The Billionaires Stand In Wife

The Hampton breeze carried salt and dying summer heat through the canvas walls of the luxury tent.

Charlie Powell sat alone in an Adirondack chair by the fire pit, stirring her lukewarm hot cocoa with a bamboo stick. The marshmallows had dissolved into a sticky film on the surface. She checked her watch. Claudius had been gone for two hours, off to what he'd called "an urgent call with his partners" from the city.

Her iPhone sat on her knee, face down.

The screen lit up.

A chime pierced the crackling of dying embers.

Charlie picked up her phone. Unknown number. iMessage. No text-just a thumbnail image.

She tapped it.

The screen expanded to reveal a scanned document. It looked official, bearing a county seal in the corner. She squinted against the dim firelight and leaned in closer.

Clark County, Nevada.

Marriage Certificate

Her thumb stopped scrolling.

Groom: Claudius Buchanan.

Bride: Vivianne Mercer.

Charlie's breath caught. She read it again. The names hadn't changed. But the date was worse.

One year ago.

Three months before he'd rented Rockefeller Center-the ice rink, one thousand white roses. That proposal wasn't really a proposal; he'd simply knelt in the snow, called her his forever, and slid a ring onto her finger-one she'd believed meant something.

Her stomach churned.

Hot cocoa spilled onto her silk dress. She didn't feel it. Her hands trembled so violently that she had to grip her phone with both thumbs to steady the image. She zoomed in on the seal-on the signature-on those raised embossings, catching the light like a scar.

It's real.

This is real.

A wave of nausea rose in her throat. She swallowed it down, tasting the metallic tang of copper. Her fingers twitched across the screen, scrolling, zooming, searching for any misaligned pixels, for the telltale blurring of Photoshop tampering.

Nothing.

Footsteps crunched on gravel.

Male laughter, loud and loose with bourbon.