The Placeholder Wife: A Billionaire's Secret

The Placeholder Wife: A Billionaire's Secret

Gavin

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It was my 30th birthday, and I was patiently dining alone at a Michelin-star restaurant, waiting for my finance titan husband, Julian, to arrive. Suddenly, my phone screen flickered to life, displaying a TMZ headline that stopped my breath: "Julian Vance Spotted with Returning Socialite Chloe Sinclair – Old Flames Rekindled?" A video showed Julian, my husband, shielding Chloe from the rain and cameras, his arm protectively around her. Shock, cold and sharp, spread through me, as the bitter taste of betrayal filled my mouth. This wasn't just a business meeting; it was a public declaration of his true affections. The table was set for two, but the untouched food grew cold as countless minutes ticked by, each one deepening the suffocating loneliness I felt. Five years. Five years I had spent waiting; five years I had been a placeholder for the woman he truly loved, the one he married me to forget. Then, a text from Julian cemented my despair: "Raincheck on birthday. Next year." There would be no next year for us. My quiet endurance finally gave way to a hardened resolve. I signaled the maître d', trading the lavish, uneaten meal for a sturdy umbrella. I walked out into the Manhattan rain, a clear decision forming in my mind: this was the end. But for me, it was also a new beginning.

Introduction

It was my 30th birthday, and I was patiently dining alone at a Michelin-star restaurant, waiting for my finance titan husband, Julian, to arrive.

Suddenly, my phone screen flickered to life, displaying a TMZ headline that stopped my breath: "Julian Vance Spotted with Returning Socialite Chloe Sinclair – Old Flames Rekindled?"

A video showed Julian, my husband, shielding Chloe from the rain and cameras, his arm protectively around her.

Shock, cold and sharp, spread through me, as the bitter taste of betrayal filled my mouth.

This wasn't just a business meeting; it was a public declaration of his true affections.

The table was set for two, but the untouched food grew cold as countless minutes ticked by, each one deepening the suffocating loneliness I felt.

Five years. Five years I had spent waiting; five years I had been a placeholder for the woman he truly loved, the one he married me to forget.

Then, a text from Julian cemented my despair: "Raincheck on birthday. Next year."

There would be no next year for us.

My quiet endurance finally gave way to a hardened resolve.

I signaled the maître d', trading the lavish, uneaten meal for a sturdy umbrella.

I walked out into the Manhattan rain, a clear decision forming in my mind: this was the end.

But for me, it was also a new beginning.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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