Betrayed By My Billionaire Husband

Chapter 1

Leona’s POV

The door bell of my favorite cafe jingled as I pushed it open. It was one that I visited every morning. The moment I entered, the air enveloped with the smell of coffee and sugar swarmed into my nostrils.

“Buongiormo, Bella!” Signora Rossi beamed with a happy wave  from behind the counter. “But you are late.” She dusted her apron.

Three years was enough time for me to disappear.

It wasn’t easy. I learnt the little tricks first. I learnt how to answer questions without really answering them, how to smile politely even when I didn’t mean it and how to keep my life on a low so that nobody knows what you’re going through.

I, Leona learnt everything within a short period of time. People didn’t need to know if it was Lila Grant or not because that woman was already dead.

“Buongiomo.” I replied her with a smile, glancing at my wristwatch.

It was 8:15am. I was indeed late. 

I took my usual seat by the window side where I could watch the street and the silent sea from the distance. I could do a little work too.

“What would you like this morning?” Rossi asked, standing at my table.

“The same.” I said without looking at her.

She scoffed. “You should change your taste sometimes.”

I opened my laptop. Emails appeared on the screen. It was the same. There were new clients, new events to polish and new online problems to handle.

Sometimes, it was strange but I had grown accustomed to fixing other people’s mistakes while my own life collapsed under one.

I reached for the sugar jar and at that moment, my hand froze. Someone had left an American magazine on the counter beside the espresso machine. It wasn’t carefully placed as whoever put it there wanted it to be found.

I flipped it. The headline was very bold. CEO ADRIAN VOSS UNDER FIRE, VOSS GLOBAL UNDER INVESTIGATION.

My chest tightened instantly. Adrian. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I shouldn’t have touched or looked at it. But my fingers and eyes had betrayed me.

I slid across the page slowly as I opened it. Adrian Voss’s face stared back at me. The photo captured him stepping out of a car where he was surrounded by reporters as their lights flashed everywhere around him.

I hadn’t seen him for three years. He looked older in the picture. I could see how tensed and cold he was. The world obviously worshipped him even if he was being torn apart by the same people.

My eyes roamed around the pages, the words becoming blur. He was accused of corporate fraud, security violations….I shit the magazine very quickly with my trembling fingers.

“Where are you going? Your coffee is almost ready.” Rossi shouted after me.

“I’ll have double of it some other time.” I rushed out.

The first thing I did when I got home was to throw the magazine in the trash. The question was why did I bring it home?

My phone buzzed on the counter. I moved to check it while packing my hair into a bun.

Marcus — ‘You vanished again.’

I rolled my eyes. Another message beeped.

Marcus — ‘By 8pm, we’d be having dinner. Do not give excuses, Bella.’

‘Fine.’ I replied.

Marcus Hale belonged to the other version of my life — the one I had repaired into. The one who appeared after the scandal, police interrogations and the cameras flashing against my face at every moment those damn reporters got.

I met Marcus when my hands used to shake a little too much whenever things got hard but he never tried to fix me. He just….stayed with me.

Somehow, I loved that because it helped me more.

Someone suddenly knocked. I stood up to open the door. Marcus stood there holding two takeout bags and two bottles of wine. I had been watching a movie and had completely forgotten about the dinner.

His dark hair was damp. I peeped out to see that rain droplets was still falling to the already soaked ground.

“Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?” He strolled in casually.

“Do I?” I closed the door, turning back to me.

Marcus studied me with his eyes. He was fond of looking at people like he was reading a book no one else could see.

“Something happened.” He stated, breaking the few seconds silence.

“Nothing happened.” I answered with a forced smile, walking into the kitchen to fetch some plates.

He followed me. “How was your day?”

“As usual.” I shrugged. “How was yours?”

Then, he began to explain how a patient was moving back to Naples because of a failed treatment and how a stray cat adopted him.

I ended up laughing my ribs out as we had a small dinner at the terrace, staring at the sea in front of us. That was almost normal for me.

When he finally left, the silence returned immediately. It was loud, thick and heavy. I laid on my bed, trying to get myself to sleep. But my laptop got opened instead.

I regretted it instantly. The first news there was about Adrian Voss. There were several articles under it which would include investigations, speculations and assumptions of what was true and what wasn’t. There were also photos of him in perfect suits, surrounded by lawyers and police.

But one of the photos caught my eyes before I could stop it. He was staring straight at the camera. It wasn’t the composed or arrogant man I knew. He looked very tired.

Just then, a memory slipped into my mind. I could hear his voice whispering into my ear the night before everything fell apart.

“I’ll fix this, Leo. I promise. Just trust me.”

I scoffed in reality. Trust? That was a very useless word. I closed the laptop with anger.

Almost into midnight, I could hear how the wind slammed slowly against my windows. The rain was falling hard now. A storm had probably rolled in from the sea.

I stood to lock the door when a knock suddenly sounded. I froze. It was dead in the night. Who would come here at such time? Definitely, not Marcus.

The knock sounded again. My throat tightened.

“Who’s there?” I asked through the door.

It was silence at first before the familiar voice spoke.

“It’s me.”

My heart slammed loudly in my chest. I could recognize that voice even if I was dead. But that was impossible. How did he find me?

Slowly. My fingers wrapped around the doorknob and twisted it open.

It suddenly seemed like the world had stopped. Adrian Voss, my ex husband stood in front of my doorstep.

I ran my eyes through him. Rain had soaked him up. Water dropped down from his dark hair into the shape line of his jaw. My throat had dried up as I forced a swallow.

It should be a hallucination, maybe a dream but the truth was that the man who I loved enough to let him destroy me was standing right in front of me.

“Hello Leona.”

Something in my heart shattered as I heard that name that sounded foreign after theee years.

My hand tightened against the doorknob. “What do you want? How did you find me?”

“You are in danger.” He said,

Fear flashed in my eyes. If Adrian Voss could have found me, it meant someone else might have too.