Read The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins novel by Artemis Z.Y. Updated 2025 -26 - The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 516

The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 516

If the world kept shrinking—if everything fell away, piece by piece—what would be left?

I used to answer that question differently. At fifteen, I would’ve said love. At twenty, I would’ve said success. At twenty-three, standing in city hall in a dress I’d bought on clearance, signing a contract that called itself a marriage, I would’ve said survival.

But now, at thirty, standing in the bridal suite at Oheka Castle with afternoon light pouring through windows that have witnessed a century of weddings, I know the answer.

My children. My dog. My friends. My family.

And Kyle.

The woman in the mirror doesn’t look like someone who’s lived through everything I have.

She looks… beautiful.

I don’t say that often. I don’t even think it very often. But today, in this moment, I can admit it.

I am beautiful.

Scarlett and Sophie mobilized their entire fashion network for this dress. Sophie called in favors from Paris. Scarlett threatened a designer she’d known since her modeling days. The result is something that shouldn’t exist—a gown that feels dreamed rather than made.

The neckline plunges in a clean, sharp line just below my collarbone. Modest and scandalous at the same time. Ivory silk clings to my body, tracing every curve, every line, every imperfection I’ve learned to call character. It hugs my waist, my hips, my thighs—then flares out like a trumpet, like a promise, like something about to take flight.

There are no beads. No crystals. No heavy embroidery trying too hard to be remembered. Just silk. Just precision. Just the quiet confidence of something that knows exactly what it is.

I look like a bride.

I look like the bride I should have been. The bride I’m finally ready to be.

At fifteen, I was a hopeless romantic.

I believed in fairy tales the way other people believed in gravity—as a fundamental law of the universe. Something unquestionable. Something that, if doubted, would cause the whole world to collapse.

I believed a prince was out there waiting. That love would be cinematic—sweeping and dramatic, full of grand gestures and perfect timing. I believed that when I found the right person, everything would snap into place and I’d live happily ever after.

The phrase never struck me as strange. Happily ever after. As if happiness were a destination instead of a journey. As if “after” were somewhere you could arrive and stay forever.

I wanted to be loved.

Not just loved—consumed. I wanted someone to look at me the way heroes looked at heroines in the books I read under my covers at night. I wanted passion. Fire. The kind of love that burns so bright it leaves scars.

And there was only ever one answer to that wanting.

Kyle Branson.

I wanted him before I understood what wanting really meant. Before I knew desire could be as much a trap as a gift. Before I learned the heart doesn’t care about logic or self-preservation or all the reasonable reasons you should walk away.

I wanted him so badly that I made a stupid decision.

You know what happened next. You’ve been here for all of it—the contract marriage, the betrayal, the fall down the stairs, the loss, the divorce, the four years of raising two children alone while the man I loved pretended to be dead.

You’ve watched me break and rebuild and break again.

So I won’t rehash it. I won’t make you sit through the grief twice.

But I’m still here. Standing in this room. Wearing this dress. Waiting for what comes next.

That has to count for something.

A knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The door opens.

And there he is.

Kyle fills the doorway the way he fills every room—not just with his height or his broad shoulders, but with something else. Presence. Gravity. The way certain people seem to bend the air around them simply by existing.

He’s wearing a black tuxedo. Custom, obviously. The fabric fits him like a second skin, the jacket tapering at his waist, the trousers breaking perfectly over his shoes. When he slips his hands into his pockets, the material pulls across his biceps—biceps that have returned over the last six months.

The man I’m about to marry.

Again.

His eyes move over me slowly, taking in the dress, the hair, the careful makeup Scarlett spent an hour perfecting. I feel the weight of his gaze like something physical—warm, heavy, achingly familiar.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he says.

“I haven’t run away, if that’s what you’re checking,” I say lightly.

My eyes meet his in the mirror. “I’m willing to be your wife. This time, for real.”

He laughs softly—a sound I didn’t hear often enough during our first marriage. His eyes hold mine in the reflection as he studies my face the way an artist studies a painting, searching for the brushstrokes beneath the surface.

“I believe you,” he says. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

He steps closer.

In the mirror, I watch the space between us disappear. Watch his reflection grow larger behind mine until we’re framed together—the woman in ivory silk and the man in black. Two halves of something that took seventeen years to become whole.

“You know it’s bad luck,” I say, turning to face him. “The groom seeing the bride before the ceremony.”

His mouth curves into that half-smile—the one that made my heart stutter at fifteen, at twenty-two, at twenty-six. The one that still makes it stutter now.

“I don’t think there are many grooms,” he says, “who already have three children with the bride. Or who’ve already married her once.”

“Twice,” I correct him.

“Twice?”

“The contract counts. It was legal. We signed papers.”

“The contract doesn’t count.”

“It does to the state of New York.”

“The state of New York can—” He stops himself, then laughs. “Never mind. You’re right. Twice.”

We look at each other.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

“You’ve seen me in wedding dresses before.”

“Not like this.”

He’s close now.

“I was terrified.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “I was too.”

“Are you ready now?”

“I’ve been ready,” he says, “since you slapped me in that parking garage and told me I was a piece of shit.”

“I was angry.”

“You were right.”

“I was still angry.”

“I know.” His fingers brush my cheek, tracing a line from my temple to my jaw. “And if you’re still angry today—if even a small part of you isn’t sure—we don’t have to do this. We can walk out right now. Tell everyone it’s postponed. I’ll wait another year. Another five years. As long as it takes.”

“Kyle.”

“Mm?”

“Shut up and let me marry you.”

His laugh this time is louder, fuller—spilling into the hallway, probably reaching the garden where two hundred guests are waiting.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He pulls me into an embrace—not a kiss. We’re saving that for later, for when the officiant says you may kiss the bride and the world watches us seal what we’ve been building all this time. Instead, his arms wrap around me. My face rests against his chest. I feel the steady beat of his heart—the heart that almost stopped, that almost left us, that’s still here, still beating, still mine.

“I love you,” he says into my hair.

“I know.”

“I loved you at seventeen, when I didn’t know what love was. I loved you at twenty-seven, when I was too scared to say it. I loved you through four years of missing you so badly I forgot how to breathe.”

“Kyle—”

“I’m not finished.” His arms tighten. “I loved you when I hated myself. When I thought I didn’t deserve to be your husband or their father—anything except a ghost watching from the outside. And I love you now, Mia Williams, in a way I didn’t know I was capable of. In a way that makes everything else—the money, the company, all of it—feel like nothing.”

I don’t cry.

I’ve cried enough for a lifetime. In hospital rooms. In parking garages. In the dark of my bedroom while the children slept. I cried when Gas had her puppies, when the twins came out of surgery, when Kyle opened his eyes and said my name.

But my throat tightens. There’s a burn behind my eyes.

“I love you too,” I say.

It doesn’t feel like enough—three words for everything we’ve survived. The pain, the hope, the moments when giving up would’ve been easier.

But it’s what I have. It’s what’s true.

And for Kyle, it’s enough.

He pulls back, his gray gaze moving over my face one last time, memorizing this moment the way he memorizes everything about me.

“I should go,” he says. “Before Scarlett comes back and lectures me about tradition.”

“You should.”

“I’ll be at the altar.” He turns back once more. “Don’t make me wait too long.”

“You won’t.”

He takes two steps, then stops.

“Mia?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

He looks over his shoulder, that half-smile again—the one that still makes my heart do something stupid in my chest.

“For giving me another chance,” he says. “I know I didn’t deserve it. I know I still don’t. But thank you.”

Then he’s gone.

The door closes.

I’m alone in the bridal suite, wearing a dress that costs more than some people’s weddings, about to walk down an aisle toward a man who once shattered my heart so completely I wasn’t sure I’d ever find all the pieces.

At fifteen, I dreamed of this moment. Dreamed of marrying Kyle Branson.

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