All Chapters of The Billionaire's Silent Wife No More: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I stood there for a moment after the gate closed. Just stood there. The metal was still vibrating faintly from the force of it swinging shut and I stared at it like I was waiting for it to open again. Like some part of me still thought he was going to come back and say he was wrong. That it was a mistake. That three years meant something to him too. He didn’t come back. I turned around and then I saw that Julian’s car was parked just outside the gate. Black sedan. Clean and quiet. The kind of car that didn’t announce itself but still made everything around it look a little cheaper by comparison. I walked toward it pulling my suitcase behind me. The wheels kept catching on the gravel making that uneven rattling sound and I hated it. I hated that sound. I hated that I was standing outside the gate of a house I had lived in for three years dragging the same beaten up suitcase I had arrived with like nothing had changed. Like I hadn’t given anything. Like I hadn’t even been there. Juli

Neither of us spoke for a while after we left the precinct. Julian drove and I sat with my hands in my lap watching the city go by and feeling the quiet aftermath of what had just happened. That particular stillness that comes after something big. Not peace exactly. More like the moment after a storm when everything is wet and broken and the air is completely still and you’re just standing in it trying to figure out what’s still standing. I had looked Jason Vanguard in the eye in a police precinct in a red silk dress and I had not flinched. Not once. I kept turning that over in my mind. Three years ago I could not have done that. A year ago I could not have done that. Even six months ago if Jason had raised his voice at me in public I would have felt that familiar cold shame crawl up my neck and I would have made myself smaller and quieter and tried to disappear into the background the way I had taught myself to do around him. But I hadn’t done that today. I didn’t know exactly wh

I didn’t sleep much. I lay in that hotel room for what felt like the whole night just staring at the ceiling, the city outside doing its quiet late night thing, and my mind refusing to stop turning everything over. The Miller Group. The board. My father’s face when he said let’s begin. Jason’s face in that precinct. Eventually the dark outside the window started going grey. And then my body just decided we were done lying there. I was up before the alarm. I hadn’t set one but my body woke itself at five thirty the way it always did when something important was coming. That specific alertness that arrives before your mind has fully caught up with why. I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling listening to the city outside and then I remembered and the weight of it settled over me all at once. Today I walked into the Miller Group. I got up and went to the window. The city was still mostly dark, that particular early morning grey where the streets are quiet and the light hasn’

I sat with that feeling for a moment longer.Then my father reached for the bill and the afternoon started moving again.Lunch ended quietly.My father paid without looking at the bill the way men do when they’ve been doing it so long it’s just muscle memory. He straightened his jacket and said he had calls to make and that a car would take me back to the hotel and that tomorrow morning Clara would be waiting for me at the Miller Group offices.“Who is Clara,” I said.“Your assistant,” he said, like it was already decided. “She’s been with the company for two years. Sharp. Discreet. She’ll help you find your footing this week.”He said it simply and then he was gone, moving through the restaurant with that quiet certainty he carried everywhere, nodding to the staff on his way out like a man who had never once in his life felt out of place anywhere.I sat there for a moment after he left.Julian was still across the table. He was finishing his coffee and not rushing and not filling the

The car pulled up to the hotel and I sat there for an extra few seconds before getting out.Just sitting.The driver didn’t say anything. He was good like that. He had this quality of making the car feel like a private space, like whatever happened in the back seat stayed there, and I appreciated it more than he would ever know.I got out eventually and went upstairs and stood in the shower for a long time letting the hot water do what hot water does when your brain won’t stop moving. I thought about Julian’s rolled up sleeves and immediately told myself to stop thinking about Julian’s rolled up sleeves. I thought about Jason calling at eleven pm like a man who had just realized he left something important behind and only noticed when the door was already locked.I thought about the company. The secondary accounts. Park’s focused eyes across the desk. Torres taking up all the air in the room. Clara and her dry precise way of saying exactly what she meant and nothing else.I turned the