Chapter 1 – An Unwanted Surprise
Please, baby. Help me change Daddy’s heart.
I march towards my husband’s office on the top floor of Steele Corp Building, carrying a present in my hand. It’s our third anniversary and I thought I’d give my husband a surprise. I just came back from the OBGYN. I placed my ultrasound photos inside a small box and wrapped it with a ribbon.
“Excuse me, Miss Carlisle. You need an appointment to see the CEO,” Tara, my husband’s secretary, blocks the entrance to my husband’s office. “Or do you want me to call your supervisor?”
She raises a haughty brow at me, acting like she’s above me.
Well, I suppose she is above me. She is the CEO’s executive secretary, sitting in the office at the top floor, while I’m just a graphic designer with a cubicle on the third floor.
I have been married to Steele Corp’s CEO, Kayden Steele, for three fucking years. But sadly, no one in the office knows about it.
“Umm…” I force a smile on my face. “Mr. Steele called my extension and personally asked me to bring the present that arrived for him.” I motion at the box in my hands.
“A present? From whom?”
“His wife, maybe,” I reply nonchalantly.
Tara smirks. “You know he’s still single!” See? Not even his secretary has a clue. “Although, I wonder if it’s from that woman he asked to be picked up at the airport.”
“What?” Now, it’s my turn to be surprised. “What woman?”
Tara raises a skeptical brow at me again. “That information is none of your business,” she replies. Then she turns to open the door to Kayden’s office. “The graphic artist is here to see you, Sir?”
“Let her in,” I hear Kayden say.
As I walk past Tara, I can’t help smiling at her smugly. If she only knew what I’m carrying in my hands right now.
This gift, this wonderful news, is going to bring my husband closer to me.
This baby will change everything!
I close the door behind me, and with wobbly legs and a big smile of anticipation on my face, I walk towards Kayden.
He looks up from the papers on his desk as he watches me intensely. I almost lost my nerve as I remembered how devilishly handsome he was, with his midnight black hair, and blue-gray eyes. We’ve been married for three years, but he still takes my breath away.
“Kayden,” I call, my voice almost squeaking. “I have… some news for you.”
“Before you say anything, I have something to say to you, too,” he says in a voice laced with ice. When he speaks so coldly to me like that, I wonder if he’s the same man who makes hot love to me at night.
“Oh, okay. What do you want to tell me?” I ask.
He stands up from his seat. I cannot read the expression on his face as he stares back at me in silence.
“Kayden, what is it?”
He sighs heavily before turning away from me, as if he can’t bear to look at me when he says what he needs to say.
“You see, when I was young, I vowed to marry someone,” he mumbles. “But unfortunately, I couldn’t because…” he trails off, heaving another sigh. “But now, she’s back in town. And I don’t think I can do this anymore, Cassie.”
Wait, what did he mean by that?
He turns around. His eyes look distant, devoid of any emotion. “This is not working out for both of us. I want a divorce.”
Divorce?
The word keeps ringing in my head like a deafening siren. Sure, this marriage was far from perfect. But in the years that I’ve been married to Kayden, I tried to be the perfect wife. I made sure I gave him no reason to regret ever marrying me.
“But… why?” Tears begin to brim my eyes.
“Come on, Cassie. Did you really think this marriage was going to last?” he asks. His voice was ice cold, and his face almost stoic. “You know it wasn’t my choice to get married. You drugged me and threatened to expose my indiscretion the same week that I was going to be announced as CEO of Steele Corp! What was I supposed to do? Of course, I had no choice but to marry you!”
I shake my head. “No, Kayden! I told you before that I didn’t drug you. That night, somebody drugged me, too! I-I was framed. I don’t even remember how I got to your room that night! Somebody made it seem like… like I staged it all!”
He sighs heavily. I doubt that he heard anything that I just said. Or maybe he did. He just doesn’t care. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I managed to gain control of my father’s company. Your family got whatever it is you wanted to gain out of this marriage. Maybe it’s better we walk away now, while we still can. Before we tear each other apart.”
“I gave my life to this marriage, too, Kayden!” I tell him evenly. “I didn’t plan on marrying a stranger as soon as I graduated university! This was against my will, too. I also have dreams I gave up because of this marriage.”
“How could I believe you? Your father was too eager to give you away. And his business suddenly boomed, didn’t it? I was desperate to gain control of my father’s company. And you just took advantage of my vulnerable situation.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this. In the three years that we’re married, I can hardly remember when Kayden showed me any affection. He’s always been reserved and indifferent. It wasn’t a perfect marriage, but I never thought he’d ask me for a divorce so soon.
My hands tremble. The box I’m carrying drops to the floor. My wonderful news, my little ray of hope, completely forgotten. “Tricking you into marriage is the last thing I would do!”
He scoffs. “But that’s exactly what you did, didn’t you? I dreamt of building a family for myself. On my own terms and at the right time. Marrying you felt like I wasn’t given a chance to choose what I wanted for myself.”
I shake my head, unable to control the tears that’s flowing from my eyes. I realize that no matter what I say or do, Kayden will never believe me.
“Is that why no matter how hard I tried to be the perfect wife… even after the many nights we made love, you… you never learned to love me?”
Kayden’s face remains relentless as he stares back at me. “Love? When you trapped me in this marriage, were you thinking about love at all? Your father bagged his biggest clients at the mere mention of my name, remember? It’s all about money and power. Of course, I could never love you!”
I inhale deeply. It’s painfully obvious now what the man I had desperately loved for three years thought of me: a gold-digging, scheming bitch!
Looking back at that night, I know that somebody had spiked my drink, and somehow, I ended up in Kayden’s penthouse. And the morning after, somebody had tipped the paparazzi and made it look like I blackmailed Kayden into marrying me. I know that somebody had set me up. I just don’t know who.
Kayden inhales deeply. “How could I love anyone who robbed me of my will?”
“You’re wrong, Kayden,” I sob. “It seems that after all these years, you never saw me for who I really am.”
Kayden shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now. My lawyers are already preparing the divorce papers as we speak. Let’s do this as quietly as possible,” he says. “Anyway, there are only a few people who knew you were my wife.”
I nod, feeling numb. “Yes. You did an excellent job keeping me a secret.”
That was his first request to me: keep quiet about the marriage. Thinking about it now, he must have been planning to divorce me since then. Why did he wait three years to do this?
I wipe the tears on my cheeks as I struggle to compose myself. I know that when Kayden makes a decision, there’s very little chance that he’ll change his mind. “An—anything else you want to say?”
“One last thing,” he replies.
I look up at him, pretty sure that there’s nothing he can say that would make me feel any worse than I do at this moment.
He takes a deep breath and announces, “I don’t want to see you around the office. You’re fired!”
