thin scar across his knuckles from that time he punched Thomas in the park fle’s rearing… toward the center consofe, toward the small stack of napkins that must live there because Kyle always has napkins, always has tissues, always has whatever anyone might need at any given moment.

He hands me one without a word.

I take it. Press it against my mouth. The paper is rough against my lips, slightly

scratchy, real in a way that grounds me.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t thank me for napkins.” There’s something in his voice-not quite humor, not quite frustration. Something softer. “The bar is already low enough.”

A laugh escapes me. Weak and watery but real.

“The bar is underground, Kyle. The bar is in the earth’s core.”

“Then let me excavate it.” He’s not looking at me, but I can hear the almost-smile in

his words. “One napkin at a time.”

The music shifts. Something with more piano now. Debussy, maybe. Or Satie. Something that sounds like melancholy rendered in keys.

“You still listen to this,” I say.

“Listen to what?”

“Classical. When you drive. You

always-” I stop. Swallow. The memory rising unbidden: Kyle in our apartment, years ago, sitting at his desk at 3 AM with headphones on, Bach playing loud enough that I could hear it from the doorway. The way his showfors would relax, just slightly, when the music started. Like something in him was finally

allowed to rest.

“I remember,” I finish quietly.

He doesn’t respond right away. The piano keeps playing. The city keeps sliding

past. My heartbeat keeps doing that thing it does around him—that irregular rhythm,

that syncopated mess.

“Some things don’t change,” he says finally.