My Billionaire Husband Believed Her Lies (Wives Betrayed #1)

CHAPTER ONE

ALYSSA

Alyssa had designed a hotel around sea glass, coral stone and the belief that wealthy people would pay obscene amounts of money to feel calm for forty-eight hours.

Apparently, she had been right.

Three hundred guests filled the eastern terrace of the Vader estate, drinking champagne beneath pleated canvas sails while a string quartet played songs everyone recognized and nobody could name. Beyond the lawn, Biscayne Bay reflected the lights from Miami’s skyline in long, broken bars of gold.

The hotel existed only as foundations, structural steel and an eighteen-foot model displayed beneath glass near the terrace doors. That had not stopped the city’s planning commissioner from calling it the future of Miami Beach hospitality.

It had not stopped Florida Business Quarterly from describing it as Damian Vader’s most ambitious design yet, either.

Alyssa stood beside the model with a glass she had barely touched and read the caption for the fourth time.

Vader Global CEO Damian Vader reimagines coastal luxury.

Below it sat a photograph of Damian in front of the hotel site, sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking as though he had personally poured the concrete.

“Aren’t you going to stab it with your heel?” Julian Cross asked.

Alyssa glanced at Damian’s chief financial officer. “The display case?”

“The magazine.”

“My shoes are custom.”

“So is the case.”

Julian took a canapé from a passing waiter. He was fifty, broad through the shoulders and permanently unimpressed by public relations. Damian had known him since college, which made Julian one of three people alive who could mock Vader Global in Damian’s hearing and remain employed.

Alyssa placed the magazine facedown. “The article mentions me.”

“Paragraph eleven.”

“Twelve.”

“I was trying to be kind.”

“You should leave kindness to people with less access to our accounts.”

Julian swallowed the canapé. “That would exclude most of Miami.”

A laugh escaped her before she could decide whether he deserved it.

Across the terrace, Damian stood with the mayor, a Brazilian hotel investor and a retired basketball player who had spent the evening referring to every woman under sixty as sweetheart.

Damian’s hand rested in his pants pocket. His dark suit fitted him with the quiet precision of clothing made by a tailor who traveled to the client. He did not need a raised voice or an entourage to hold a group’s attention. People leaned toward him because Damian expected to be heard.

He caught Alyssa watching.

The public smile remained in place, polished and easy. His eyes changed.

Eleven years of marriage had made her fluent in the private version of her husband.

The slight lowering of his chin meant he had noticed she was irritated.

His thumb against his pocket meant he wanted to come over.

The pause before answering the mayor meant he would make his escape within thirty seconds.

Twenty-two seconds later, Damian crossed the terrace.

“Julian,” he said.

“Paragraph twelve.”

Damian’s gaze moved to the overturned magazine. “Ah.”

“That is your full defense?” Alyssa asked.

“I had a longer one prepared. Julian’s presence has robbed me of confidence.”

Julian collected another canapé. “My work here is done.”

He walked away before either of them could involve him further.

Damian turned the magazine over. His mouth tightened as he read the caption.

“I didn’t approve this.”

“You approved the communications team that approved it.”

“I’ll have them correct the online version.”

“The print copies will remain available in dental offices until 2034.”

“Then I’ll buy every dental office in Florida.”

“That sounds efficient.”

His fingers closed around hers. “I know whose hotel it is.”

“It belongs to Vader Global.”

“You know what I mean.”

Alyssa did. The lobby’s curved plaster walls came from a sketch she had made on the back of a room-service menu in Lisbon.

The central staircase borrowed its proportions from a 1930s ocean liner.

She had spent fourteen months arguing for pale terrazzo floors because Damian’s construction team preferred dark marble and called it practical.

The plans carried her name. The publicity carried his.

She had accepted that bargain for years because the work still reached her desk, still became real under her hands. Tonight it bothered her more than usual.

Perhaps because they were meant to leave at eleven for the Florida Keys.

Perhaps because their anniversary had been postponed during the hotel vote, shifted around three board meetings, then condensed into one night at a private resort where Damian had promised to turn off his phone.

Perhaps because her overnight bag waited upstairs while he worked the terrace as though the approval party were a hostile takeover.

“I’ll speak to them tomorrow,” he said.

“Don’t have the junior publicist fired.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“Reassigned to Alaska?”

“We have no projects in Alaska.”

“Convenient.”

His thumb moved across the inside of her wrist. “Come upstairs with me.”

“There are three hundred people in our yard.”

“Most of them are drunk.”

“The mayor is sober.”

“The mayor wants a permit.”

Alyssa looked beyond him. Nobody seemed to be watching, though half the terrace made a living from watching Damian.

“Five minutes,” he said.

“You cannot accomplish anything worthwhile in five minutes.”

His expression became indecent enough to prove he accepted the challenge.

Damian led her through the main hall, past a pair of event staff carrying empty champagne trays and into the private west corridor. The music faded behind thick limestone walls.

At the bottom of the stairs, Alyssa stopped.

“What?”

“Your mother is beside the sculpture.”

Damian glanced toward the entrance to the library. Elena Vader’s silver gown was visible between two arrangements of white orchids. She had cornered the chairman of a private bank and appeared to be explaining why his charitable giving lacked ambition.

“She can survive without us,” he said.

“She may not allow him to.”

“That is his problem.”

Upstairs, the bedroom doors closed on the party.

Damian pulled Alyssa against him before she had taken another step. His mouth found hers, warm and impatient, carrying a trace of twelve-year-old Scotch he had accepted for a toast. One hand settled at the base of her spine. The other slid into her hair with enough care to avoid the pins.

There had never been uncertainty between them in bed.

Alyssa kissed him harder.

His palm moved over the silk at her hip. “You wore this to punish me.”

“I wore it because you canceled dinner last week.”

“That confirms it.”

The pale gold dress had a low back and a row of tiny covered buttons that served no practical purpose. Damian had been distracted by them since she came downstairs.

He kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the sensitive place below her ear.

“The car comes at eleven,” she reminded him.

“I know.”

“Your phone stays here.”

“I know.”

“No calls in the car.”

His lips traveled down her neck. “Cruel.”

“No laptop.”

“Now you’re being vindictive.”

Alyssa caught his tie and pulled him close enough that the knot pressed against her fingers. “You promised me one night.”

“You have me.”

“For now.”

That made him lift his head.

The shift was small. His hands remained on her. The heat between them remained. Still, work had entered the room before his phone made a sound.

Alyssa recognized the change with the dull resignation of seeing rain gather above an outdoor wedding.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Julian received a call before the speeches.”

“About?”

“The Brickell financing.”

She let go of his tie.

“It can wait until morning,” Damian said.

“That sentence was almost convincing.”

“The lenders changed one condition.”

“Which condition?”

He hesitated.

There it was.

“How long?” she asked.

“An hour.”

“At the office?”

“I can handle it from here.”

Their driver would need ninety minutes to reach the resort. Check-in ended at one. The hotel had closed a private villa for them, staffed the kitchen overnight and arranged a boat for sunrise because Damian had insisted on making the anniversary special.

Alyssa walked to the dressing table and removed one earring.

“Alyssa.”

“Handle the financing.”

“I said an hour.”

“You also said we would leave at eleven.”

“I didn’t cause this.”

“No. You merely decided the solution required you.”

He came up behind her. In the mirror, his face had lost its party expression.

“Twenty-four people work in finance,” she said. “Julian is downstairs eating your catering. Yet the bank cannot survive one evening without you.”

“It affects the entire project.”

“So did the design. I managed to attend dinner.”

His gaze held hers through the mirror. “That’s unfair.”

“Probably.”

Alyssa removed the second earring and placed both in the velvet tray.

He rested his hands on her bare shoulders. “Go ahead of me. I’ll meet you there.”

She looked at him.

Damian’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“You want me to spend our anniversary alone in a villa while you negotiate a loan from the bedroom.”

“I said I would meet you.”

“At midnight? One? Breakfast?”

“I don’t know yet.”

That answer ended the argument.

Alyssa had learned early in their marriage that Damian treated uncertainty as an invitation to seize control. Contractors, bankers and board members admired the habit. It made him decisive. It made him rich.

At home, it meant plans changed according to the problem nearest his hand.

She could press. He would apologize, make the call anyway and spend the next hour distracted by her anger. The night would become another expensive attempt to pretend neither of them was disappointed.

“Cancel the car,” she said.

“I’ll make this up to you.”

“Please don’t send flowers to the house I already live in.”

His mouth curved despite the tension. “Paris?”

“I have meetings.”

“You can move them.”

“That is how you ended up with paragraph twelve.”

The smile disappeared.

Alyssa regretted the remark, though not enough to withdraw it.

Damian bent and kissed her shoulder. “Tomorrow.”

“We’ll see.”

“You hate when people say that.”