Neglected by Her Billionaire Husband for Another Woman

Chapter 1 Abbie

ABBIE

Sunlight warms the sheets and my bare shoulder. Gray’s tattooed arm lies across my stomach, his face tucked against my neck. These mornings are rare nowadays.

"Don't move," he murmurs against my throat, voice rough with sleep. "I'm memorizing."

"Memorizing what?"

"This. You. The way you smell right now." His arm tightens. "The exact temperature of your skin at—" He lifts his head just enough to squint at the clock on his nightstand. "Eight forty-seven on a Tuesday morning."

"That's very specific."

"That’s me. I'm a very specific person."

I laugh, and he groans, pulling me closer. His dark hair sticks up on one side, the ink across his shoulders softened by the light. He's ridiculous. He's beautiful. He's mine, and sometimes I forget that's still true.

"We're late for everything," I tell him, even though I make no move to get up.

"Name one thing we're late for."

"Your nine-thirty with the Paramount people."

"Rescheduled."

"Since when?"

"Since—" He kisses my shoulder. "I decided—" Another kiss, higher.

"that mornings with my wife—" His lips find the spot just below my ear that makes my whole body go warm.

"are more important than discussing streaming rights for a limited series that's going to get cancelled after one season anyway. "

"You don't know it'll get cancelled."

"Abbie. It's a prestige drama about a nineteenth-century hat factory. It's absolutely getting cancelled."

I turn in his arms. His pale blue eyes are heavy with sleep; there’s stubble on the jaw he’ll shave before the office.

"You're really not going in?"

"I'm really not going in." He brushes hair away from my face with fingers that are somehow both rough and gentle. "I have a very important meeting with my wife's freckles. There's one on your collarbone that I've been neglecting."

"I don't have freckles."

"You have seven. I've counted."

"You've counted my freckles?"

"I've counted everything about you." He says it simply, like it's obvious, like of course he's catalogued every small detail of my body over six years of marriage.

"The freckles. The way you wrinkle your nose when you're pretending you're not annoyed.

That little scar on your knee from when you fell off a bike at twelve—"

"How do you even remember that story?"

"I remember everything you tell me." His thumb traces along my jaw. "I'm a very attentive husband."

The problem is that being present has become the exception rather than the rule.

"I'm hungry," I announce.

"Romantic."

"Romance doesn't fill my stomach."

"I could fill your—"

"If you finish that sentence, I'm getting dressed and leaving."

He grins, quick and boyish in a way that still makes my chest tight after all these years. "Fine. I'll make you breakfast."

"You'll burn it."

"I will make you breakfast," he repeats, with tremendous dignity, "and it will be delicious."

Twenty minutes later, I'm sitting at the kitchen island watching him murder eggs.

"They're not burned," he insists, poking at the pan with a spatula. "They're caramelized."

"Eggs don't caramelize."

"These do. These are special."

"They’re carbon."

He points the spatula at me. "You know what your problem is?"

"I married a man who thinks 'caramelized' is a synonym for 'inedible'?"

"Your problem," he continues, ignoring me, "is that you don't appreciate innovation. Culinary experimentation. Pushing the boundaries of what breakfast can be."

"Breakfast can be edible. That's my main criterion."

He serves the brown, rubbery eggs with a flourish. I take a bite while he watches hopefully.

"Well?" he asks.

"They're... unique."

"Unique good or unique bad?"

"Just unique." I take another bite. "Very firmly unique."

He steals a piece off my plate and chews it thoughtfully. His expression shifts through several stages of realization. "Oh, these are terrible."

"They really are."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I was enjoying watching you experience the journey."

He laughs, loud and surprised. I’ve missed that sound.

"Come here." He takes the plate away and tugs me off the stool, pulling me against his chest. I go willingly because I'm weak and because he's warm and because his arms around me still feel like the safest place in the world. "I'm sorry about the eggs."

"I forgive you."

"I'll make it up to you. Toast. Toast is impossible to ruin."

"You say that, but I've seen you try."

He laughs again, softer this time, and rests his chin on top of my head. When we eventually separate, I climb back onto my stool and put my feet in his lap. He accepts this without question, one hand wrapping automatically around my ankle while he picks at the remaining eggs on my plate.

"So," I say. "Lisbon."

His hand tightens slightly on my ankle. "What about it?"

"You're leaving Thursday. Again."

"Last time. I promise, this is the last big trip. We're so close to closing everything out, and once I'm back—"

"You said that before London."

"I know." He has the grace to look genuinely guilty. "But this time I mean it. The European expansion is basically done. A few more meetings, some final signatures, and then I'm yours. Completely. Aggressively. You'll get sick of me."

"I won't."

"You will. I'll be around all the time. Underfoot. Making you terrible eggs every morning."

"You could learn to make eggs that aren't terrible."

"Where's the fun in that?" His thumb traces circles on my ankle, a habit he's had since we started dating. "I mean it, Abbie. I know these last few months have been... I know I've been gone a lot."

"You've been gone constantly." I don't say it with anger, just honesty. "I feel like I'm married to a ghost who occasionally materializes to steal the blankets."

"I don't steal the blankets."

"You absolutely steal the blankets."

"I redistribute them." But his expression shifts, the joking fading. "Your birthday. Three weeks from now. I'm blocking the whole day. The whole week, actually, but especially that day."

"Gray—"

"The whole day, Abs. Phone off. I don't care what's on fire. I don't care if the entire London office collapses into the Thames. You're getting my undivided attention for a full twenty-four hours, minimum."

"You're serious."

"Completely serious. Ask me anything. Quiz me on my commitment level right now."

"What if Theo calls?"

"Voicemail."

"What if there's an emergency with the Lisbon contracts?"

"They'll figure it out. They're adults. Overpaid adults."

"What if—"

"Abbie." He catches my foot, holds it still. "I'm not answering. Not for Theo, not for Lisbon, not for anyone. You get me. All of me. The whole day."

I search his face for the usual distraction. For once, he’s looking only at me.

"Okay," I say quietly.

"Okay you believe me, or okay you're humoring me?"

"Okay I believe you." I poke his chest with my toe. "But if you answer a single work call on my birthday, I'm filing for divorce."

"Fair."

"And I want French toast. The good kind, from that place in Santa Monica."

"Done. What else?"

"I want you to actually be present. Not just physically there while your brain is running spreadsheets."

"No spreadsheets. I promise. Not even mental ones."

"And I want to sleep in. Really sleep in. Not your version of sleeping in where you're up at seven pretending to be quiet."

"I can do that. I'll stay in bed until you wake up. I'll be completely useless and horizontal."

"That's all I've ever wanted. A useless, horizontal husband."

"See? I knew we were compatible." He's grinning now, but there's something softer underneath it. "What else? Keep going. I'm taking notes."

"You're not taking notes."

"Mental notes. Very detailed mental notes."

"I want dinner somewhere without a waitlist. Somewhere we don't have to talk to anyone you know."

"Done."

"And no gifts that require a presentation. No elaborate scavenger hunts. No—"

"What's wrong with scavenger hunts?"

"They're stressful, Gray. I don't want to solve riddles on my birthday."

"Fine. No riddles. Just French toast, sleeping in, dinner with strangers, and my complete attention." He tugs my ankle gently, pulling me a few inches closer. "Anything else?"

"And I want—"

A key turns in the front door. I pull my feet from his lap as Delaney walks in. My sister is wearing four-inch heels and a silk blouse and carrying a garment bag over one shoulder like she's arriving for a photoshoot.

"Morning!" she chirps, all sunshine and bright smiles. "Hope I'm not interrupting."

I stare at her. "You have a key to my house?"

"Gray gave it to me." She says it casually, like this is completely normal, like my sister having unauthorized access to my home is just a reasonable thing that happened. "For emergencies."

"What emergency requires you to be here at nine in the morning?"

"Oh, it's not an emergency." Delaney sets the garment bag over the back of a chair and beams at both of us. "I'm just getting an early start. First day as your husband's executive assistant. Didn't he tell you?" She glances at Gray, then back at me, eyes wide with theatrical innocence. "Oops."

I turn to look at my husband.

He is very carefully not looking at me.