Chapter 145 Alexander

Chapter 145 Talia
The client thanked her and left, and slowly the boutique began to quiet down as the morning rush eased.

Celine, who had originally come in for a simple hem adjustment, lingered near the accessories wall. She didn’t look rushed to leave at all, she stood there comfortably, as if she was settling in and waiting for the rest of her moment to unfold.

Amber gave her a small, composed nod.

“Coffee?” she asked lightly. “We’ve got a machine in the back, proper espresso.”

Celine’s face brightened immediately. “Yes, please.”

From a few steps away, Darla hovered just out of direct conversation range. The moment Celine wasn’t looking, she pulled a silent, exaggerated face at Amber, clear disapproval without a single word.

Amber saw it, registered it, and chose not to respond. She simply turned and walked toward the back to prepare two cups of coffee.

When Amber came back, Celine had already made herself comfortable on the velvet bench near the fitting rooms, sitting with her legs crossed as if she belonged there.

Amber handed her the cup and then settled into the styling chair across from her. Her posture was composed, her expression warm, professional, and fully attentive. On the surface, nothing had changed, she was exactly the same calm, capable presence she always was.

But inside, her thoughts were swaying in different directions. 

“Talk,” she thought quietly. “Keep talking.” She was gradually recording the facts. 

Celine wasn't planning to quit her gist anytime soon. Amber wondered what made her so comfortable. 

She had seen and heard of cases of betrayal in other families but they'd never been like this. 

Why was her own different? 

Did Archer want another wife or a Co-wife? Either hurt deeply but the later hurt even deeper. 

But for the meantime she couldn't figure out. She had to keep on listening to the talker enemy. 

The villa came up again. Then the cars, three of them, Celine mentioned. “Because he couldn’t decide which one I liked best, so in the end he simply bought all three. A driver on call five days a week.” 

“Like serious?” Amber gasped in wonder, crossing her arms over her chest. Meanwhile here, Archer never bought a car for her. 

She kept on going up to spilling the personal account he had opened in her name, separate from anything tied to shared expenses or joint purchases.

“He deposited millions of dollars in it. Ten to be precise.” Celine said. 

Yet when she established her boutique, he put nothing to support her. And he was still a CEO and millionaire then. 

Amber pushed off a heavy breath, trying to manage her weak hands. 

She took a slow sip of her coffee and gave a small, controlled nod. 

Then Celine let out a light laugh, almost careless, and added, “He even has an arrangement. For every baby. He deposits a fixed amount each time. It’s already written into the contract.”

The coffee cup in Amber’s hand dropped, hitting the table with a stud song. 

She sprang up, leaning closer. Celine jerked back, shocked. Amber gulped. 

“Like……shocked.” She stammered. “Lots of men don't do that.” 

Celine seeing this reaction was a product of shock heaved and quickly moved to answer. 

“Per baby, yesss.” Celine affirmed. Amber's head churned, she rolled her palm over her forehead with a lowered face. 

“Yes,” Celine cut through, grinning from ear to ear as though she'd just won or always won a lottery. “Per baby. He’s very generous about these things. Always has been.”

Always has been.

The words hit hard. 

“Isn't it the same Archer who asked us to have a baby after five years?” She sternly questioned herself, deep inside of her mind. 

“So he got kids outside, that's why he doesn't wants from me?” She pondered. 

Gradually, things were getting clearer to her. Her mind was digging out more and more details buried in the past, those she overlooked and worse of it, those she supported which was this. 

On their first year, Archer had sat across from her in the home office, confessing he didn't want kids first. She and him were busy, they had to set things in order first before getting into the complicated fate of parenthood. 

Cash flow was tight, according to him. 

The boutique expansion she had been working toward for fourteen months, the second location she had already begun planning in detail, would need to be delayed. He'd also ordered. 

She had accepted them all without questioning. She agreed, mostly because Archer was the one with the billion-dollar company, and she assumed he had a clearer understanding of finances than she did.

Or, at least enough that it wasn’t worth turning into a conflict. She couldn't afford to quarrel with her husband. He was good to her, she didn't want to turn the bad wife. 

So she let it go. The expansion was paused, the second location quietly shelved, and she told herself it was only a delay, nothing more.

She would have even stepped off her passionate career if he'd asked her to. 

Now all these looked like the most foolish things she ever did since she was born. 

Her mind swayed back to the past. 

She had set aside her own plans because he told her the money wasn’t there. Little did she know that it was because apparently, he was making arrangements to pay another woman per child. He was busy making million dollars babies. 

“You must feel very taken care of,” Amber said after a long moment of her silence. 

“Always,” Celine grinned. “What about you? Married?”

“Urrgh?” She stammered. She wasn't expecting this. 

“Five years,” Amber managed to say afterwards. 

Celine’s gaze flickered, over Amber’s hand, the subtle presence of her ring, then across her face and the boutique around them. 

For a brief moment, something in her expression changed, just enough to suggest she was recalculating what she thought she knew.

Something like satisfaction flickered across Celine’s expression, faint, almost lazy, or maybe it was just the quiet comfort of comparison, of feeling like she was winning a game another was losing at it. 

An air of familiarity cruised in. 

“That’s a long time,” she said.

“It is,” Amber replied. “Same years?” 

“Yes,” she replied. 

Amber's hands weakened. She dropped her cup, sitting straight. 

“So Archer married two wives and I didn't know?” She slowly nodded her head, kept nodding, until Celine tapped her and she looked up to see her pride look. 

“You just zoned out.” 

“Oh sorry….I'm sorry.” She snapped, shaking her head. 

“What's wrong?” Celine asked but it sounded like sarcasm to her.

A few seconds later, she stood up, collected both cups from the table without even asking if Celine was done. She made her way to the dispenser, dropping the cups in the rack and from there went to the stockroom, closing the door behind her.

For a moment, she just stood there. Then her knees hit the edge of a shelving unit and she caught herself with both hands, gripping the cold metal rack. It pressed sharply into her palms, and she didn’t pull away.

She needed it, the pain, the pressure, anything physical enough to anchor her in something real.

Because everything else had shifted into something unreal, and it had happened too quickly to fully hold onto.

A child. He had a child. Maybe even more than one. 

The villa he had described as a corporate asset. 

The expansion he told her to delay because of ‘cash flow issues’ that now didn’t seem to exist at all.

While she had been scaling back her plans, he had been building an entirely different life. 

Celine was the golden wife. 

And she? The abandoned wife. 

Living with him was just an illusion he used to deceive her. He wasn't even present all the times. Someone who went for courses often. Who kept late nights. 

They all made sense to her now.

Her throat tightened, closing in on itself, as the truth settled in and refused to leave.

A tear slipped out, then another, then a few more before she stopped trying to keep track. After that, she simply stood there in the quiet of the stockroom of the boutique she had built with her own hands and let it happen.