The Billionaire Regretted Losing His Invisible Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Fourteen Guests
At a dinner for his first love, Willa announces twins, a switched report calls her a liar, and her stepsister pushes her down the stairs while Stuart shouts the wrong name.
Stuart gave a dinner for fourteen people the night his first love came home.
He texted me the orders at noon. *Eight o'clock. Wear the grey. Celia lands at six.*
Celia was my stepsister, and her name had not been said once in our house in three years.
I read his message in the clinic waiting room with a folder on my knees.
An hour later the doctor turned her screen toward me.
"Two heartbeats," she said. "You're having twins."
I cried in the chair, and it was happiness.
Then I remembered clause nine of the contract I had signed at twenty-four: no pregnancies, or the marriage ended that day with nothing paid.
Every morning for three years I had swallowed a small white pill beside the glass of water Stuart set by my plate.
I had never missed one.
One night in October, after our anniversary wine, Stuart had come into my room, and the pill had not been enough.
After that night he could not meet my eyes for three weeks.
He had one habit I never understood.
Every night he knocked once on my bedroom door, said goodnight through the wood, and waited a moment before he walked to his own room.
He had opened that door exactly once.
I decided in the car that I would tell him tonight, in front of whoever was there.
Celia opened the penthouse door before I could find my key.
Her hair was cut short at the jaw, and she held both my hands in hers.
"Willa! You look wonderful. Stuart told me about your arrangement, and I promise I'm not here to take anything from you."
"Thank you," I said, because it was kind and I did not know what else to say.
"Give me your coat and your folder, I'll keep them safe. Go sit with Stuart. He's been pacing since five."
I gave her both.
The dining room held fourteen people, and Stuart sat at the head of the table in a black suit.
He did not see me come in.
He raised his glass. "To Celia, who is finally home."
Everyone drank to her.
Nobody drank to me.
The woman on my left asked whether I was with the catering company.
"I'm Stuart's wife," I said.
"Of course," she said, and turned back to Celia.
Over dessert Celia came around the table and set my folder beside my plate.
"You left this in the hall," she said. "I kept it safe. I didn't open it."
She squeezed my shoulder and went back to her seat.
I looked down the long table at my husband.
He was laughing at something Celia had said, and the laugh was one I had never heard in three years.
I stood up.
Fourteen faces turned toward me.
"Stuart, I have to tell you something, and I won't wait until the guests leave," I said. "I'm pregnant."
The room went quiet.
"Twelve weeks. It's twins."
I put the folder next to his plate.
He opened it, and he read it once.
His jaw tightened.
He passed the page to the man on his left, who read it and passed it down the table, hand to hand.
"It says you aren't pregnant, Willa," Stuart said.
I took the page back from a stranger's hand.
It had the clinic's name at the top and mine underneath, but it was not the page the doctor had printed for me.
This one was flat and plain, with no scan picture, and it said: *No pregnancy detected. Patient requested a written statement for a financial dispute.*
"That isn't mine," I said. "The doctor told me to my face. Call her."
"It's nine o'clock at night," Stuart said.
"Stuart, don't be hard on her," Celia said, very gently. "Some women want a baby so badly they start to believe it."
A few of the wives nodded.
"You signed clause nine yourself," Stuart said. "If you wanted out, you could have asked me. You didn't need to forge a report for the money."
He said the word money in front of every person he knew.
"I don't want your money," I said. "I'm keeping my babies."
"There are no babies."
"Then you won't mind that I'm leaving."
I walked out of the dining room with my back straight and my hands shaking.
Celia had followed me out with my coat over her arm.
"Willa, wait," she said. "Let me help you with your coat. The marble is slippery."
The staircase to the foyer was a full flight of white stone, and I stopped at the top to take the coat from her.
"Please just let me go," I said.
She put her hand flat in the middle of my back.
"Thank you for keeping his bed warm," she whispered.
Then she pushed.
I wrapped both arms around my stomach.
I hit the steps, and the landing, and then the marble floor.
From somewhere above me, Stuart shouted a name.
It was not mine.
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