Neglected Wife of a Billionaire Husband (Her Marriage in Crisis #126)

1. Sabrina

— ? —

Sabrina

“I know, baby. I know it hurts.” I pressed my lips to her forehead, tasting salt and fever. Her little body radiated heat through her pajamas, and every few seconds she shuddered with chills that made her teeth click together.

I carried her to the couch and wrapped her in the soft blanket she’d had since birth, the one with the elephants that was more holes than fabric now. She curled into me immediately, her sticky hands fisting my shirt.

“Mommy, my head is fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy how, sweetheart?”

“Like bees are in there. Buzzing bees.”

I smoothed her damp hair back from her face. Five years old and already too good at describing exactly what scared me. I checked my phone again. No response to the texts I’d sent Killian all evening.

I called him.

It rang and rang before he picked up, and when he did, I could hear the hum of equipment in the background. The lab. Of course.

“Hey.” His voice was distracted, half of it still on whatever he was reading. “What’s up?”

“Ivy has a fever of 103.”

A pause. The sound of typing stopped. “Okay. Did you give her something for it?”

“We’re out of children’s Tylenol, Killian. I texted you three times asking you to pick some up on your way home.”

“Shit.” More typing. “I didn’t see those. I’ve been in the clean room most of the day.”

Ivy coughed, a wet rattling sound that made my stomach clench. I held her tighter.

“When are you coming home? I need help.”

“I’m almost done here. One more hour, maybe two.”

“One more hour.” I kept my voice flat because if I let any emotion into it, I would scream. “Your daughter is burning up and shaking and you need one more hour.”

“Sabrina, I can’t just leave in the middle of a calibration sequence. The whole batch will be ruined.”

“Then ruin it.”

“That’s three months of work.”

“She’s five, Killian. She’s five years old and she’s sick and she’s asking for you.”

Ivy lifted her head at that, her glassy eyes finding mine. “Daddy’s coming?”

I covered the phone. “Soon, baby. Daddy’s coming soon.”

“I’ll send the medicine,” Killian said. “I’ll have Nate pick some up and bring it to you. Twenty minutes, tops.”

“I don’t need Nate. I need you.”

“And I’ll be there. Just let me finish this one thing and I’ll be right behind him.”

I wanted to throw the phone across the room. Instead, I took a breath and watched my daughter’s chest rise and fall too quickly.

“Fine. Send the medicine.”

“I love you. Tell Ivy I love her too. I’ll be home soon.”

He hung up before I could respond.

Nate, Killian’s assistant, arrived with a bag from the pharmacy. He stood in the doorway looking uncomfortable while I measured out the correct dose for Ivy’s weight.

“He said to tell you he’s wrapping up now.”

“Thank you, Nate.”

“Is there anything else I can do? I could stay until he gets here, or I could pick up dinner, or-”

“We’re fine. Thank you.”

He nodded and left, and I turned back to my daughter, who was crying because the medicine tasted like fake grape and she hated fake grape but I’d grabbed the wrong flavor at the store last time.

“I know it’s yucky. I’m sorry. Can you swallow it for Mommy? Please?”

She swallowed. She gagged. She swallowed again. I gave her a popsicle to chase the taste and held her while she sucked on it weakly, purple dripping down her chin.

The fever didn’t break. It climbed, and she started saying things that didn’t make sense, a mumble about the elephants on her blanket walking off the fabric and into her room.

I called the pediatrician’s after-hours line. The nurse listened to me describe Ivy’s symptoms and told me to bring her to the emergency room.

“It’s probably just a virus, but with a fever that high and the confusion you’re describing, we’d rather be safe than sorry.”

I texted Killian: Taking Ivy to the ER. Mount Sinai pediatric emergency. Meet us there.

I didn’t wait for a response.

The emergency room was bright and cold and full of crying children. Ivy buried her face in my neck and whimpered every time someone walked past us. I filled out forms one-handed, balancing her on my hip the way I always did.

“Kerrington?” A nurse called, and I followed her to a small exam room where she took Ivy’s temperature again (102.

8, better but not good) and asked me questions I answered on autopilot.

How long has she had the fever? Has she been eating and drinking?

Any rash? Any vomiting? When did she last urinate?

The doctor came in eventually. Young, tired, kind. She examined Ivy thoroughly while I held my daughter’s hand and made up a story about a princess who lived in a hospital and fought germs with a magic sword.

“Ear infection,” the doctor said finally, pulling back with a gentle smile. “A pretty nasty one. Her right ear is bright red. That’s what’s causing the fever and the confusion.”

Relief flooded through me so hard I almost sat down on the floor.

“So she’s okay?”

“She will be. I’m prescribing antibiotics. The fever should start to come down within twenty-four hours of starting them. Keep up with the Tylenol every four to six hours, alternate with ibuprofen if needed. Lots of fluids, lots of rest.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The doctor handed me the prescription and the discharge paperwork and told me I was doing a great job. I wanted to cry. I didn’t.

I carried Ivy out to the waiting room and saw Killian standing by the reception desk, still in his work clothes, looking around with panic in his eyes.

He saw me and crossed the room fast.

“Is she okay? What did they say? I called and they wouldn’t tell me anything because I wasn’t here and I couldn’t find you and-”

“She has an ear infection.” I shifted Ivy’s weight. My arms were screaming. “We’re fine. We were just discharged.”

He reached for her. “Let me take her.”

Ivy went to him immediately, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her hot face to his shoulder. He held her with terrible care, one big hand cradling the back of her head.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, baby girl. Daddy’s here now.”

“Daddy, my ear hurts.”

“I know. We’re going to fix it. Mommy and Daddy are going to fix it.”

We picked up the prescription at the all-night pharmacy and drove home in silence. Ivy fell asleep in her car seat, her mouth hanging open, her breathing finally even. Killian kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

“I should have been there,” he said quietly.

I didn’t answer.

We carried her inside together, and he held her while I got her changed into clean pajamas and set up her humidifier and arranged her stuffed animals around her the way she liked. We gave her the first dose of antibiotics together, coaxing her awake just enough to swallow.

Then we stood in her doorway and watched her sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Killian said. “I’m so sorry. I know that doesn’t fix anything, but I’m sorry.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t fix anything.”

He followed me to our bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and started taking off my shoes, my hands shaking with exhaustion and something hotter underneath.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Please. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that I called you and told you our daughter was sick and you said one more hour.”

“The calibration-”

“I don’t care about the calibration, Killian. I don’t care about the batch or the three months of work or any of it. Your daughter had a fever of 103 and you sent your assistant.”

“It was one time.”

“It wasn’t one time.” My voice cracked, and I hated it.

“It’s every time. It’s every dinner you miss and every bedtime you’re late for and every Saturday morning you spend at the lab instead of with us.

It’s me doing everything alone while you’re off saving the world one calibration sequence at a time. ”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not fair. None of this is fair.

” I stood up because I couldn’t sit still anymore.

“I quit my job for this family, Killian. I gave up my career so someone would be here for Ivy, and you promised you’d be present, you promised you’d be a partner, and instead I’m a single mother with a husband who sends a courier when his daughter is sick. ”

“I didn’t send a courier. I sent Nate.”

“That’s worse. That’s so much worse. You sent your assistant to do your job as a father.”

He dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders curved inward, and for a moment he looked small in a way he never did.

Killian was six-foot-four and spent his few free hours under a barbell, and none of that size did him any good right now.

He looked caught out, a boy who’d broken something precious and couldn’t put it back.

“I’m tired,” he said. “Work has been brutal and I’ve been running on four hours of sleep for weeks and I forgot. I forgot, Sabrina. I didn’t mean to, but I forgot.”

“You forgot your daughter was sick.”

“No, I didn’t forget she was sick. I just thought it was handled. I thought the medicine would help and I’d be home before-”

“You can’t forget your daughter is sick.” The words came out louder than I intended, and I forced myself to lower my voice. Ivy was asleep down the hall. Ivy, who’d asked for her daddy and gotten silence. “You can’t forget. That’s not something you get to forget.”

“You’re right.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted and sorry. So sorry. “You’re absolutely right. What can I do? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“Then let’s figure it out together. Let me watch Ivy tomorrow so you can rest. You’ve been up for hours, you must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Let me help.”

I walked to the bathroom door and stopped with my hand on the frame. Every muscle in my body ached. My eyes were gritty with tears I hadn’t let myself cry.

“Don’t come to bed tonight,” I said.

“Sabrina-”

“I mean it. Sleep on the couch, sleep in the guest room, I don’t care. Just don’t come to bed.”

I closed the bathroom door behind me and turned on the shower so he wouldn’t hear me finally, finally cry.

When I came out, the bedroom was empty. I climbed into our bed alone and lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence of a house where my husband was three rooms away and might as well have been on another planet.

In her room down the hall, Ivy coughed in her sleep and called out for someone who wasn’t there.