Neglected and Humiliated by My Billionaire Husband (Her Marriage in Crisis #125)

Prologue

Hannah

Six Years Ago

The rooftop is strung with lights I didn’t know existed until ten minutes ago.

Griffin leads me through the door with his hand over my eyes, and when he finally lets me see, I forget how to breathe. Candles everywhere. A small table with champagne. The Chicago skyline blazing behind him like the city itself is in on the secret.

“Griffin, what…”

He’s already on one knee.

I met him two years ago in a lecture hall where he was the TA and I was the girl who couldn’t stop staring at his hands while he wrote on the whiteboard.

Griffin Bloom. Tall, dark-haired, so handsome it felt like a cruel joke that he even existed in the same universe as me.

Every girl on campus wanted him. I was just the nerdy brunette in the third row who highlighted her notes in four different colors and sat close enough to smell his cologne when he walked past.

But he noticed me. Out of everyone, he picked me.

It started small. A comment on one of my papers that made me blush for three days straight.

A smile across the lecture hall that I replayed in my head until I fell asleep.

Then office hours that stretched into coffee, coffee that stretched into dinner, dinner that stretched into his apartment and his bed and a love so consuming I couldn’t remember what my life looked like before him.

“Hannah.” His voice cracks on my name, and my heart cracks with it.

“I’ve spent two years watching you pour everything you have into our dream.

You believed in me before anyone else did.

You stayed up until 4 a.m. fixing my pitch decks.

You ate cold noodles on the floor of our first office and told me we’d make it. ”

His eyes are wet. Griffin Bloom, who never cries, has tears running down his face.

“You’re my whole future,” he says. “Marry me.”

I’m sobbing before the ring is even on my finger. It’s not big, since we can’t afford big yet, but it catches the candlelight and throws tiny rainbows across his shirt, and I think: This is it. This is everything I’ve ever wanted.

“Yes.” I’m laughing and crying at the same time, and when he stands and pulls me into his arms, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. “Yes, yes, yes.”

He kisses me like I’m air and he’s been drowning. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing my tears away, and when he pulls back his smile is so wide it makes his whole face boyish, almost innocent.

“I love you,” he says. “God, Hannah, I love you so fucking much.”

I believe him. With every cell in my body, I believe him.

He pulls me down onto a blanket he must have laid out earlier, and we lie there together, tangled up in each other, staring at the stars while the city glitters below us. His hand finds mine, our fingers interlacing, and I feel the cool metal of the ring against my skin.

“Tell me about our life,” I whisper. “Tell me everything.”

“Our life.” He rolls onto his side, propping his head on his hand so he can look at me. “Okay. First, the company takes off. We crack the Midwest market, then expand east. By the time you’re thirty, we’re national.”

“And then?”

“Then we buy a house. Something with a big backyard. Maybe a pool.”

“I’ve always wanted a pool.”

“I know.” He grins. “You mentioned it on our third date. I remember everything you’ve ever told me, Hannah.”

My heart swells so big I think it might burst.

“What else?” I press.

“Kids.” His voice softens. “Two, at least. Maybe three. I want a house full of chaos. Little versions of you running around driving me crazy.”

I laugh. “Little versions of you. With your stubbornness and your stupid perfect jawline.”

“Our kids,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss me. “Our life. You and me against the world, baby. Forever.”

I close my eyes and let myself sink into the fantasy. A house with a pool. Children with his dark hair and my brown eyes. A partnership that lasts a lifetime.

“I love you,” I tell him, because I can’t not say it, because the words are bubbling up inside me and demanding to be released. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes.”

“Don’t be scared.” He pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest. “I’ve got you. I’m always going to have you.”

We stay on that rooftop for hours, talking and kissing and planning a future that feels as solid and real as the concrete beneath us.

When we finally make love, slowly, reverently, his eyes locked on mine the whole time, I feel like I’m sealing a promise with my body.

Like I’m giving him something sacred and trusting him to keep it safe.

Afterward, he traces patterns on my bare shoulder and tells me about the meetings he has next week, the investors he’s courting, the product launch that could change everything. I listen and nod and offer suggestions, and he looks at me like I’m brilliant, like he can’t believe his luck.

“What would I do without you?” he murmurs against my hair.

“Crash and burn, probably.”

He laughs. “Definitely. You’re my secret weapon, Hannah. Don’t ever forget that.”

I won’t. I could never.

The city lights blur as my eyes grow heavy, and I let myself drift, utterly content. Utterly certain.

His phone buzzes on the blanket beside us. Once. Twice. Three times.

Griffin shifts, reaching for it. I feel his attention split, feel the subtle tension enter his body as he reads whatever’s on the screen.

“Everything okay?” I ask sleepily.

“Yeah.” He sets the phone down, but not before I notice his thumb hovering over the reply button. “Just work stuff. Nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

“Good.” I snuggle closer. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”

He laughs and kisses the top of my head, and I tell myself it doesn’t matter. The phone doesn’t matter. The slight distraction in his voice doesn’t matter.

We’re engaged. We’re in love. We’re going to build an empire together.

Nothing else matters.

I close my eyes and let myself believe in forever.