He Scorned His Substitute Wife, Now He Begs Her Back novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Super Plus Errand
Livia runs a box of tampons through the rain to her husband's club, overhears that he would choose his ex every time, and is thrown down the stairs that night. He says her real name; she walks out, and her mother texts that her twin lands tomorrow.
At twenty to nine on a Thursday night, in a downpour, Luca Benedetti ordered his wife to bring him a box of tampons.
Everyone in the city called her Mirella Benedetti.
Her name was Livia Carrano, and she had used her twin sister's name for three years.
She was folding napkins in the kitchen of their house when her phone lit up with his name.
"The Marlowe Club, twenty minutes," Luca said. "Super plus."
"Luca, it's an hour's drive, and the highway is flooded."
He hung up.
She didn't ask who the box was for.
His old love, the woman in every photo in his study, had been back in the city for three months.
One more month, Livia told herself, and the marriage would end.
On the last day her mother had promised her three million dollars.
She took an umbrella and the car keys.
On the way the expressway stopped moving, and the clock on the dash said twelve minutes left.
Livia shoved the door open and ran.
The rain soaked her in a block.
Her heels skidded on the wet pavement, and she went down hard on one knee.
She got up, tucked the box under her coat to keep it dry, and ran on.
She reached the Marlowe Club in the nineteenth minute.
The VIP room was at the end of a long carpeted corridor.
She was lifting her hand to knock when she heard her husband laughing.
"It's pouring out and you made Mrs. Benedetti bring that? It's an hour's drive, easy."
"Tierney is in pain," Luca said. "She'll find a way."
Another man said, "Three years and your wife's still at your side, with somebody else in your heart."
A woman asked, half teasing, "She's gorgeous, Luca. You've never once been tempted?"
The room went quiet.
"If I ever have to choose between her and Tierney," Luca said, "I choose Tierney. Every time."
It was a blunt thing to hear through a door.
Livia felt relief.
He wanted nothing from her, and in one month she wanted nothing from him.
She waited until the talk moved on, then knocked.
The room froze when she walked in.
Someone said, "My God, she actually made it."
Luca stood and frowned at her wet hair and the blood on her stocking.
"What happened?"
"You said twenty minutes." She handed him the box. "I was afraid you'd be waiting, so I got out and ran."
She didn't mention the fall.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he took off his suit jacket and put it over her shoulders.
"Put this on. Take that to the ladies' room."
She nodded and went.
She knocked on the restroom door.
"I have the tampons."
The door opened a crack, and then all the way.
Tierney Holloway stood there in a cream silk dress, her hair dry and perfect.
She looked at Livia's knee and gasped.
"Mirella, you're bleeding. Oh, you poor thing. He's a brute."
She pressed a folded towel into Livia's hands.
"Thank you. Go home and get warm."
Behind her, a steel dispenser hung on the tile wall with a coin slot in front.
Livia took the towel and said it was no trouble.
She left by the terrace corridor and the side door, because it was shorter to the taxi line.
She was home before ten.
At twenty to midnight, she was nearly asleep when her bedroom door was kicked open.
Luca dragged her out of bed by the wrist.
"Get up."
He hauled her to the top of the stairs.
"Luca, what are you..."
He shoved her.
The back of her head hit the edge of a step, and then she fell over and over, all the way down.
She lay at the bottom with the hall light swimming above her and something warm running into her eye.
Luca came down one step at a time.
"Tierney is in surgery. She went off the Marlowe's terrace tonight with six broken bones."
"Did you push her?"
"I left at nine," Livia said. "I went home."
"The terrace camera has you in my jacket."
"You put it on me."
He crouched and took her chin in his hand.
"Look at me, Livia Carrano."
Cold went through her.
Her left cheek was bare.
Every morning for three years she had drawn a small beauty mark under her left eye, the one her sister had.
The rain had taken it off.
"I knew in the church," Luca said. "I know exactly who you are."
He had known for three years, and he had said nothing.
"Our arrangement is business. I'll never give you the love you want."
Livia nearly laughed.
She had never wanted it.
She put a hand on the banister and stood, though the hall tilted.
Blood ran down her neck.
"Then we agree," she said. "I'm done."
She took her gray wool coat from the hall closet.
It was the one thing in this house she had owned before the wedding.
"Walk out and the money is gone," Luca said behind her.
"Keep it."
She opened the front door into the rain.
At the gate her phone buzzed.
It was her mother.
Mirella lands Friday, the text said. Come home and fix this before she does.
Friday was tomorrow.
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