Betrayed, Neglected Wife of a Billionaire Husband (Billionaire Marriage in Crisis #19)

1. Skye

— ? —

Skye

Before

The bonfire crackles twenty feet from the waterline, throwing orange light across a circle of teenagers who have no idea what their lives will become.

I sit cross-legged on a ratty beach blanket, a spiral notebook balanced on my knee, pen moving fast while the conversation swirls around me like smoke.

I’m seventeen years old and I’m going to write movies that change the world.

I’ve seen exactly fourteen films that weren’t shown in our small-town theater. I’ve never been to Los Angeles. My laptop is so old it sounds like a dying helicopter when I open Final Draft, and I have to save every thirty seconds or risk losing everything to a blue screen of death.

But I’m going to be somebody.

Someday.

Jayden Rowland drops down beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine.

He’s wearing a hoodie with a hole in the sleeve and jeans he’s had since sophomore year, faded at the knees and fraying at the hems. His family doesn’t have money.

Neither does mine. But he looks at me like I’m the only person on this beach worth seeing, and something in my chest does a complicated flutter that I refuse to examine too closely.

“You’re missing the whole party.”

I don’t look up. Can’t look up. If I look at him right now, with the firelight catching the angles of his face and his shoulder warm against mine, I’ll forget how to form sentences. “I’m working. Some of us have ambitions beyond seeing who can chug the most stolen beer.”

“I have ambitions too.”

“Burning marshmallows doesn’t count as an ambition, Jayden.”

He grins - I can hear it in his voice even without looking - and leans over my shoulder to read what I’m writing. His breath is warm against my neck. I angle the notebook away, but not fast enough.

“Is this a screenplay?”

“It’s a draft of a screenplay. A very rough draft. Which you’re not allowed to read until it’s finished.”

“When will it be finished?”

“When I’m dead, probably. Or famous. Whichever comes first.”

He takes the marshmallow stick from the sand beside him and examines the blackened lump at the end with exaggerated seriousness. The marshmallow is charred beyond recognition, a small tragedy of sugar and fire. “These things are harder than they look.”

“Nothing is hard about holding a stick over fire.”

“There’s technique involved.”

“There’s really not.”

“There’s patience. Rotation. Distance from the flame.” He gestures with the stick like he’s conducting an orchestra. “It’s practically an art form.”

I finally look at him, and it’s a mistake.

The firelight catches everything - the earnestness in his expression, the way his hair falls across his forehead, the curve of his mouth when he’s trying not to laugh.

He’s beautiful in a way that makes my teeth ache, and he has no idea.

That’s the worst part. He has no idea what he does to me.

“That marshmallow is a war crime,” I tell him. “If marshmallows had a Geneva Convention, you’d be tried for crimes against snack foods.”

“Harsh.”

“Accurate.”

He tosses the ruined marshmallow into the fire and wipes his hands on his jeans.

Behind us, someone is playing guitar badly, picking out the opening notes of “Wonderwall” for what has to be the fifth time tonight.

Someone else - I think it’s Loggan - is telling them to stop, please, for the love of God, stop, we’re begging you.

Jayden shifts closer. Not much. Just enough that our arms are pressed together from shoulder to elbow.

I can feel the heat of him through my jacket.

I can smell the woodsmoke in his clothes and something underneath it, something clean and warm that makes me want to turn my face into his neck and breathe.

I don’t. Obviously. Because I have dignity. Allegedly.

“So tell me about your screenplay,” he says.

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on. Just the premise.”

“No.”

“The genre, then. Is it a horror movie? A rom-com? An arthouse meditation on the futility of existence?”

“It’s a coming-of-age story.” The words escape before I can stop them. “About a girl who wants to be a filmmaker but everyone keeps telling her she’s not good enough, not connected enough, not lucky enough. And she proves them all wrong.”

“I like it.”

“You haven’t read it.”

“I don’t need to read it. I know you wrote it.” He says it simply, like it’s obvious, like my talent is an established fact rather than a desperate hope. “Anything you write is going to be amazing.”

My heart does something stupid. “You don’t know that.”

“I know you. Same thing.”

He’s looking at me with that expression again - the one that makes me feel like I’m standing in a spotlight, like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. No one else looks at me like that. No one else has ever looked at me like that.

I force myself to look away, back at my notebook, at the words I was writing before he sat down. My handwriting is messier now. My focus is shot. This is what Jayden Rowland does to me - reduces me to scattered thoughts and illegible penmanship.

“And when I’m running my own studio,” he says, his voice dropping into that register he uses when he’s talking about the future, “I’m going to produce your screenplay. The one you won’t let me read. It’ll be our first project together.”

I’ve heard this speech a hundred times. The production company he’s going to build.

The films he’s going to make. The stories that matter.

He talks about it with such certainty, such unshakeable conviction, like the universe has already agreed to his terms and just hasn’t gotten around to delivering yet.

I love it every time.

“That’s a lot of confidence for a guy who can’t toast a marshmallow.”

“I’m serious, Skye.”

“So am I. That marshmallow deserved better.”

He laughs, and the sound does something to my chest that I’m not ready to examine.

We’ve been friends for three years. I’ve been in love with him for two and a half of them.

I’m pretty sure he knows. I’m also pretty sure he’s too scared to do anything about it, which is infuriating, because Jayden Rowland is scared of nothing else.

He talks about taking on Hollywood like it’s a given. He talks about building an empire from nothing like it’s just a matter of showing up. But he can’t tell me how he feels. He can’t close the six inches between us and kiss me like I’ve been wanting him to since sophomore year.

Boys are ridiculous.

This boy especially.

“When you’re famous,” I say, softer now, “don’t forget I knew you when you were just the guy who burned the marshmallows.”

“I could never forget you.”

“Everyone says that.”

“I’m not everyone.”

I meet his eyes. The fire pops, sending a shower of sparks spiraling up into the darkness. Somewhere behind us, the guitar has finally stopped, replaced by someone’s phone playing music from tinny speakers. The ocean crashes against the shore in a rhythm that feels like breathing.

“Prove it,” I say.

The word hangs between us. A challenge. A dare. A door I’ve just pushed open, even though I’m terrified of what’s on the other side.

He doesn’t kiss me. I want him to - God, I want him to - but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches over and straightens the collar of my jacket, smoothing down a fold that wasn’t there. His fingers brush against my neck, feather-light, and I feel it everywhere.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” His voice is rough. “It’s a thing.”

“It’s a weird thing.”

“Maybe it’s our thing now.”

I laugh despite myself, despite the way my heart is pounding, despite the way my skin is still tingling where he touched me. “We don’t have a thing.”

“We do now.”

And because I’m seventeen and stupid and in love with a boy who looks at me like I hung the moon, I reach over and adjust his collar too. Tug it slightly crooked on purpose, just to make him smile.

“There. Now we have a thing.”

He grins. “Now we have a thing.”

The bonfire has burned down to embers by the time most of the others wander off. Couples disappearing into the darkness. Friends heading back to cars parked along the coastal highway. The beach empties out slowly, like a theater after the credits roll, until it’s just us.

Just me and Jayden, sitting side by side on a ratty blanket, watching the last of the fire die.

His hand finds mine. Neither of us mentions it. His palm is warm and slightly rough, his fingers threading through mine like they belong there. Like they’ve always belonged there.

“I’m going to make it,” he says quietly. “And when I do, I’m coming back for you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I don’t.”

I turn to look at him. This boy who dreams bigger than anyone I’ve ever met. This boy who makes me believe I can dream too. The firelight is almost gone now, but I can still see his face - the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the certainty in his eyes.

“Just don’t forget,” I say. “When you’re famous and important and everyone wants a piece of you. Don’t forget the girl who believed in you when you were nobody.”

“Never.” He squeezes my hand. “You’re not forgettable, Skye Bennett. Trust me. I’ve tried.”

I laugh, and he laughs, and the ocean crashes against the shore behind us, and for one perfect moment, everything feels possible. Everything feels like the beginning of something beautiful.

I don’t know yet that he’ll keep the first promise and break the second. That he’ll make it bigger than either of us imagined. That he’ll come back for me, marry me, give me everything I never asked for.

And then forget me anyway.