Share

CHAPTER TWO

last update publish date: 2026-04-05 22:25:38

Aria felt so much pain as she came to the conclusion that Jeffery had moved on and he really just wanted to get rid of her.

“You should sign those papers,” he nodded towards the table where the papers sat.

She collected the pen from him, and was about to sign but then she stopped.

This will ruin her. How will she continue with her life when the news spreads throughout the media. 

If what he said was true, what are her parents' plans for her?

She would have nowhere else to go.

She shook her head and took a step back. “No… no, I cannot sign this,” her voice was barely audible and she dropped the pen.

Tears glistened in her eyes as she tried to beg Jeffery. “Please, I am sure we can make this work. If it is because of the miscarriages we can try other options. I will ensure we are happy.”

“Stop stalling Aria. Sign the papers and everything will go back to the way it was. You will continue with whatever it is you wanted to do before you were thrown into my life and I will be with the woman I love.”

Aria knew now that Jeffery could never love her, but she still couldn't sign the papers.

How would her life continue without him.

Her voice broke as she sobbed. “No, I am sorry. I will not sign these papers.”

The turned to leave when he dragged her back roughly. “Where the hell do you think you are going?!”

“You don't have a choice, you must sign now!” He yelled.

“I said I will not!” she screamed back, just then their staff walked past.

“I will not let you leave me Jeffery, I don’t care if you are …”

“Don’t you dare continue. The staff is close and she is probably listening. I cannot afford a scandal right now I have a deal with Adrian Morelli”

“So, your deal with Adrian Morelli is more important than my well being right now.”

“Don’t start now… I will not let you drag this out. I will not let you ruin things for me. Sign it now!”

His grip tightened becoming painful.

She whimpered, nodding quickly and he took a step back from her as she moved to sign.

Her hands trembled as she held the pen and scribbled her signature.

He had never held her in such a threatening manner. It suddenly felt like he was another person.

As she finished signing, he smiled brightly.

She took deep breaths to control her sobs. 

“Thank you,” he picked up the papers and moved towards the door before he stopped to look at her.

Just then, Jeffery’s phone buzzed, Aria turned to look it and it was a message from Valerie.

V: Has she signed yet.

“You will be given 15 percent of my assets for all your troubles and…”

“I don't want anything from you!” She turned to face Jeffery.

“Better take whatever you can and what I am offering because you will need it.” He spoke like he knew what was to come.

She paused and thought about what he said. She didn't say anything.

“Good. You have until tomorrow evening to leave Valerie will be moving in.” He continued towards the door and paused again.

“Do you need anything else or have anything to say?” she shook her head not trusting herself to be able to make a sentence right now.

She stood there hugging herself as she sobbed hoping that the tighter she held herself, it would keep her from breaking but that was impossible.

Why was life like this to her? It never seemed to work in her favor. 

The tears she had been holding since he came back started flowing out rapidly as she mourned the life she had lost.

She was no longer his wife and she had no idea what she wanted to do. She couldn't go back to her father's house because he wouldn't want her there even though him and her step mother knew about this mess.

She knew they would still find a way to blame her and make it her fault.

She regretted ever agreeing to marry Jeffery and more importantly, falling in love with him.

She dropped to the floor and cried until she fell asleep. She prayed that when she woke up, it will all be a nightmare and she will still be Mrs. Watson.

****

Aria opened her eyes and was surprised to see Jeffery looking down at her. She stood up as fast as she could, making her heart beat faster.

‘Why is he here? Is he rethinking his decision?’ She thought.

“Good mornin…”

“Be ready in 15 minutes. Our presence is required in the family house.”

Her heart raced.

His family house? Are his parents already aware of the divorce? What will they say? What of his sisters? So many thoughts flashed through her mind as she ran to take a shower.

She came out dressed to the living room and he stood up walking to the door. He didn't even look up from his phone or say a word to her.

The drive to the family's estate was silent. Jeffery was typing away on his phone while Aria stared through the window and tried to keep her heart beating at a steady pace.

Her thoughts wandered as to why his parents would want to see her and when she couldn't take it anymore, she turned towards him. “Jeffery, why are we going to see your parents?”

He just glanced at her and back to his phone like she hadn't said anything substantial. 

The car finally stopped at the house driveway and Jeffery got out immediately.

Aria fumbled with her seat belt and chased after him when she got out of the car.

She took a deep breath when she spotted Mrs. Watson, Jeffery's mother.

“Jeffery!” His mother called out happily pulling him into a hug.

“Good morning everyone.” Aria greeted with a small smile but nobody responded. 

They all ignored her as usual. It wasn't always like this, it started when she got married to Jeffery in place of her sister.

“Mrs. Watson!” A cheerful voice called from behind her and her stomach twisted in dread.

She turned to see Valerie catwalking towards them smiling widely.

Jeffery's mother hugged her and his family members acknowledged her.

Her chest hurt even more when Jeffery hugged and kissed her. 

“How are you?” he asked her.

Three simple words but they stung because he had never asked her in their three years of being together.

She felt embarrassed and tried to cover it up with a smile but her face felt too stiff.

“Alright, it's time for breakfast everyone.” Mrs. Watson called out and they all moved the dining table.

Valerie stayed by Jeffery's side like she was his wife as everyone arranged themselves round the table. 

She moved to the end of the table and was about to sit down when Mrs. Watson spoke up. “Oh no. Why don't you bring in the dishes.”

“What?”

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

    What changed after the accident was not what she thought would change. She thought grief would cause distance the kind of specific, contracted distance grief sometimes calls for, the turning inward that is not rejection but is equally isolating, She thought she would need for a period of time the solitude that processes things without an audience.Though, what she ended up requiring was the very thing she was most alien to. She had to create.With a wrist immobilized by a brace, ribs that confined her movement by pain, and the collection waiting with the calm, forgiving patience of the very works to which one keeps promising a return when finally ready, she flopped down in the studio the day that marked four since she had gotten home from the hospital, the same place where she was back, not surprisingly, with the same work that had given her the idea and that had been relying on her coming back to it for a long time, as if in slow and unconditional remembrance. She was

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

    He was at the island. Since he was in the kitchen, it meant that it was late enough that the study had ceased to be a sufficient container for whatever he was working through and, as she had come so many times, he too had come to the kitchen, the room in the apartment that was truly theirs, unlike the others which were not quite theirs.It was half past eleven. It was not the middle of the night she was not well enough yet to be awake at three in the morning, and Marianna had apparently imposed an earlier bedtime on her with the gentle authority of a person who knows that recovering is more about sleep than it is about the presence of the person you love.At 11, she woke up and, since she could not fall asleep again, she made her way to the kitchen.He had a glass of water and a phone; his face revealed that he had been sitting in one place a long time, deeply engaged in thinking, going through different stages, until finally, thinking stopped being a productive

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

    She returned on a Thursday.The penthouse looked exactly as she had left it. But it felt totally different, the way something familiar can suddenly feel unfamiliar after you have been somewhere awful and come back. The dimensions had not changed.The light in the room was the same autumn light that she had seen four days ago. The scent was the unique mixture of coffee and the particular freshness of a well-kept apartment that she had started to associate with the smell of home.Yet.After Marianna had helped her with her coat (having a fractured wrist made most activities that needed two hands into things that needed help), she stood in the entrance hall for a moment, glancing at the penthouse and sensed how the familiar place had gained a new aspect, the aspect that places get when something happens in them, or in you, that changes your relationship with them forever in a subtle way.She felt like, I have changed. Not in a way I can pinpoint exact

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

    He showed up every day.She hadn't really asked him to. She hadn't really asked him not to either. The development had been natural, the way most things between them came about not by a conscious decision but by the inherent pull of two people who, over time, had built a set of habits that had now become their normal way of doing things.He came in the mornings, before his office hours. He came in the evenings, after. On the second day he brought food it wasn't from a restaurant, not ordered in a typical way of a man who was managing a logistics problem, but from the kitchen, which meant that Marianna had made it and he had carried it all the way across the city Himself in a thermal container with the focused, practical care he brought to things that mattered. Without any big deal he placed it on the hospital tray. He didn't say it was from Marianna. He didn't say he had carried it himself.She enjoyed it. She kept quiet about its origin.&n

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

    He was deciding on the tenth piece when the other vehicle showed up.This was the kind of fascination that sticks to you later unconsciously and in a very odd and random way like the mind gripping tight to the small and palpable while the huge and intangible are simply too much to handle. She had been thinking of the coat, of the lining, of whether the silk she had purchased from the Canal Street importer was the right weight or whether the way it would change with movement would be the reason the whole silhouette was ruined, and the deciding part of her was telling that it was exactly right, that she had known that it was exactly right from the very first moment, and that the little voice of doubt was the ordinary doubt of a person who has gone so far in something that she can no longer trust her own judgement about it.Just then the car came from the left.Turns out it had been on standby. The traffic cam at the junction had captured a four-door car, engine running, illegally parked

  • HOW I BECAME THE BILLIONIARE’S SURROGATE.   CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

    The SoHo showroom launched in September, at a day that had the unique feeling of New York in early fall the precise golden light, the air with its first hint of coolness after the summer's hut, the city that had been struggling with heat and now felt, in the first weeks of September, like itself again.She had been making the infrastructure throughout the summer. Not completely isolated she had a team by July, a team she had carefully put together with the same care she always gave to hiring: a production manager who had worked for three different brands and knew the specific limitations of a brand launch; a sales associate whose contacts in the boutique retail world took years to build; a studio assistant who was quiet and efficient and who, Aria thought at once, had the kind of eye that cannot be taught.She had the manufacturing partner that she had been nurturing since the spring, a small atelier in the Garment District run by a woman na

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status