I Can Hear My Paralyzed Billionaire Husband's Thoughts novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ring
Delaney throws her ring at Clara and tells her to marry the vegetable, Clara touches the groom's hand and hears him think, and she marries him.
Delaney pulled off her engagement ring in front of three hundred guests and threw it at my face.
It hit my cheekbone and rolled under the front pew.
Nobody went after it.
"Marry him yourself, Clara," she said. "You've spent your whole life wiping up after people. Here's one more."
She flung her bouquet into the lap of the man in the wheelchair and walked off the altar step.
My mother clapped.
My father clapped a second later, so she wouldn't be the only one.
Phones came up all over the chapel.
I was standing in the aisle in a bridesmaid dress two sizes too big, because Delaney had wanted me to look like the help.
The man in the wheelchair was Damian Wicklow.
He was thirty-one, the CEO of Wicklow Global, and three months ago his brakes had failed on a mountain road.
Since then he had not moved, spoken or answered a single question.
The doctors said there was probably nobody home.
His mother had pushed the wedding forward anyway, because the board needed to see that the Wicklow heir still had a future.
Delaney had just handed all of them a disaster, on camera.
"Take the flowers off him," my mother hissed at me. "Don't stand there."
I stepped up to the altar and lifted the bouquet from Damian's lap.
My fingers brushed the back of his hand.
Three years, a voice said, inside my head.
I stopped moving.
It was deep and furious, and so clear that I looked around for the man who had said it.
Nobody near me had opened a mouth.
Three years of my life, and she couldn't give me three months. Fine. At least now I know what she is.
I looked down at Damian.
His eyes were open and fixed on the stained glass. His face did not move at all.
The voice kept going.
If I'm still like this when the board meets, my cousin takes everything. And my cousin is the one who cut my brakes. I know it. I just can't say it.
My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the front row could hear it.
I snatched my hand away, and the voice kept going.
It came from him and from nobody else in the chapel.
I didn't know why, and I didn't have time to care.
Because the voice had said something else, quieter now, and almost desperate.
Fifty million dollars. To whoever keeps me alive. To whoever is actually on my side. I'd give it all if I ever get my voice back.
Fifty million.
I thought about my parents' basement, where I had slept for nineteen years.
I thought about Delaney's bathroom, which I had scrubbed every Saturday since I was twelve.
I thought: fifty million dollars.
On the tray of Damian's wheelchair, a small heart monitor gave a sudden run of fast beeps.
A nurse in the front row leaned over to check it.
"Just a spike," she said. "It's nothing."
His mother was crying into a tissue, mascara cracking along her cheeks.
Her nephew Rhett stood beside her, Damian's cousin, one arm around her shoulders, handsome and sad in a perfect black suit.
"Aunt Bea," he said gently. "Sit down. We'll cancel this and sort it out."
"Don't you dare," I said.
Every head in the chapel turned.
I walked up to Beatrice Wicklow with the bouquet still in my hand.
"I'm Delaney's older sister," I said. "I'm a certified nursing assistant. If you'll have me, I'll marry Damian today."
The chapel went completely silent.
Beatrice studied me for a long moment, with her tissue crushed in her fist.
"You understand he may never recover?"
"I understand."
"You'd be a wife in name only. Feeding schedules and bedsores. No honeymoon. No life."
"I've nursed my bedridden grandparents since I was twelve," I said. "I'm good at it. I don't complain."
Who is this girl?
I had my hand on the back of Damian's chair now, and his voice sharpened.
Delaney's sister? Delaney said her sister was a jealous liar who stole her jewelry and pushed her down the stairs. That one?
I kept my face blank.
I had never touched Delaney in my life, and I could not say so.
"Take her," my mother said, pushing in beside Beatrice. "She's perfect. She's been serving this family since she could walk. She'll serve yours."
"No need to send her home first," my father said. "She can go with you tonight."
"Who will look after Grandma?" I asked.
"Grandma stays with us," my mother said, without looking at me. "Delaney will want your room by tonight."
Behind them, Delaney laughed into her phone.
"The maid and the mannequin," she said to her friends. "Somebody should film the vows."
Liar, Damian thought, slow and cold. Look at them. They're throwing her out with the trash.
Beatrice took both my hands in hers.
"Then let's begin," she said.
The officiant cleared his throat.
I stood next to the wheelchair and said "I do" twice, once for me and once for him.
The moment we were pronounced husband and wife, his voice dropped low in my head.
I don't know who you are, Clara Maddox. But don't trust anyone in this room.
Someone here is still trying to finish the job.
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