Her Billionaire Husband Made Her a Single Mother (When Billionaires Grovel #4)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Nicole

Nicole Cohan held the small glass jar next to her face and looked straight into the camera.

“The first thing you need to know is that this is an eye cream, not a miracle in expensive packaging.”

She lowered the jar and smiled. The filming lights gave her clean, even color without washing the warmth from her complexion.

On the monitor, her black curls framed her face exactly as she’d arranged them.

More important, the eye cream hadn’t gathered in the fine line under her left eye. She’d checked twice.

“The texture is richer than a gel but lighter than most balms. You need about half a grain of rice for each eye. Warm it between your ring fingers, then press it in. Don’t rub hard. More product won’t work faster. It’ll just move around and annoy you.”

She tapped a thin layer under her right eye.

“The formula has glycerin and squalane for moisture, niacinamide to support the skin barrier, and caffeine, which may help temporary puffiness. Temporary is the important word. This won’t change your bone structure.

It won’t erase genetic dark circles, and it won’t replace sleep.

” Nicole paused. “I say that as the mother of three-year-old twins, so please respect my field research.”

She held her serious expression for one beat before she laughed.

“If your main concern is dryness, this is a good option. If you’re buying it because the brand promised to make you look ten years younger by Friday, keep your money.”

Nicole finished with application notes, who might find the cream too rich, and how to test it before putting it near sensitive eyes. Then she leaned forward and stopped the camera.

Nicole always found the silence after recording a little strange. She’d spent twelve minutes talking to thousands of people who weren’t there.

She replayed the last section, watching for a stumble or a claim she couldn’t support.

A California esthetics license didn’t make her a doctor, and she never pretended it did.

It did mean she’d worked directly with skin, studied ingredients, and knew the difference between a real benefit and pretty nonsense written by a marketing team.

Satisfied, she uploaded the raw files and sent a message to her content team:

“Eye-cream review is ready. Please keep the ingredient section intact. You can trim my rant about miracle claims, but don’t make me look nicer than I am.”

Three dots appeared, then: “No promises.”

Nicole grinned and set her phone down. Her worktable stood in a bright room at the back of the Bel Air house, far enough from the family wing that squeals and running feet usually didn’t ruin her audio. Usually.

Prim and Rose were at preschool, so Nicole opened TikTok to answer a few questions while she still had quiet.

The first comments made the work worth doing.

“Your sunscreen video finally got my husband to wear SPF.”

Nicole replied: “Please tell him I accept payment in before-and-after photos taken twenty years from now.”

Another follower asked whether a separate eye cream was necessary. Nicole typed, “No. A gentle face moisturizer can be enough. Buy one because you like the texture or need something different around your eyes, not because the jar is tiny and the price is rude.”

She answered four more questions. Then the next comment slid onto her screen.

“Imagine having all that money and still being too stupid to notice your husband has a girlfriend.”

Nicole’s smile disappeared. She kept scrolling.

“Trad wife Barbie is back with another cream nobody needs.”

“At least Angela has a real career.”

“Your husband looks happier with Angela Stone than he ever looks with you.”

Nicole pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth. Blocking the words wouldn’t stop them from existing. Arguing would feed them. Her team had told her that often enough, and she knew they were right.

It still hurt.

Angela Stone was one of the most famous actresses in the world, which meant millions of strangers felt entitled to build stories around any man who stood beside her. Right now, that man was Alexander.

Nicole’s husband was the forty-year-old billionaire heir and chief executive of Cohan Studios.

He was also a hands-on producer who’d let the studio’s troubled new film take over his life.

Brittle was a psychological thriller with an expensive cast, a difficult production, and enough upmarket horror to make every interview sound very serious. Angela was its star.

The internet had decided she and Alexander were in love.

Nicole had decided the internet needed hobbies.

A new comment appeared under her last video:

“He doesn’t deserve the parts of you he never bothers to see.”

This one didn’t feel like the others. The account had no photo and almost no history.

Its words had the same close, possessive tone as a handful of accounts her team had blocked before.

Those accounts praised Nicole as if they knew her, then attacked anyone they believed had failed her.

Each disappeared after a block. Each returned with a new name.

A chill ran up her arms, causing goosebumps to rise.

Nicole deleted the comment and reported the account. People formed strange attachments online. Most of them were lonely, not dangerous. She’d learned not to give them more of herself than they’d already taken.

She should’ve closed the apps then. Instead, she opened Instagram.

The photograph everyone was talking about took less than a minute to find.

It was taken at the Cohan Studios slate presentation at the Academy Museum.

Alexander stood in a dark suit beneath a wall of studio logos.

Angela pressed against his side with one hand curled around his arm.

Her mouth was near his ear. He’d lowered his blond head to hear her over the crowd.

The angle made the moment look private. Intimate.

Nicole enlarged the image before she could stop herself.

Angela’s fingers rested with easy ownership on Alexander’s sleeve.

His face was turned away from the camera, but Nicole knew every line of it.

She knew the cool blue of his eyes when he was angry, and the way they softened when he looked at their daughters.

She knew the exact shape of his mouth against hers.

For one ugly second, she wondered if strangers could see something she couldn’t. Humiliation came next, sharp and hot. Not doubt, she told herself. She didn’t doubt him.

Alexander had been raised around powerful men who treated marriage vows as suggestions.

He hated infidelity with a depth that had shaped him.

In twelve years together, he’d never given Nicole reason to question where his desire belonged.

When he was with her, she felt it in every touch, every look, every private joke spoken against her skin.

There was nothing between him and Angela. Nicole knew her husband.

The front door opened downstairs.

“Mommy!” two voices screamed at once.

Nicole locked her phone and hurried out of the room.

Prim reached her first, one sock sagging around her ankle and half her curls escaping their clips.

Rose followed close behind with a streak of blue paint across one round cheek.

Their nanny, Maya, came in carrying two small backpacks while the driver set a folder from the preschool on the entry table.

Nicole crouched, and both girls hit her at once.

She caught Prim carefully, mindful of the adhesive strips under her shirt.

Prim had fallen from the preschool play structure the week before and scraped her stomach badly enough for an urgent-care visit.

The wound was healing, but Nicole still saw the blood every time Prim threw herself forward without fear.

She’d called Alexander from the clinic. Vicky, his assistant, had called back to say he was unavailable.

By the time Nicole got Prim home and settled, another message to a husband she could never reach had felt impossible.

She’d told herself she would explain when they were in the same room long enough to speak. They’d barely seen each other since.

“Oh,” she said as their arms went around her neck. “They sent both of you home?”

“They had to,” Prim said.

“We live here,” Rose added.

“Excellent point,” Nicole laughed. “I suppose I’ll keep you, then.”

The twins continued talking over each other.

“I painted a whale–”

“Mine’s a shark–”

“A girl said my whale was a cloud–”

“I had crackers–”

“One at a time,” Nicole said, laughing. “Rose, why are you blue?”

Rose touched her cheek and looked at her fingers. “I’m not.”

Maya snorted. “She gave herself one last swipe before we washed hands.”

“It was art,” Rose said with dignity.

“Of course it was.” Nicole kissed the clean side of her face. “Let’s put your art somewhere safe, then you can show me what belongs on the fridge.”

The house had a chef, housekeepers, a nanny, and a driver.

Help surrounded Nicole in a way it never had while she was growing up.

The Larsons had been comfortably well-off, but Cohan money belonged to another world.

Alexander had been born into a life where a request could turn into three employees and a printed schedule.

Nicole still couldn’t stand being idle.

She chose two paintings for the refrigerator while Prim argued that all six deserved the honor. She settled a dispute over who’d built the taller block tower, then took a brand call with Rose tucked against her side and Prim lining toy animals across her lap.

When the chef asked about dinner, Nicole went through the girls’ meal with him and asked for the sauce to stay off their portions.

“I like sauce,” Rose protested.

“Yesterday, you said sauce was wet and therefore bad.”

Rose considered that. “This sauce can be good.”

“Brave. We’ll put it on the side.”

Nicole’s old work with clients had faded bit by bit as Alexander’s world got bigger and motherhood took more of her time.

Becoming an influencer had kept her connected to the skill she’d built before marriage, even if the public now seemed more interested in whose arm her husband touched than anything she knew.

She pushed that thought away and helped Prim rebuild the block tower Rose had knocked over with her foot.

Later, after dinner, Nicole knelt beside the tub with damp curls sticking to her neck while the twins sent water over the edge despite several clear warnings.

“Daddy come home?” Prim asked.

Nicole wiped water from the floor with a towel. “Daddy’s working.”

“Daddy story,” Rose said.

“He should be home soon,” Nicole said.

The words came out with too much confidence. Both girls brightened.

“Daddy does voices,” Prim said.

“I do voices.” Nicole made sure to look comically offended.

“Daddy does bear.”

“My bear is excellent,” Nicole said.

Rose shook her head. “You sound like Mommy.”

Nicole gasped. “The disrespect in this bathtub.”

They laughed, and she did too. The resentment under her ribs eased for a moment.

Then guilt took its place. Alexander wasn’t staying away because he didn’t love them.

He was carrying a studio, a production, and hundreds of jobs.

He came home exhausted. He kissed Nicole in the dark and whispered that he missed her.

But missing them wasn’t the same as being there. Even before his recent absences, Alexander’s part of bedtime had usually begun after the bath and pajamas, in time for books and the song.

Nicole got them dry and helped them into pajamas. They were racing ahead of her toward their bedroom when her phone rang.

Alexander’s name filled the screen.

“Daddy!” Prim shouted.

“Daddy story!” Rose yelled.

Nicole’s stomach tightened. She answered. “Hi.”

“Hi, beautiful.” Alexander sounded tired, but affection warmed his voice. Behind him, people spoke and something heavy rolled across a hard floor. “Are those my girls?”

“They’re waiting for you.”

There was a pause.

“Nicole, I’m sorry. Something went wrong with the setup, and we still have work to finish. I’m going to be late again.”

She watched Prim and Rose stare up at her.

“How late?” she asked.

“Late. Don’t wait up,” he said.

“They’ve been asking for you since they came home.” Her tone stayed light for the girls. “They ask for you every night.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” The question came out sharper than she’d meant.

Alexander went quiet. “That’s fair.”

Nicole turned away from the twins and lowered her voice. “You haven’t joined bedtime in a month. They miss you.”

“I miss them too. You know I’d rather be there.”

“They don’t know that. They only know you’re not here.”

“Put me on speaker.”

Nicole did.

“Daddy!” the girls cried together.

“Hello, my girls. I miss you both.”

“Come do bear,” Rose demanded.

“I can’t tonight, sweetheart. I have to work.”

“No work.”

“I agree,” Nicole murmured.

“Nicole.” His warning held no real heat.

“What? I’m supporting the children.”

He gave a tired laugh. For a breath, they sounded like themselves.

Then Prim asked, “Tomorrow?”

Nicole closed her eyes.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Alexander said carefully. “Be good for Mommy. I love you.”

“Love you,” Rose muttered.

Prim didn’t answer.

Nicole took him off speaker. “This can’t keep happening.”

“I know. Brittle is a mess right now, but it won’t always be.”

It was the same answer in a new shape. The production would settle. The next crisis would pass. They only had to be patient a little longer.

They were always patient.

“I’ll make it up to them,” he said.

“They need you to show up, Alexander. Not make it up later.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Nicole looked at their daughters waiting in the hall. “I love you too.”

“Don’t wait up.”

She gave him the answer before she had to decide whether she meant it.

“I understand.”

She ended the call.

“Daddy’s not coming?” Rose asked.

“Not tonight.”

Prim’s mouth pulled down. “He said soon.”

Nicole had been the one who’d said soon. That felt worse.

“I know, baby. Come on. You can each pick a book.”

They picked three and argued over which came first. Nicole sat between their beds, did the bear voice badly on purpose, and let Rose correct her. Prim joined in before the second story ended. By the third, their disappointment had softened into heavy eyes and warm hands reaching for hers.

Nicole kissed both round cheeks and stayed until their breathing went slow and even.

The chair Alexander used to pull between their beds remained against the wall.

Nicole turned off the lamp and made sure to leave the door open a crack when she walked out.