“I took your husband’s company,” Isaias murmured near my ear. “Now I’m taking you too.” A second later the strap of my dress snapped, slipping down my shoulder, and a soft sound escaped my throat. “Poor thing,” Isaias smirked as he tied the blindfold over my eyes. “All those years with that pathetic husband of yours… and he never touched you the way I do, did he?”
Just days ago I had been the perfect trophy wife for my powerful CEO husband. Now I was in bed, moaning the name of his biggest rival….
Chapter 1
Liesl looked at her phone for what felt like the hundredth time and frowned at the time on the display. It was odd her mother had not responded to her text messages at all for an entire day. It was weirder still her husband of five years had not responded either.
She got up from the sofa where she’d been trying to kill her nerves with Netflix on her laptop when she heard the door open. She walked to the edge of the study and looked to see Merlin walking in with a somber expression.
“Hey babe, you’re late and didn’t answer my messages. Is everything okay?”
“No,” he shook his head. “We’re getting divorced,” he said bluntly.
She laughed. There was no way he was serious considering in the eight years they had been together, five of them married, he’d never once raised his voice and they’d never had a real argument.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Divorced. I just need your signature on these papers,” he slid a stack across the desk. “You are welcome to talk to a lawyer of course. The prenup we signed will stand. You get the house, and you can keep your car and you’ll get a monthly allowance for five years.”
“I don’t understand.”
He held another document in his hand, “this is a paternity test.”
“What does this have to do with me?” She was frowning as she looked at the way his fingers trembled, just slightly. “What is going on?” She herself was starting to shake now.
“I had an affair at your sister’s wedding six weeks ago.”
“You cheated on me with someone?” she was going to vomit. “At my sister’s wedding?”
“I fckd *p and had too much to drink and I didn’t wear a condom. She is pregnant. I had a rush done on the paternity. It has come back as mine.”
“You told me you didn’t want children for another three years!” She turned to face him angrily.
“I did say this, and I stand by what I said. It’s unfortunately a done deal. I made an error in judgement, but I can’t let another man raise my child. We are getting divorced, and I will be marrying the mother of my child.”
“How can you sit here so coldly and tell me this?”
“Do you think this is easy for me?”
“It sure as hell doesn’t feel that hard when you’re acting this cold,” she snapped. “I’m not one of your multimillion-dollar deals, Merl. I’m your wife.” She’d once found his emotional detachment powerful—now, turned on her, it felt like pure cruelty.
“Not after you sign this.”
“If I sign those, you get the f*ck out right now.”
He blinked at her words, “now?”
“Did you not say I get the house?”
“Surely you will want to go see Janka or Elsie while things get sorted?”
“They can come here. I’m not the one who screwed around. You can leave.”
“My office is here and must clear it out.”
“You can come on the weekend with a moving truck and take the contents of this office as well as your clothes and toiletries but the rest stays in this house with me.”
“I understand you’re angry, Liesl. I am trying to be respectful. I ask the same of you.”
“Respectful?” she screamed, breath hitching. “You were with someone else—at my sister’s wedding—and got them pregnant. Eight years. Eight years you never touched me without a protection, and you forgot?”
Her stomach twisted as she fought the urge to be sick all over his pristine office. “Oh my God,” she whispered, then glared at him. “We slept together every day we were there!”
“Liesl, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but the only way to fix it is to be honest. I can’t have my child born a bastard. My grandfather’s will is clear—any child born out of wedlock gets nothing. That trust fund, the million dollars, would be untouchable. I won’t punish a child for my mistakes.”
“And this woman is keen to marry you too? She’s all gung-ho, is she?”
“She is not thrilled with the prospect but once I explained the money and the benefits, she was more open. She is letting her husband know this evening.”
“How could you do this?” She tried so hard not to cry and angrily brushed the tears streaking She wiped her cheeks, shaking her head. “I thought you loved me. Why would you go to someone else?” She groaned, rubbing her forehead. “I never even considered sleeping with anyone else. Not once. I gave up everything for you—left the law firm, rearranged my life around your schedule. I’ve been at your beck and call, while you were sleeping with someone else.”
He was silent as she vented her frustrations.
She waved her hand at him, trying to not let him get the upper hand. If he could be this cold sitting there, so could she. “Just go pack whatever you’ll need for the next five days and get out.”
She loved this man with all her heart and soul, and he had just coldly, callously ripped her world to shreds without a second thought.
He rose from his desk and slowly walked to the door of his office, and he was almost there when a thought occurred to her.
“I knew every single person at my sister’s wedding. Who betrayed me with you? Which one of my sister’s girlfriends fckd my husband?”
He paused, his hand on the door frame as he clutched it, for the first time white knuckled as he admitted quietly, “Sandy.”
The room spun dangerously, and she gasped for breath, “IT WAS MY SISTER?!”
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