Semua Bab The CEO'S Dead Wife: A Marriage Made In Hell!: Bab 41 - Bab 50

RICHARDSON'S POV I had not planned to care about her for a damn second.That was the truth I kept circling back to, no matter how many times I tried to lie to myself. The marriage had been designed as a structure that favors just me. Abigail was meant to be a solution to a problem, not a complication of the heart. And yet, somewhere between the arguments, the silences, the nights she pretended to sleep while I watched the rise and fall of her chest, something had shifted.I saw her differently now. It disturbed me how easily that realization settled in my bones. She no longer felt like an obligation. She felt… necessary.I noticed it in the smallest things. In the way my eyes followed her without conscious effort. In how the sound of her voice grounded me when everything else felt like it was slipping out of my control. In how the thought of losing her tightened something sharp and ugly in my chest.I had grown emotionally invested without ever signing up for it. And that terrified m

RICHARDSON'S POVI knew something was wrong the moment Abigail stopped breathing.It wasn’t dramatic. She didn’t gasp or scream. She simply froze beside the window, her body going rigid in a way that made the air in the room turn sharp. I was halfway through shrugging on my jacket when the silence hit me.“Abigail?” I said quietly.She didn’t answer even though she was so close to me.Her eyes were locked on something outside, pupils blown wide, all the color draining from her face. I crossed the room in two long strides and followed her gaze through the thin curtains.The cars sat just beyond the inn’s weak lights.Black. Low. Tinted.My jaw tightened instantly.“Joselyn,” I muttered under my breath.There was no doubt. Not with those plates. Not with the way they were positioned or angled outward, ready for pursuit. I had memorized her family’s habits long before she ever became a problem I couldn’t erase quietly. Abigail turned to me, fear finally cracking through her composure. “

ABIGAIL'S POVThe world felt different after the heart monitor calmed down.The nurses had worked quickly, rushing in like a wave of white uniforms and professional panic. Medication lines were checked, wires were adjusted, numbers smoothed out, and then, just as suddenly as chaos had erupted, the room returned to quiet order, except now I couldn’t unhear the sound of the beeping spike.I stood outside his room again, forehead pressed weakly to the glass, watching Richardson breathe beneath the web of intravenous lines and machines. His chest still rose and fell in that slow, steady rhythm doctors called “good progress,” but to me it looked fragile, like any moment his body would decide it had given enough.And I still hadn’t forgiven myself.The hallway was dark, late afternoon shadows stretching across the floors. My phone buzzed in my hand. When I looked down and saw Alexander’s name, my heart stumbled into a sprint.I answered immediately.“Alexander?”His voice came rough, breath

ABIGAIL'S POV The moment I sat down and looked at myself in the mirror, truly looked, I didn’t recognize what stared back at me. My breath caught in my throat, suspended somewhere between disbelief and awe, and for a second it felt as though my heart forgot to beat. The harsh, broken version of myself that had been living these past month was gone. That Abigail no longer existed.Elizabeth stood behind me, fingers resting lightly on my shoulders, her smile widening as she watched my stunned expression.“Now look at you,” she whispered with a sense of sisterly pride, her voice soft but thick with mischief, “you look like a damn goddess, Ivory. No one will ever know.”Ivory.The name hit me hard. I swallowed slowly, letting the sound of that name seep into my bones. My old name. My hidden identity. My rebirth.My hair was chopped to a sleek, shoulder-brushing cut dyed the color of ashes mixed with silver. Elizabeth styled it with a precision only years of high-end training could produc

RACHAEL'S POVThe first rule of infiltration is simple: smile until your jaw aches.The second rule is harder: don’t let the monster across from you see the hatred burning in your eyes.Tonight, I was breaking both rules at once.I sat inside Georgina Richardson’s living room pretending to be her newest friend. Silk-wrapped furniture. Cinnamon scented candles. A gold chandelier dripping light over her in a flattering halo. Everything in this room was carefully arranged to suggest elegance, warmth, civility…Yet all I saw was rot.Georgina was humming softly as she poured us both glasses of wine. Her expensive diamond bracelets clinked faintly against the glass; each sound grated down my spine.I reminded myself why I was here.And unfortunately, truth sometimes demands hand holding a murderer.“Rachael,” Georgina said, turning toward me with a practiced smile, “I hope you don’t mind red wine. It’s a family reserve. Very expensive. Very rare.”I matched her smile with one I practiced i