My Husband Faked His Death, So I Married a Billionaire

Today marked five years since Cordelia Harper’s husband, Felix Ward, died.

After paying her respects to Felix, Cordelia wanted to stay with him at the cemetery a little longer, but her daughter, Celia, was home alone, and Cordelia could not stop worrying about her.

Once she got into the car, Cordelia took off her coat and opened the hidden camera feed.

The next second, she froze.

On the screen, Fabian Ward, Felix’s older brother, who should have been at the hospital with his fiancée, Sylvia Lane, for her surgery, had suddenly appeared inside Cordelia’s home.

What shocked Cordelia even more was that Celia threw herself into his arms and called him Daddy.

Cordelia’s breathing slowed.

Fabian and Felix were twins, and they looked very much alike.

Five years ago, the brothers went overseas for charity work and were caught in a plane crash.

Felix died in the crash, while Fabian was the one who brought his remains home. There had not even been enough left of him to bury whole.

Cordelia was pregnant at the time and nearly miscarried from crying so hard.

She had not accepted his death without checking.

She looked for any sign that the body might belong to Fabian instead, but Fabian had a small red birthmark on his arm, and the remains did not.

That was when the last of her hope died.

But she was already carrying Felix’s child, so for the sake of the baby, she forced herself to pull herself together.

The face on the security footage was almost identical to her husband’s, and Cordelia fell into a daze.

She comforted herself by thinking that Fabian and Felix were twins, so it was normal for her daughter to mistake one for the other.

But in the next second, Fabian picked Celia up and pressed his cheek affectionately against hers, his deep voice carrying a sexy hint of laughter.

"Let me have a good look at you. Has Celia been a good girl at home?"

That expression and tone were clearly Felix!

As soon as he finished speaking, someone walked in behind him.

It was Gavin Cole, Felix’s best friend, and he teased from behind him.

"Felix, come on. Sylvia’s surgery is about to start, and you still insisted on coming back to look for Cordelia’s lucky charm? Since when did you become so superstitious?"

The word Felix struck Cordelia like a heavy blow to the head, leaving her stunned.

What had Gavin called him? Felix?

Hadn’t Felix died in that plane crash five years ago? What was going on?

A vast sense of absurdity and cold dread crawled up her spine, and her heartbeat suddenly thundered in her chest.

Before she could sort through her thoughts, Gavin’s laughter came through the feed.

"Then again, what is Cordelia anyway? Back then, if Sylvia hadn’t fallen for Fabian, why would you have married Cordelia in a fit of anger? With that spoiled heiress temper of hers, who could stand her?

“The fact that you managed to pretend for five years is honestly impressive. Watching Sylvia and your brother be so in love all this time, weren’t you jealous?"

On the security footage, Felix told the nanny to take Celia to change while he waited in the living room.

He lit a cigarette.

Smoke curled upward and drifted into the air, veiling his sharp, handsome features before slowly dispersing, leaving only the ember glowing red in the dimness.

He flicked the ash from his cigarette, his lips curving into a careless, chillingly detached smile as he slowly breathed out a reply.

"I was jealous."

That was why every time he slept with Cordelia, he would torment her mercilessly.

Whenever he saw Cordelia lose herself beneath him, curling into him and clinging to him, he would imagine Sylvia in her place.

Gavin laughed. "No wonder you couldn’t keep pretending anymore."

Felix leaned against the doorframe, his voice slightly hoarse and laced with a teasing smile.

"After sleeping with the same woman for five years, wouldn’t you get tired of her? No matter how beautiful a piece of clothing is, there comes a time to change it.

"Aren’t you afraid Cordelia will find out you lied to her? That she’ll take Celia and remarry?"

Felix gave a scornful laugh and crushed out his cigarette, his expression unreadable.

"She won’t. In this world, besides me, besides the Ward family, who else would want her? Where could she go? As long as I never say it out loud, she’ll remain my widow for the rest of her life."

He understood Cordelia.

Over the past five years, he urged her countless times to remarry, and every time, she only smiled and let it pass.

He kept her sheltered for so long that she no longer knew how to live without him.

Asking her to leave would be the same as asking her to stop breathing.

Gavin gave him a thumbs-up. "That’s ruthless."

Just then, Celia ran out after changing her clothes and hugged Felix around the waist.

"Daddy, let’s go! Mommy will be back soon, and I don’t want to stay with her!"

Felix smiled and lifted Celia into his arms.

Celia laughed as she kicked her legs. "Let’s go! We’re going to the hospital to see Mommy Sylvia!"

The footage cut off there.

The phone screen went black, reflecting Cordelia’s haggard, stunned face.

"Stop the car!" Cordelia screamed.

Before the car had fully stopped, Cordelia stumbled to the roadside and began vomiting violently.

She threw up until her stomach was empty, until she was dry-heaving, her face flushed, her whole body trembling.

Tears mixed with falling snow, blurring her vision.

Her phone screen lit up.

The caller ID showed the words Fabian, and Cordelia froze.

A crushing sense of humiliation spread from the bottom of her heart.

The call ended automatically, and the screen dimmed shortly afterward.

As if driven mad, Cordelia hurled the phone to the ground and gulped in air.

Her mind went blank for a moment, and it took her a long while to come back to herself.

A sharp pain clenched around Cordelia’s heart.

She could not believe that the man who spent the past five years appearing everywhere with Sylvia as a couple was actually her husband, Felix.

Even Celia knew? Had she been helping them lie to her too?

Cordelia could not understand it.

Had he been pretending in front of her all along? Had all that love been fake?

Ten years ago, disaster struck the Harper family in Kingsford.

Cordelia’s mother and brother died in a car accident.

The spoiled heiress who had been pampered for more than twenty years lost her beloved mother and brother overnight.

The head of the Harper family forced her into an arranged marriage, but Cordelia refused.

So, he made a deal with her.

If Felix ever stopped loving her one day, she was not allowed to cling to him.

She had to return and fulfill her duty as the heiress of the Harper family.

Cordelia stubbornly said Felix would never stop loving her, and that she would never come back.

After she was thrown out, Felix descended into her life like a god and brought her back to the Ward family.

Despite everyone’s objections, he insisted on marrying her.

For the five years after their wedding, he still spoiled her like a princess.

Then an unexpected plane crash took Felix’s life, and without his protection in the Ward family, Cordelia began to suffer one humiliation after another.

The once-proud heiress of the Harper family began running herself ragged for the sake of raising her daughter safely, and the sharp edges of her spoiled temper were slowly worn away.

To protect Felix’s assets in the Ward family from being swallowed by Fabian, she went around begging for help.

Being rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night after vomiting blood from a stomach hemorrhage became almost routine.

Only now did she realize Fabian was never trying to swallow Felix’s assets.

It was merely an excuse for Felix to take back what belonged to him.

He never intended to leave Cordelia even a way out.

His whole heart belonged only to Sylvia.

At that thought, deep sorrow flashed through Cordelia’s eyes, and her eyes gradually reddened.

Since the woman he loved was Sylvia, since he went so far as to deceive Cordelia so cruelly for her sake, then Cordelia would give them what they wanted.

She lifted her head and forced the surging emotions back down into her chest.

She walked to the roadside and hailed another cab.

Then she looked at the number in her contacts that she had not called once in ten years and dialed it.

After a long while, a low, weathered voice sounded from the other end. "Cordelia."

Cordelia’s throat tightened.

Her hand slowly clenched around the phone. “I’ll go through with the arranged marriage.”