The Billionaires Unwanted Wife

Eight years of marriage, and my husbanda man as precise and unyielding as a Swiss movementfinally malfunctioned.

He used his immense leverage to steal another mans girlfriend, buried his marital status, and claimed he believed in love at first sight.

I stood outside the frosted glass of the clean room, watching him lift the generations greatest physics prodigy onto a stainless steel lab table. His eyes, usually cold as slate, were rimmed with raw red emotion. Their mouths were locked together.

The silk tie I had perfectly dimpled for him this morning was now a crumpled ball of fabric discarded in a hazardous waste bin.

The buttons on his shirt, which mandated a strict vertical alignment, were chaotic and askew.

Preston Shaw was sharp. He caught my reflection in the glass. He frowneda silent, dangerous warning.

My shin throbbed. The phantom ache of a hairline fracture, a souvenir from the last time I tried to stop him from seeing Sienna.

I blinked, masking the shock with a practiced, porcelain smile. I turned to the confused board of investors standing behind me.

Apologies, gentlemen, I said, my voice smooth as aged whiskey. It seems there was a chemical spill. A students experiment went sideways. Its not safe to enter yet. Lets move to the Quantum Wing.

1

Inside the lab, the sounds dampened but didn't disappear. I could hear the girls breathless, weeping laughter.

And Prestons voice, terrifyingly casual.

What are you afraid of? If anyone sees, Ill just tell them youre mine. Dont you want that?

A single door separated two different realities.

Out here, I was the face of cutting-edge tech investment. I was the estranged daughter of the wealthy Vanderbilt-adjacent Vance family. Finally, I was Mrs. Shaw.

In there, Preston was the heir to the Shaw dynasty. And he was Siennas boyfriend.

The only thing he wasnt, was my husband.

Our marriage had been a strategic merger announced in the Wall Street Journal, but we were private to the point of paranoia. No tabloids had photos of us together.

Sienna, however, was his trophy. He paraded her around like a rare diamond. The rising star of theoretical physics.

Preston was her loyal lapdog.

But the girl was proud. She was angry hed scared off her previous boyfriend, and she withheld the title of official partner from him.

A bitter irony curled in my chest. I had the title, the ring, the name. And what did it matter?

As long as Preston wanted to keep a secret, no one would dare tell Sienna that her suitor was a married man.

I didnt listen to another word. I straightened my spine and walked away.

In a merger, the line item with the least valueis always sentiment.

Preston taught me that.

Although the tuition for that lesson had been a broken leg and six months in a wheelchair.

The delegation was raving about the equipment, but the conversation inevitably pivoted to Preston.

I hear the Shaw heir is pouring money into quantum computing, one investor noted. If he sees a future in it, wed be fools not to follow.

Another man glanced at me, his eyes lingering on my bare hands. Mrs. Shaw isn't wearing her wedding set today? Ah, well... men will be men. They get distracted by wildflowers. I remember when he bought a literal meteorite just to cut you a custom diamond.

I heard the derision loud and clear.

These titans of industry were only entertaining my startup because of the Shaw name.

How poetic.

The heiress marries, and suddenly she loses her birthright. To succeed, she must beg for scraps from her husbands table.

I touched the indent on my ring finger, forcing a light, airy laugh.

Preston said for our eighth anniversary, hes commissioning something that puts the Star of Eternity to shame. Ive vaulted the old one. Its practically an antique now.

The suspicion evaporated. Contracts were signed.

After the handshakes, I rubbed my cheeks to massage away the stiffness. I turned the corner and froze.

A matte black sedan with the license plate SHAW 1.

Preston never used this car for his affairs. It was too recognizable.

He was waiting for me.

The realization sent a tremor through my hands.

I tried to pivot, to feign ignorance, but the car lurched forward, blocking my path. Aggressive. Dominant. Just like him.

The window didnt roll down, yet I could feel the chill radiating from the back seat.

Once, I would have rushed to apologize, terrified of his displeasure. I was the perfect curator of his moods.

But today? I had walked five miles in heels. I hadn't eaten.

Rage, hot and sudden, flared in my gut. I stared at his silhouette through the tint. This was just an accident, I said to the glass. Im exhausted. I dont have time for a lecture.

I had tried so hard to avoid their orbit, yet gravity kept pulling me back to Preston and Sienna.

The window slid down. Preston sat there, his long, elegant fingers toying with a diamond ring.

Better than the Star of Eternity? he asked, his voice dropping fifty degrees. Audrey, when did you become a liar?

It was the ring I used to guard with my life.

The ring I had deliberately lost.

He tossed it at me. It hit my chest with a dull thud.

I looked at it and smiled. Lets get a divorce.

The words tasted sweet, but before I could say them, my survival instinct kicked in. Isn't lying what you taught me?

2

The Shaw family operated on a code of conduct that made the military look relaxed. Preston was the embodiment of that codean obsessive perfectionist bordering on pathological.

His coffee had to be single-origin Ethiopian, grind size 14, brewed exactly thirty seconds after grinding.

His suit buttons, his cufflinkseverything had to be perpendicular to the floor.

Even his treadmill sessions were calculated down to the calorie and heart rate zone.

As his wife, I was another metric to be optimized.

His requirements were specific: My wife must come from old money. She must be beautiful, poised, and fluent in the language of high society.

I was eighteen when the Vance family finally acknowledged my existence.

I stood in a lineup with my four half-sisters, wearing a dress that had been washed until the fabric thinned, afraid to lift my head.

Any sane man would have chosen the polished princesses next to me.

But Preston chose me.

His eyes didnt hold the disgust my parents had, nor the mockery of my sisters. They were clear, calm water.

You, he said. You are the exception.

It was the first time anyone had chosen me.

It is impossible not to fall in love with Preston Shaw when he turns his focus on you.

I treated his preferences like gospel.

I reinvented myself. In one year, I became the perfect debutante. After the wedding, I became the quintessential Mrs. Shaw.

And to my shock, beneath the iron exterior, Preston offered rewards.

We chased the Northern Lights in Iceland. We took a private gondola in Venice. We ate gelato on the Ponte Vecchio and felt the Mediterranean breeze in Sicily.

Until a week before I caught him.

We were in Barcelona, admiring Gaud. He told me, in a voice that sounded like devotion, that being with me was the happiest hed ever been.

I thought it was real.

I thought the cold, robotic Preston Shaw had a heart, and that I held the key.

Then came Sienna.

Finding her was an accident. She was the wunderkind of the physics department, fast-tracked to a Nobel Prize. And naturally, she was the lead on a project funded by Shaw Capital.

I went to surprise Preston at the lab.

It was a scene eerily similar to today. Only back then, Sienna hated him.

She was throwing his Cartier gifts out into the hallway.

Preston, usually so dignified, was chasing her like a desperate teenager. She slapped him.

And instead of recoiling, he pinned her against a whiteboard and kissed her. When she pushed him away, he laugheda raw, rugged sound I had never heard.

He was never that relaxed with me. With me, he was polite. A performance.

I realized then, tears stinging my eyes, fingernails digging into my palms.

Why was our marriage a dance of eggshells? Why was there no heat, no lovers quarrels?

Because to him, I was just a mirror.

He was only ever acting.

3

It was a high-security facility. I didn't have the clearance to barge in. So I watched my husband betray me through a window.

I didnt have the courage to confront him. I chose willful blindness.

There was a pathetic hope buried deep inside me: They havent slept together yet. Maybe hell get bored.

I waited three years.

Preston couldn't conquer Sienna.

The cracks in his perfect veneer began to show. He started breaking his own rules.

When Sienna mentioned a boyfriend, Prestons jealousy turned nuclear. He used his board influence to reassign the poor boy to a field station in rural Namibia. He pulled strings to make sure Sienna couldn't graduate without his approval.

He held her career hostage because he couldn't handle rejection.

I saw the photos from the private investigator. Siennas face, once bright, looked gray and desperate.

A dark thought took root: If she wont take him, maybe I should help her disappear.

But I underestimated Preston.

My hired muscle betrayed me. I was thrown into the trunk of a car like luggage, blindfolded.

The smell of gasoline and exhaust triggered a primal panic. I screamed until my throat bled.

When the trunk popped open, Preston was there. He looked disheveled, bruised. He pulled me into a crushing hug.

I forgive you this time, he whispered into my hair. But never again.

I froze.

To punish meor perhaps to keep me docilehe became even more attentive. Our families were thrilled.

But one night, in the dark, he whispered her name.

I snapped.

Get out! If you love her, go to her!

I smashed every vase in the bedroom. I screamed like a banshee.

Preston just stood there, lighting a cigarette, looking at me with pity. Audrey. I thought you were smart.

Your advantage over the others was always your obedience.

I was pulling at my hair, sobbing. But you said you loved me. I believed you.

What did I do wrong? I did everything you asked... please, just look at me. Don't love her.

He walked through the debris of our room, touched my face, and smiled. Don't hurt yourself, darling.

You are the perfect Mrs. Shaw. I made you. You should know by now: in a merger, feelings are irrelevant.

If a lie maximizes profit, only a fool tells the truth.

He drove me to the brink of insanity, then demanded I stay sane.

I didn't understand then. I just stubbornly tried to stop him from seeing her after she attempted suicide.

I locked myself in the garage with the car running, letting the carbon monoxide choke me, hoping it would scare him.

It worked, temporarily. He promised to stay away.

Then he went to her.

When he found out I was the one who told Sienna he was married, Preston snapped.

He didn't yell. He picked up a vintage 9-iron golf club.

You cost Sienna half her life, he said, testing the weight of the club. A leg for a life. Youre getting off cheap.

The sound of the bone snapping haunts my nightmares.

While Sienna was being pumped full of charcoal in the ER, and while his grandfatherthe patriarchhad a heart attack from the stress, I was dragging my cast through the rain, locked out of the manor.

That night, alone in the cold, I lost our baby.

And I lost the last shred of hope for Preston Shaw.

The next day, from my hospital bed, I asked for a divorce.

Divorce? Preston ripped the papers in half.

Audrey, where would you go? The Vances don't want you. Youve developed a taste for caviar; you wont survive on bread.

I can survive, I whispered. Sign the papers.

Maybe it was my pallor. His eyes flickered to my flat stomach, and his hand twitched.

Stay in your lane, be Mrs. Shaw, and I won't make your life difficult.

I smiled, a dry, brittle thing. Sienna won't love a married man.

She has amnesia, he said.