The CEO's Unwanted Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Signed Without Reading
Linnea hands her husband a divorce petition disguised as a lab form while he holds another woman, and he signs it without looking; that night Zurich calls and she has five days.
At four in the afternoon, I walked into my husband's office and found his chief of staff sitting on his lap.
The door was open a hand's width.
I smelled her perfume before I saw her, warm vanilla and cedar, the one Dalton had banned from every floor of Merrow Tower.
Vanessa Endicott sat sideways across his knees with one arm around his neck.
His hand lay on her waist, and his thumb moved in slow circles over her dress.
Dalton's mouth was on the side of her throat.
Then he looked up and saw me.
"You're back," he said, as if I were the mail.
Vanessa did not get up.
She turned her head and gave me a warm, easy smile, the same one she gave the doormen.
"Linnea, hi. We were just going over the week. Sit down, you look tired. Do you want tea?"
"No, thank you."
Her bag sat open on the corner of the desk, a cream envelope with a coffee ring on it poking out.
Her free hand rested on it, flat and still.
I had come with a plan, and the plan did not include anything on my face.
I crossed the carpet and set a thin blue folder in front of him.
"What's this?" Dalton asked, and his eyes went back to Vanessa's mouth before I answered.
"A form from the lab," I said. "A liability waiver for the new equipment. The university needs it signed by my legal spouse."
"Your legal spouse," Vanessa said, tasting the words. "That's so formal."
"It's the rule."
Dalton laughed once through his nose.
"Another school form. She brings me a new one every month, Van. It keeps her busy."
Vanessa squeezed his shoulder.
"Don't say it like that. She's lovely about it. She never complains about anything."
I kept my eyes on the signature line.
"I'm late for the lab," I said. "It only needs your name. You're my husband, and you're the only family I have left."
For one second his hand stopped on Vanessa's waist.
It was a small pause, and I filed it away.
Then Vanessa shifted her weight, and the pause was over.
He pulled a black pen from his shirt pocket.
He did not look at the page. He did not look at the title at the top.
He signed his full name in one hard stroke, Dalton Merrow, and slid the folder back across the desk with two fingers.
"Done."
"Thank you," I said.
Vanessa's cheek rested against his hair.
"You're so good at staying out of the way, Linnea," she said fondly. "Honestly, we'd all be lost without you."
Dalton's eyes touched my face and slid off it.
Then he turned and kissed her.
I picked up the folder.
The ink was still wet.
I walked out past his assistant's empty desk, down the long corridor, and into the elevator.
The doors closed, and only then did my hands begin to shake.
In the lobby, his driver stood by the black car with the back door open for me, the way he did every day.
Dalton had never once driven himself anywhere, and I had never asked why.
I told the driver I would take the train.
I opened the folder inside my bag, just far enough to read the top line.
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
Under it, his name, signed by the man who had never once read anything I handed him.
I looked at that signature for a long time.
Then I smiled, because there was nobody left in the elevator to see it.
I was not happy.
I was out.
That night I sat on the edge of the bed in the Brookline house with my suitcase open on the floor.
It was the bed I had slept in alone for four years, in a room that smelled of his cedar soap.
His side of it was still made the way the housekeeper made it.
I had been planning this since March.
My passport was behind the false back of my mother's sewing box. My notebooks were in a gym bag that I carried to the lab every morning.
I had kept them there because in the Merrow house, a wife survived by being quiet.
Leaving a man like Dalton took something more than quiet.
It took being a little smarter than a man who thought no one could outplay him.
My phone rang at nine.
It was a Swiss number, and I stood up before I answered it.
"Dr. Voight? I'm calling from the director's office at the Zurich Biomedical Research Institute. We have been trying to reach you under the name Merrow."
"Voight is right," I said. "I'm taking back my maiden name."
"Good. Then I can tell you the selection board voted unanimously. Your regeneration work is the strongest in this year's applications. The fellowship is yours."
I sat down on the bed because my knees stopped holding me.
"When can you start?" he asked.
I looked around the room. At the closet full of clothes his shopper had picked. At his pillow, which nobody had slept on in four years.
"Five days," I said. "Give me five days."
"We'll arrange the airport, the apartment, everything. You won't need to worry about anything."
When the call ended, the house was very quiet.
In my left hand was the petition with his name on it.
In my right was the confirmation for my flight.
Five days, and then I would be gone.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend