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THE SECRET IN THE FRAME

Chapter 5 What He Won't Say

Word Count: 970    |    Released on: 11/03/2026

t confr

mart decision

ant he could deny it, seal it back up, and make me look unstable. I was

eded

led at b

his 7

rnoon to absorb two

what he pa

I wa

-

tw

ood c

rter. The staff moved differently around him, more careful, and Mrs. Aldeen told me quietly at

d that

meaning wha

for a moment. D

this time," she sai

what?"

her tea. "Ask

alked

-

ght him a contract re

tting with one hand flat on the desk and h

e docume

d to

own,"

sa

look at th

oked

ferent since day

s going

what I'm tal

. "I don't know

ack. Crosse

gh. Like he was reading past your face into whatever you'd had for

after Voss's v

t to manage

hl

ame

ine,"

uiet for

he st

to the

tched his reflection in the glass because I could

a son,"

left t

dn't

was - she was in a difficult position. There were people around me at the time who made d

ldn't

was arranged." His jaw moved. "By the time I found out, the age

raph is fr

n the corr

rned

through the seal of him - the same

tro

his?" I said. My voice ca

oked

long

ldn't name and the way he was looking at me was

know,"

ne

st thing he h

too

some air

n't st

-

to the

end where the hedges were high and

ds between

dn't

nely did

searching

trying to

hat gala - whatever had moved me through the specific chai

out this w

son so

a son s

same

for tearing him away from both of us had just loo

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wn nu

nsw

o's

wo days now, Miss Banks.

sed m

orking

. "Nice house you're s

all e

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laying the assistant - I was living under the same roof a

up at t

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aze across t

of us lo

-

back to the locked

photograp

t it for a

hing I hadn't do

myse

for

re

dried m

ted maki

-

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THE SECRET IN THE FRAME
THE SECRET IN THE FRAME
“I opened the wrong door. That was my only crime. I saw Roman Hale - the most powerful man alive - so vulnerable and broken, sitting on the floor of an empty room, crying over a photograph nobody was supposed to see. I tried to vanish as someone who doesn't exist at all, praying he hadn't seen my face, but I was so wrong. Three days later his car was outside my building, he didn't come for an apology or to silence me-he came to cage me. He called it an opportunity. I call it a random for a life that I'm barely holding together What neither of us said out loud was the thing sitting between us every single day -the secret so large it had its own weight, its own breathing room, its own four-year-old face. He's been searching for a son he doesn't know I gave birth to. I've been searching for a child I don't know he's been funding a war to find. We are looking for the same person. And the man who took him from both of us is standing in this house. Smiling.”