My Husband's Wife Is Never Me

We met at five. I married him at twenty-five. Adrian Chase guarded me for twenty full years.

I said I wanted the stars, and the next day he bought the naming rights to an asteroid.

Everyone said I was the love of his life.

Until the lawyer slid a document across the table. Miss Winters, legally speaking, you are not married.

In the spouse column, a different name was printed clearly: Luna Sterling. My housekeeper's daughter.

Date of registration: the day after our wedding that shook the entire city.

So for five years, I'd been sleeping in someone else's marriage. Loving someone else's husband.

Worse still, while I lay on an operating table clutching my belly, miscarrying, he was on his knees before another woman, sliding the ring that should have been mine onto her finger.

He accused me of framing Luna. "Iris Winters, when did you become so vicious?"

I smiled.

He asked why I didn't explain. Why I didn't fight. Why I didn't beg.

Explain what? That those twins in my belly were killed by his own hands?

Or that Luna, the fragile woman trembling at his side, didn't even share his blood type?

But I said none of it.

I disappeared from his world just like that, as cleanly as if he'd never loved me at all.

So tell me, Adrian, now that I'm gone, why are you tearing the world apart looking for me?

Iris POV

Everyone thought I was the woman Adrian treasured above all else.

He'd guarded me for twenty-five years, from a confused girl to the billionaire who ruled an empire. If I so much as frowned, he could turn half the city upside down.

Yet this same man had lied to me for five years. Completely upended my life.

......

In the law office, the cold leather sofa pressed into my spine.

I'd come to handle the inheritance of my grandfather's estate. Instead, the lawyer told me something utterly absurd.

"Miss Winters, legally speaking, you are single."

I thought I'd misheard. I forced a strained smile. "Adrian and I have been married for five years. The whole city knows."

That wedding five years ago had shaken the entire city.

Adrian had deployed three hundred drones to spell out my name in the night sky.

He'd also covered an entire island with nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine roses flown in from Holland.

That day, I was the happiest bride in the city.

How could I be unmarried?

The lawyer slid a document across the table. Black and white. His expression was sympathetic. "Mr. Adrian's legal spouse is someone else. A woman named Luna."

My fingertips went ice-cold. My mind buzzed.

The housekeeper's daughter. That girl who always kept her head down, spoke in soft whispers, looked gentle and pitiful.

My breath caught. My heart ached until my vision blurred.

I forced myself to read the critical information in that document.

Spouse: Luna Sterling.

Date of registration: Five years ago. The day after our wedding of the century.

With a deafening crash, everything I'd believed for twenty-five years came tumbling down.

From the day we met at five, to the day I "married" him at twenty-five, Adrian had been my faith.

I loved him to the bone, trusted him more than I trusted myself.

I never checked his phone, never questioned his schedule, because the security he gave me once made me feel nothing could destroy us.

But reality slapped me hard across the face.

I don't know how I walked out of that law office.

I started my car, merged into the city traffic, driving aimlessly.

Harsh sunlight flooded the interior, but couldn't dispel the chill in my heart.

My phone screen lit up. Adrian had sent a text, his tone commanding: "Bought that blue diamond you like at the auction overseas. Take a shower and wait for me in bed tonight."

A flawless blue diamond had appeared at a London auction recently.

Adrian had said that shade of blue resembled my eyes, that only I was worthy of it.

I looked at the text, finding it ironic.

Just then, my car stopped at the entrance to a private dock.

Through the iron gate, I saw that familiar yacht.

It was the twentieth birthday gift Adrian had given me.

Adrian was standing on the yacht's deck, embracing another woman.

That woman wore a white dress, her hair flowing to her waist. It was Luna.

The next second, Adrian gripped the back of her neck and kissed her.

The guests' cheering around them was carried away by the sea breeze, blurred and unclear.

Those tender memories flashed through my mind, scene by scene.

At eighteen, I received an acceptance letter from a top foreign design institute. He stood downstairs through a blizzard all night, begging me not to go. The next day, he burned with fever and fell unconscious, still calling my name in his delirium. I softened, tore up the acceptance letter, and stayed.

At twenty, a star player from the school football team gave me roses. Adrian beat him in front of the whole school until his bones broke, then buried my car with thousands of roses, possessively declaring, "Iris is mine. Anyone who touches her dies."

At twenty-two, to attend the same university as me, he gave up the Ivy League school his family had arranged, condescending to come to my school, spending four years with me.

Once, these were all proof he loved me to the bone.

But now, these soul-deep vows had all become lies.

I laughed until tears streamed down, laughed until my whole body trembled.

Twenty-five years. I'd used my entire life only to move myself.

If that's the case, then this man who'd occupied my entire existence should be completely excised.

I wiped away my tears. I didn't go home. I returned to the law office instead.

"Mr. Louis." I sat back on the sofa, my voice calm and emotionless. "I want to liquidate and sell all the Winters family assets in this city. Don't leave a single property."

The lawyer froze. "Miss Winters, you..."

I picked up the contract on the table, swiftly signing my name. "In half a day, half the Winters assets have already changed hands. Move faster."

The lawyer looked at my resolute expression and finally nodded. "Processing all assets will take ten days at most."

Ten days.

I repeated that number silently.

Iris POV

When I returned to the villa, Adrian was already waiting.

He sat on the sofa, his gaze pinning me like an ice pick. "Gone all afternoon. Where were you?"

He couldn't reach me. These few hours had exhausted his patience.

I looked at him, my mind filled with images of him kissing Luna on the yacht.

"Why aren't you speaking?" Seeing my silence, Adrian stood and approached step by step. His long arm reached out, gripping my waist. "Want me to punish you again?"

My body stiffened.

I remembered when I was twenty. We'd argued. I'd run to the beach to surf in defiance. Adrian went crazy, deploying helicopters to search the whole city. After finding me, he locked me in a beach villa for two whole months. Only after I cried and swore never to disappear again did he release me, eyes red.

I feared him, feared that crazed need for control.

Right now, I couldn't let him see through me, couldn't expose that I was planning to leave.

"I..." I clenched my fingers, forcing myself to calm down, my voice trembling. "I went to the hospital."

I couldn't tell him I was pregnant.

Already three months along.

Adrian's expression changed immediately, his hand on my waist loosening slightly.

He thought I'd gone behind his back again to try those painful fertility tests.

He immediately switched to a distressed expression, bending to kiss my forehead, his voice low and husky. "Didn't I tell you not to go anymore? I've said it before-you're enough for me. I don't want to see you suffer like that."

If this were yesterday, I might still have been moved by this performance.

But now, I only found it ironic.

Adrian's phone rang. He took a call, gave brief instructions, then turned and left.

Half an hour after he left, my phone received a file from an unknown number.

It was an audio recording.

I clicked it. Adrian's familiar voice came through, mixed with the clink of glasses.

"Luna's four months pregnant. I need to give her a title."

A friend asked, surprised. "What about your wife? I thought you were crazy about her?"

"Iris can't have children." Adrian's voice was tired. "The board is breathing down my neck. The Chase family needs an heir."

My face slowly drained of color.

In the recording, the friend let out a sigh. "Can't blame the old man, I guess. If he hadn't made you give Iris that infertility drug back then, and forbidden you from marrying her, you wouldn't be in this mess now."

Infertility drug...

I was struck by lightning. My blood turned to ice.

I remembered the wedding night five years ago. Adrian had personally fed me a cup of warm liquid, gently coaxing, "Good girl, these are vitamin supplements the doctor prescribed. They're good for your health. We'll have a baby soon."

So from the very beginning, he never intended to let me bear his child.

That marriage certificate he claimed was lost and never replaced-it had been forged all along.

At the end of the recording was Adrian's low murmur.

"I love Iris. That will never change. But when I'm with Luna, my heart is peaceful-the kind of peace Iris can't give me."

The friend snorted, cutting straight to the point. "You're just greedy. You want a passionate lover and an obedient wife both."

The recording ended there.

Gripping my phone, I could no longer hold myself up and slid to the floor.

Love me?

Love me through bigamy and deception?

Iris POV

Tears slid down my cheeks. I raised my hand to roughly wipe them away.

Crying was the most useless thing.

But just then, a sharp, plunging pain suddenly tore through my lower abdomen, as if someone were viciously twisting a knife inside.

That pain didn't ease. Instead, it grew more intense. Cold sweat instantly soaked my back.

Trembling, I dialed Rowan's number.

Rowan was my best friend and the only doctor who knew I was pregnant.

"Rowan, my stomach hurts so much..." My voice shook with fear. "Save the baby. Please help me save the baby."

An anxious voice immediately came through. "Don't be scared. Get to the hospital now. I'll arrange tests right away!"

Half an hour later, I arrived alone at the private hospital.

Because of the pain, my face was deathly pale. I wore an oversized coat with sunglasses and a hat, barely supporting myself against the wall as I walked.

However, at the corner of the VIP corridor in obstetrics, taking a shortcut to find Rowan, I unexpectedly ran into the person I least wanted to see.

Adrian.

He was carefully protecting Luna, one arm circling her waist, the other shielding her from passersby.

That cherishing look was identical to how he used to protect me.

The overwhelming irony made my abdominal pain intensify instantly. I froze in place, clutching my belly desperately, watching helplessly as they walked past not far away.

"The specialist here is so hard to book. I shouldn't have made you wait so long." Adrian frowned in complaint, his tone full of concern.

Luna leaned against him, speaking softly, her humble posture perfectly calibrated. "Adrian, it's okay. I'm just the housekeeper's daughter. I don't want to waste your money. Being able to carry your child, I'm already very satisfied."

Hearing this, Adrian's eyes filled with even deeper tenderness. He lowered his head to kiss the top of her hair. "You're just too considerate."

He paused, then shifted tone with a trace of indulgence. "Not like Iris, always demanding this and that from me. If only she were half as considerate as you."

Yes, I wasn't considerate.

In that moment, my blood surged violently. I felt a warm liquid flowing uncontrollably from my body.

I heard him say again, "That blue diamond from the auction-once I get it, I'll have it made into a wedding ring for you. Consider it my makeup gift to you."

That diamond he once said reminded him of my eyes was meant for another woman.

"By the way," Luna added casually, "that brooch you gave Iris last time, did she like it? I spent so long picking it out. I really hope she'll be kind to me, since I'm carrying this child for her."

Carrying the child for her?

I heard Adrian's low chuckle. "Silly girl, of course she'll like it. I told her that once you give birth, we'll give the baby straight to her. That's the only way our child can become the rightful heir. Don't worry, she'll treat you like the baby's real mother."

So, on the assumption that I was infertile, he'd already mapped out my entire future.

Having me raise his illegitimate child with another woman.

Enormous rage and desolation crashed against my heart. The plunging pain in my abdomen reached its peak. My legs gave way, and I could barely stand.

I couldn't listen anymore. I turned, wanting to escape to the emergency room to find Rowan.

After just a few steps, my phone rang. It was Adrian.

"Where are you? I had breakfast and roses prepared for you. Why aren't you home?" His tone was like coaxing a difficult child.

I leaned against the cold wall, the warm sensation below making me desperate, my heart like dead ash.

"Are you overthinking again?" He soothed gently. "Don't worry. If you really want a child that much, we'll adopt one in a while. Let you be a mother, okay?"

Adopt one?

When my child was losing its life, he was talking to me about adoption?

"No need..."

I spoke softly, my voice so weak it seemed to come from another world. "The child... is already gone."

After speaking, the phone slipped from my fingers and crashed heavily to the ground.

Before darkness claimed me, I saw a shocking red spreading across the floor tiles.

Adrian, you personally killed this child.

Iris POV

When I woke, the surgery was already over.

Rowan stood by the bed holding medical records, his expression sorrowful. "Iris, I'm sorry... You were already hemorrhaging badly when you arrived. It was an extreme emotional shock that caused threatened miscarriage. We did our best, but we still couldn't save them."

He paused, his voice dropping even lower. "And this miscarriage caused severe damage to your uterus. In the future... you may have great difficulty conceiving again."

I lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. Tears slid silently from the corners of my eyes into my hair.

No hysteria, only a hollow deadness from being emptied out.

"Rowan, this isn't your fault." My voice was hoarse. "This child-he killed it with his own hands from the very start."

He killed not only our past but also our future.

That blood connection in my body was completely severed. Between Adrian and me, it was finally clean.

Though my body was extremely weak, I couldn't lie still.

My phone on the nightstand vibrated once. It was a photo from an unknown number.

One photo, one location.

The photo showed the wedding dress I'd designed with my own hands-my heart's blood.

The location was New York's most luxurious bridal boutique.

That shop's owner was me.

I pulled out the IV from the back of my hand. Ignoring Rowan's attempts to stop me, I dragged my body-fresh from a D&C procedure-changed clothes, and took a cab there.

The car stopped across the street from the bridal shop.

I sat in the car, my whole body freezing from blood loss. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I immediately spotted Adrian and Luna standing at the shop entrance.

He embraced her, eyes full of adoration, voice tender enough to drip water. "Even though I can't give you a public wedding, I still want you to wear the most beautiful wedding dress in the world once."

Just then, several luxury sports cars pulled up one after another at the shop entrance.

Doors opened. The faces that emerged were all painfully familiar.

Grayson. And so many others. Our mutual friends. The people who had witnessed twenty-five years of us.

Inside the car, I rolled the window down just enough to hear their chatter.

"Is Adrian preparing a surprise for Luna? Isn't he afraid Iris will find out?"

"Afraid of what? Iris and I are just fake-married anyway. Besides, the one pregnant now is carrying gold. Keeping her happy is more important than anything."

So everyone knew.

Only I, like a fool, had been kept in the dark by the entire world.

I'd just lost my child, yet they were here celebrating another child's impending birth.

My hands and feet were terrifyingly cold. Only hatred kept me from collapsing.

Using my identity as owner, I quietly entered the bridal shop through the back door and went alone to the VIP room.

I stood in a dark corner, looking down from above, coldly watching that absurd ceremony prepared for someone else.

Adrian wore an impeccably tailored bespoke suit. Luna wore that wedding dress.

That dress-I'd stayed up countless nights designing it to commemorate Adrian's and my first kiss at dawn in Santorini.

Now it dressed another woman, receiving blessings from all my friends.

"Exchange rings!"

Friends egged them on. Grayson whistled. Adrian produced a deep blue velvet ring box and knelt on one knee.

From my high vantage point, I saw everything clearly.

Inside the box was a pair of custom Cartier wedding bands, identical to the ones we'd exchanged years ago.

So even sacred things like rings weren't one of a kind.

Just as Adrian was about to slide the ring onto Luna's finger, I pulled the main breaker.

The bridal shop went dark in an instant.

Then I pressed the remote. A powerful spotlight blazed down from above, landing squarely on me, swaying precariously on the third floor.

Iris POV

People awkwardly set down their glasses. Luna's smile froze at the corners of her mouth.

"I... Iris?" Adrian's face went white as a sheet. He seemed startled, then instinctively dropped Luna and charged up to the third floor like a madman, pulling me into his arms.

"Let me explain!" He spoke incoherently, his voice shaking. "This is just shooting an ad! I wanted to surprise you for our anniversary!"

As he spoke, he pulled that ring from his pocket, trying to force it onto my hand.

The ring was the wrong size, jamming tightly at my knuckle.

"Luna!" Still holding me, Adrian shouted downstairs without turning back. "You explain this clearly to Mrs. Chase yourself!"

Luna's eyes reddened, her voice humble. "Mrs. Chase, this really is a surprise Mr. Chase prepared for you. I'm just the model cooperating with the shoot."

Adrian grabbed this lifeline like a drowning man, holding me tighter, declaring over and over in my ear. "Iris is my one true love for life. How could I possibly betray you..."

How hypocritical.

Luna said through tears, her voice clear enough for everyone to hear, "I wish Mr. Chase and Mrs. Chase eternal happiness and a child of your own soon."

A child of our own.

I trembled with pain throughout my body.

After Luna finished speaking, she couldn't keep acting. She covered her face and ran from the bridal shop.

"Luna!"

Adrian roared, shoving me aside and chasing after her recklessly.

He hit my shoulder. The force was great, making me stumble several steps and crash hard against the railing. The pain darkened my vision.

My friends and I. He just left us all standing there.

Luna ran out of the shop and dashed toward the private sightseeing cable car on the nearby slope.

Adrian caught up and squeezed into the same cabin with her.

The cable car rose slowly. Mid-air, the steel cable snapped with a piercing screech. The whole cabin lurched, then plummeted.

In the split second before impact, I saw Luna wrap her arms around Adrian and spin sharply, using her own body to shield him from the worst of it.

CRASH.

After the thunderous noise, the scene was chaos.

Adrian knelt beside the cable car wreckage, holding Luna as she coughed up blood. She gasped weakly, "Save our child..."

He looked back in anguish. Those eyes that once brimmed with love now held only hatred.

He looked at me standing unharmed on the third floor and used all his strength to roar, "Iris! I said it was just an ad! Why didn't you believe me! Why did you have to kill her and the child!"

Hearing this accusation, I was struck as if by lightning.

Friends downstairs also gathered around, pointing and whispering about me.

Grayson was first to speak. "Don't you all know how much Adrian loves Iris? For her, he even exiled Luna, who'd loved him for years, to a deserted island for five years! This video today? He just found a stand-in so Iris wouldn't have to tire herself out."

Another friend chimed in. "Exactly. Iris, how can you be so petty? Luna's so kind. She just loves Adrian. Why do you want her dead so badly?"

The accusations piled on, twisting black into white.

I looked at their faces, all so righteous, so angry for justice, and suddenly laughed.

Iris POV

Friends reversed truth and lies, accusing me.

I found it absurd.

They'd once raised glasses, blessing Adrian and me with eternal happiness.

Now these same people stood on moral high ground.

In their mouths, Adrian's five-year affair was understandable. My feelings should make way for the mistress.

If I refused, I was vicious, unreasonable.

Luna was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The baby wasn't saved. Her uterus was also removed.

Adrian kept vigil outside the operating room, like he'd lost his soul.

He collapsed beside Luna's hospital bed, confessing to her unconscious form over and over.

"I'm sorry, Luna. I'm sorry. I loved the wrong person."

"I always thought the one who silently sacrificed for me and saved my life was Iris. It was always you."

Those four words "loved the wrong person" cut my heart over and over.

I hid in the corridor shadows, remembering Adrian had a rare blood disease.

Since childhood, I'd been his on-call mobile blood bank. Each transfusion made me seriously ill. My health grew worse and worse.

I also remembered-originally it wasn't Adrian who stood in the snow for three days and nights that made me stay.

It was me threatening suicide. Only then did my parents give up sending me abroad.

I also began to regret.

Had I known this love would become unrecognizable, I never would have started it.

I decided to leave.

I took one last look at that man heartbroken over another woman in the hospital room, then turned and walked toward the elevator step by step.

Behind me, Adrian's body swayed and he collapsed straight to the floor.

THUD.

A dull thudding sound came from behind. My steps paused.

But this time, I didn't turn back.

Adrian, you taught me what it feels like to be abandoned. I've learned.

When I returned to the villa, it was already late at night.

I opened my phone. Social media was flooded with posts from that group of friends.

They were all sharing the video of Adrian slipping the ring onto Luna's finger. Same caption on every post:

"Wishing Mr. and Mrs. Chase a happy fifth anniversary! May your happiness last forever!"

In the photo, he looked devoted. She beamed.

The whole city was celebrating "Mrs. Chase."

How ironic.

My phone suddenly rang. It was Adrian's grandfather.

"Get to the hospital! Give Adrian a blood transfusion!" His voice was pure command.

I stared out at the night sky, my voice flat. "Mr. Chase, Adrian and I are neither family nor related by law. I have no obligation to save him. And thank you for what you gave me five years ago. I don't even need a divorce now."

I hung up and blocked every last one of them.

From now on, a clean break.

That night, I didn't sleep.

I pulled out suitcases and, alone, sorted through everything that had to do with Adrian. Item by item. Severing the past. Completely.