The Sins of Duke Evander (BOOK III)

Chapter 24- A Fake Persona

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"You... did?" I whispered.

Once again, she nodded her head, and once again, with the nods of her head, I felt the piercing pain in my chest. And then I felt the pain rise to my head until my ears were ringing with the uncomfortable sensation that I tried holding back.

"Not... right now," I groaned, pressing down on my temples, holding it back. But I couldn't.

"Evan-"

I stood up straight, eyes pinning forward as I looked ahead of me to where my wife stood, trembling like a leaf. And my lips curved up into a smile.

Ah, I feel like I can finally breathe again.

"So... What did you discover from being such a curious little minx?" I asked, walking over to her until I stood right in front of her, tucking my hands into my pockets as I looked down at her.

"Wh-What?" She furrowed her brows, confused.

"You said you read the contents of the notebook. If you read the notebook, then you should have been able to decipher my secret. The one that I worked so hard to keep hidden from you," I raised a brow, looking at her as if she were a troublesome child.

The confusion that sat on her face was amusing to watch.

Did she really not figure it out?... I thought it was quite obvious.

"I... didn't figure anything out, but I knew that it was a big secret," Oh? Well, things just got a lot more amusing since the act is now up.

"Why are you suddenly acting so different? Just now, your eyes were filled with tears, and you were shaking and looked really scared, but..." She drifted off, looking up at me as if I were a different person, and I smirked at her.

Outstretching a hand, I held her chin, leaning down to place a light kiss on her eyelid as she squeezed her eyes shut and I chuckled under my breath.

"But what, Amore Mio?" I whispered into her ear.

"Tell me what you are thinking, even though your eyes give your thoughts away. I want to hear your thoughts with my ears, I want to hear those words leaving your lips," My finger stroked over her bottom lip, my smile widening when I felt her trembling under me.

"...You're like a different person..."

And I laughed. Stepping back, I breathed out a loud, content sigh, one of my hands going to run through my hair, the satisfied grin unmoving from my lips.

"I had my suspicions, but I never entertained the idea. That you... That you could have..." I patiently waited for her to finish speaking, urging her on with my eyes as she gulped.

"Split... personality?" She breathed out.

And my smirk grew even wider.

"...Bingo..."

She hiccuped, taking a step back, but I stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her up to my chest as she bit down on her lip, eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

"Why-Why didn't you tell me?" She asked, hands clenching onto my shirt.

"Me? I wanted to tell you. It was Evander that never let me do so, we had an agreement between us, it's written in that notebook-" I nudged my head towards the notebook on the ground. "-That's how we communicated with each other. Neither of us was ever truly ourselves, we had to meet in the middle to create a believable persona for you, our wife,"

"So everything was a lie? Which one were you? And which one was the other person? Which one of you did I fall in love with, and get married to, and... and..."

"And sleep with?" I smirked as she hiccuped once more.

"That was probably me more than Evan," I leaned down to whisper in her ear, smiling when her face lit up with a blush.

"Evander and I are completely different people. That guy, the host, is the owner of this body, he's a wimp that can never do anything right. I manifested when we were 5-years-old, and I was all the better versions of him, but apparently, I'm a bit psychotic,"

"I-I can't comprehend all this right now,"

"All in due time, darling... But, I am pleased to see you taking the news so well, this wasn't what either of us expected," I proudly said, picking her up in my arms as I went to go sit her down on the bed.

"I don't know much about split personality, but I do know that it manifests from traumatic memories, and neither of you had an easy childhood life," She explained, pulling the blanket up to her thighs as she rested against the headboard.

Smiling, I sat down beside her, brushing her hair out of her face before lightly kissing her lips.

"All I can do is thank you for understanding, and when the time is right, either Evan or I will make sure to tell you the full details of everything, but for now, at least, focus on the pregnancy, we do not want the twins being stressed,"

She didn't reply, she only looked at me as if trying to decipher a difficult maths question.

"What?" I eventually asked.

"You keep calling him Evan... But, who are you?" This time it was me that blinked in surprise. I guess she knew more about dissociative identity disorder than she originally let on.

As an alter, I wasn't there since birth. I was born when Evan was 5, I was born to protect him from his parents. And I was different, we shared the same body, but we were both worlds apart from each other, and I was my own person.

"Everyone that knows of my existence calls me Alvise,"

Evander Alvise Moretti. That was our name, but Evan was Evan, and I was Alvise.

"Who is everyone?" She curiously asked.

"Our therapist, Clyde, and now you,"

"Clyde knows? Why were you shouting at him like that downstairs then?"

"I did?" I raised a brow. "It was probably Evan that did that. I only came out a few minutes ago," Her lips parted in realisation as she thought back to the specific moment. "But... To answer your question, Clyde was the one that found out we had a dissociative personality disorder, that's why he knows... He knows everything that man," I mumbled.

She breathed out a deep sigh, moving to lie down in bed as she got comfortable, cradling her stomach in her arms as she blinked away a few tears.

"Alina... What's wrong?" I asked.

"I just wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me that secret... I don't think I deserved to find out like this," And she pulled the blanket up to cover her face, and I was left staring at the material instead of her face.

"This wasn't about trust, my love. It was about the fear of you leaving us... We want to give you the world, but we can't do that if you're not here, and what's the point of having the world if you don't even want it? Seeing you happy was all we needed, neither of us stopped to think that the lies we made up, and the fake persona we showed you would come to an end so soon,"

She didn't say anything.

I furrowed my brows, running a hand down my face as I leaned down to kiss what I thought was her head, it wasn't very easy to tell with the blanket covering her.

"Get some rest. When Evan comes out again, he'll tell you more,"

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