The Sicilian Billionaire’s Disposable Wife (A Billionaire Breaks My Heart #11)

Chapter One

KENDRA WASN’T SURE it was appropriate to buy a souvenir on her way back from a funeral. Her mother’s funeral at that, which both her sister and her husband had to skip because of work.

But when she got to the airport, she saw a little store selling postcards, and she had just grabbed the first thing that caught her eye.

I Miss You from Chicago.

And at the back of it, she had scribbled a short note for her husband.

I really do.

Love,

Kendra.

She tucked the postcard into her purse and slept the whole flight back to NYC.

She considered calling Porter and asking him if he could fetch her from the airport but eventually decided against it.

He was stressed and tired from work these days.

His company hadn’t been doing well for the past several months.

It wouldn’t be good for her to add to his stress.

It was raining hard when the plane landed, and so it took a full forty minutes for Kendra to hail a cab. She was all drenched and shivering when she slid into the backseat, and her teeth chattered as she thanked the driver as he switched the heater on.

Kendra could already feel a migraine coming. She felt so tired and sleepy. She just wanted to go...home.

A painful little ache squeezed her heart at the word, and she realized with surprise that she actually missed home. And she missed Porter, too, even though the past few months, they hadn’t been doing well at all.

She and Porter had always been happy when they were dating. But when she had become his wife, it was as if...

No, don’t think that!

Kendra couldn’t even allow herself to finish the thought.

It was a bad habit of hers, pretending that she was fine, and that everything and everyone in her life was fine.

It was something she learned in her childhood in order to cope with the things she couldn’t understand, like how her mother always seemed to favor her sister over her.

But anyway...that was the past. It wouldn’t do any good to even let herself remember any of the bad stuff, especially now that her mother was...gone.

Gone was a nice word. It was so much better than that D word which spelled the end of one’s life. Her mother was gone, yes, but when she put it that way, she could pretend that it just meant her mother was out of town while she...

She was finally home.

After four long days of arranging her mother’s funeral, she was finally back home, and Kendra thanked the driver profusely for his kindness and insisted that he take her twenty-dollar tip.

She wished she could afford to give him more, but she didn’t really have money of her own.

That was the last of what was left from the budget Porter had given her for the trip.

Life as Porter’s wife wasn’t how she had pictured it would be, but that was fine. No marriage started out perfect. What mattered was they kept trying.

It was completely dark when she entered the house, but she didn’t bother opening the lights. It was already two in the morning, and she planned on going straight to bed. Streaks of moonlight allowed her to see snatches of her surroundings, and the house was a mess.

Dirty plates in the sink. Empty bottles of wine and unwashed glasses on the coffee table.

Had Porter been entertaining while she was away?

It wouldn’t surprise her if he did. He was her opposite that way.

He was a self-described party animal while Kendra was a bookish homebody.

Honestly, she would have loved it if she could also be the proverbial cat lady in their neighborhood, but that wasn’t possible since Porter was allergic to cats.

Kendra was at the bottom of the stairs when she heard it.

A very familiar laugh.

A feminine laugh.

That wasn’t her own.

And that was when her heart started pounding hard and she found herself taking pains not to make any noise as she went up the stairs. This was her house, wasn’t it? Her home. So why was she acting like a burglar inside of her own house?

She had climbed these stairs countless times, but every step right now felt like hiking Mt.

Everest, and she found herself holding on to the rail lest she lost her balance.

And the way her heart was hammering, she couldn’t even count the beats.

It was just pounding away like a jackhammer.

And her throat—it was as if the air around her had suddenly become toxic, and she could hardly breathe.

What was going on?

Why did her home suddenly stop feeling like her home...just because she heard that laugh?

Her laugh.

By the time Kendra reached the landing, a part of her knew she was in complete denial. She knew what she was about to see for herself, but she just didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to keep pretending.

Please. Please. Please.

She had never been the type to pray, but it seemed as if that was what she was doing now.

Please, God.

And He did answer.

But not in the way she had been hoping for.

No. No. No.

They didn’t even think of closing the door. It was as if they had completely forgotten she was coming home tonight.

Let me forget this, God. Please. Let me keep pretending.

“You look so damn sexy, Mrs. Selleck.”

Kendra could feel her sanity slipping away. Was this real? Wasn’t she—wasn’t Kendra the ‘Mrs. Selleck’ he was talking about? So who was he—

"But of course, Mr. Selleck.”

That voice...

It was as familiar as the laughter she heard earlier...because they belonged to the same woman.

Kendra could no longer think clearly. A part of her wanted to turn away and do what she was good at doing, which was to pretend.

That was the easiest way out.

To pretend she hadn’t seen what she had seen, and she hadn’t heard what she heard.

BUT BECAUSE HER SANITY had fled, she found herself doing the opposite—

Thud!

It was the most satisfying thing ever, kicking the door open, and what followed after was even more satisfying, but also heartbreaking, with the sound causing Porter to fall off the bed.

Oh, if only she could find it in herself to laugh!

But how could that be possible when there was also someone else on her bed—

The bed she shared with her husband Porter—

There was someone else on it, and she was wearing Kendra’s nightgown, Kendra’s perfume, and she even wore Kendra’s face since Thelma...was Kendra’s identical twin.

Thelma didn’t look bothered at all at being caught in bed with her brother-in-law.

If anything, she almost seemed glad, maliciously so, and she wasn’t even scrambling to put some clothes on.

She seemed perfectly content to stare back at Kendra like she was simply taking back what had always been hers.

Kendra’s knees knocked against each other the moment she saw Thelma’s lips slowly curve into a smile.

That smile...was something Kendra had seen her entire life. It was a smile Thelma reserved only for her, a smile that promised trouble and punishment because it meant Thelma had done something wrong, but she had already made sure Kendra would be the one to blame.

“Kendra—” Porter was finally on his feet and looking panicky in his pajama bottoms. “This isn’t—I thought she—”

“You thought she was me?”

Porter nodded profusely. “Yes, that’s exactly it—” He stopped speaking when he saw how Kendra was looking at him.

“I know you’re lying.”

Kendra wished she could sound tough, but her voice cracked at the end, and the sound made Thelma’s smile widen.

“Babe, just let me explain—”

“How long has this been going on?” she choked out.

He didn’t answer.

And his eyes...

She saw the reason why in his eyes.

He couldn’t tell her how long it had been because he honestly didn’t know.

Her own husband hadn’t known how long he had been sleeping with Thelma while thinking she was Kendra. And as much as that hurt—

His phone on the bedside table caught her eye, and Porter seemed to have noticed where she was looking since both of them lunged for it at the same time—

“Kendra, no!”

Porter had always teased Kendra for being a slowpoke, but this time, perhaps out of sheer desperation, she actually beat him to it.

She got hold of his phone and jumped back, leaving Porter to dive for nothing but air.

It should’ve been something to celebrate, but instead she just kept feeling more and more nauseous, and the way Thelma was laughing...

“Way to go, twinnie!”

“Stop it, Thelma!” Porter’s anxious gaze was darting between her and his sister-in-law. “Kendra, just give me my phone back—”

Phone. Ah. Yes. Phone.

Kendra felt almost foolishly grateful to have something to do even though her fingers were badly shaking as she opened Porter’s phone.

She didn’t know what she expected to see.

Or maybe she did. Yes, of course she did.

And yet...she still ended up paling when she finally saw what he didn’t even have the decency to hide behind password-locked settings.

W-What was all this? W-Why? How?

Because all the messages and the photos...

Porter and Thelma...had been cheating on her for months.

Months!

And the way they were doing it...

How sick could they get?

Bile was rising to her throat as she read one of Porter’s texts to her twin.

I want you to act like her. But hotter. You’re the version of my wife that I’ve always wanted.

The very vileness of it had her stomach turning, and when Porter snatched his phone out of her hands—

“That’s not...that’s not worth your time.”

Kendra simply turned away, making no attempt to regain possession of his phone. She had seen enough. And she honestly didn’t want to see anything else.

“Kendra, wait—”

Her husband tried to grab her arm, but Thelma was suddenly there, and Kendra...

It pained her to admit this, but she was grateful that Thelma kept Porter from reaching her.

Because she didn’t think she could take it if he had touched her.

Not when he smelled like her twin, while her twin smelled like Kendra.

Don’t think.

Just don’t think at all.

Just don’t.

Kendra really thought she could make it.

But as soon as she was out of their front door—

No no no no no no no no

Her stomach turned, and Kendra crashed to her knees as she threw up on the sidewalk.