He Dropped His Secret Wife for His First Love, Then Couldn't Run His Own Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Shares Vested
On their third anniversary in suite 1204, Weston tells Lily the marriage was only ever for his shares and his first love is back. She signs, leaves the ring on the table and bites his lip when he kisses her.
Suite 1204 had been ours on the eighteenth of October for three years.
I let myself in with my own key card, in the green dress he liked.
A cream coat that was not mine lay across the armchair.
It was a woman's coat, soft and expensive, with a long platinum hair caught on the collar.
Weston stood at the window with his back to me.
He didn't turn around when the door clicked shut.
"Lily," he said. "Sit down."
I stayed where I was.
Three years ago I had stood in this same spot with a courthouse certificate folded in my purse and a ring on a chain under my collar.
The ring was still there, warm against my skin.
"Whose coat is that?" I asked.
"Blythe's."
He said it the way you say the name of a city you grew up in.
I knew the name.
Blythe Carrington had left him at twenty-four for London and a man with a title.
He had never once said her name in my bed.
"She's back," he said. "Her father's bank is refinancing the hotels, and her father wants a merger."
"A merger."
"A marriage, Lily. Mine and hers."
I laughed, because it was the only sound I had.
"You're married."
"I'm married to my executive assistant, in a ceremony nobody saw." He finally turned around, and his face was the one he used for the board. "The shares vested the day after the courthouse. That was the whole point."
The room was very quiet.
I could hear the minibar humming and the harbor wind pressing on the glass.
"You told me it was so your mother couldn't pick your bride," I said.
"That was true as well."
"You told me you loved me."
"I was fond of you." He picked a folder off the desk and held it out. "I'm not going to insult you with more than that."
The folder was heavy and cream colored, with a law firm's name embossed on the front.
Inside was a petition for divorce, an amicable one, with a severance check clipped to the first page.
It was for two hundred thousand dollars.
I read the figure twice.
Every night for three years I had come to this hotel after the staff went home.
I had refilled his mother's pillbox on Sundays and booked his dentist, and kept his schedule, and slept beside him until he slept.
Nobody had ever given me a number for it.
"You'll want to resign tomorrow," he said. "Quietly. Blythe would like it not to be messy."
"Blythe would like."
"Don't make this ugly."
I looked at the man I had married.
He was very handsome standing there, with his black hair cropped close and the dimple in his chin and the tie I had knotted for him that morning.
I realized I was not going to cry in front of him.
I walked to the desk and took the pen from the blotter.
I signed the petition on the line marked Petitioner Two.
My hand was perfectly steady, and I watched him notice.
I pulled the chain over my head and set the ring on the folder, on top of the check.
It made a small click.
"Keep your money," I said. "Give the ring to Blythe."
Something moved in his face.
It was not regret, not yet, but it was close to surprise.
"Lily."
I picked up my coat and he crossed the room in three strides and caught my wrist.
His hand was hot, and it shook a little.
"Say something," he said.
"Congratulations."
"Not that."
He pulled me against his chest, and his mouth came down on mine, hard and angry and familiar.
For one second my body answered him before the rest of me could stop it.
My lips parted and my fingers curled into his shirt.
Then I bit down on his lower lip until I tasted copper.
He grunted and let go.
Blood beaded bright on his mouth, and he touched it with his thumb and looked at the red.
And he was smiling.
"There she is," he said softly.
I picked up my bag and walked out.
I did not look back at the coat on the armchair.
The elevator doors closed on his face, and he was still smiling.
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