The Wife They Called Fool

Everyone in Manhattans upper crust knew that Roman Kensingtons wife had an IQ of exactly seventy-five. A mild cognitive delay, the specialists called it.

So, when Roman slid the glossy sonogram printout across the mahogany dining table toward me, it took my brain a full three minutes to process it. The penthouse was dead silent, save for the low, expensive hum of the central air.

"Roman," I finally said, my voice quiet. "I just had my physical yesterday. I'm not pregnant."

He wouldn't look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on the sprawling view of Central Park.

"I know, Paige. This is... this is my child. With someone else."

Other high-society wives might have screamed. They might have shattered the Baccarat crystal or filed their nails into his chest. I didn't cry. I didn't make a sound.

I was too busy trying to untangle the logic of it: Why would you have a baby with someone else when we are married?

Roman must have mistaken my silence for submission. He leaned over the table, his large, warm hand smoothing down my hair.

"That's right. Just be my good, sweet girl," he murmured. His voice was soft, the exact tone he used to soothe a frightened child. "The heir to the Kensington empire has to be sharp. Brilliant. And you know how you are..."

He stopped himself, sighing. "Never mind. You probably don't understand anyway. All you need to know is that your position as Mrs. Kensington will not change. Nothing will affect you."

A dull, needle-like ache bloomed slowly across my chest.

I am slow. I know that.

But a word surfaced in my mind from the television shows I watched. When a husband has a baby with another woman, its called cheating.

And when a marriage derails like that, it is supposed to end.

...

Roman lit a cigarette, his movements casual.

"She's a new junior analyst at the firm. But you actually know her. It's Valerie."

Valerie. Of course I knew Valerie.

I had paid for her entire Ivy League education through my foundation for the past seven years.

The acrid smoke drifted across the kitchen island, curling into my face. It stung. A thick film of tears began to blur my vision. It wasn't until a single drop slipped down my cheek that Roman snapped out of his thoughts and hurriedly stubbed the cigarette out in a crystal coaster.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Paige. I forgot you can't stand the smell."

He practically leaped up to crack the floor-to-ceiling windows, letting the brisk New York breeze in. "You know how much pressure I'm under right now. Quitting cold turkey is impossible."

I knew he couldn't quit.

But because of my asthma, he had strict rules for himself. For years, he only smoked on the terrace at the office. He would shower and change his clothes before he ever stepped foot in our home, terrified of bringing even a hint of ash to me.

Now, I watched as he waved the smoke away, casually explaining, "Once Valerie found out she was expecting, she insisted on finishing her current portfolio before taking leave. She works so hard. So, I mandated a strict no-smoking policy for the entire executive floor. Even for myself. I just... slipped up today."

"Everything for the mother of the baby, right?"

When he spoke about Valerie, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He couldn't hide it.

Even someone as slow as me could see that smile.

"Roman... how can you talk about betraying me so easily?" My voice trembled. "What am I to you?"

The smoke had cleared, but the tears kept falling, hot and fast, landing in my lap.

His brows knitted together. He took a step forward, reaching out to wipe my face. "Paige, sweetheart, you don't understand the corporate world. This isn't an affair. It's a transaction."

When I stumbled backward, shrinking away from his touch, a flash of irritation crossed his handsome face.

"Paige, stop making a scene! I just need an heir. A brilliant, capable heir who can take over the board."

He looked at me, his eyes hardening for a fraction of a second. "Can you give me a genius for a child?"

It felt like someone had taken a hunting knife and carved a hollow, gaping hole right in the center of my chest.

I stared at him, my entire body shaking.

His voice abruptly cut off. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." He reached out again, his voice frantic now. "I promise, we'll have kids later. Sweet, innocent babies just like you. Babies that will grow up safe under my protection. But before that, I must secure my position with a prodigy."

"Valerie is brilliant. You sponsored her for years; youre her savior. She isn't like those other social climbers trying to sleep their way to the top. That's why I chose her."

He let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his dark hair. "See? I really did think this through. I did this to protect us."

I stood frozen, looking at the man I married, and suddenly, I was pulled back to a time long before Roman Kensington existed in my world.

I thought of the man who was my biological father.

I remembered the damp, freezing basement in Ohio. He used to tie me to a heavy wooden chair, leaving me there for hours in the dark. He would sit at the top of the stairs, eating his dinner, shouting down at me with a cruel laugh.

"You're too stupid to survive in the real world, Paige! I have to push you to the brink to unlock your potential. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Everything I do is for your own good!"

I heard those words for so many years that they became the truth in my head.

Even after Roman found me and pulled me out of that hell, I still believed it. I used to sneak kitchen knives into my room, trying to recreate the pain my father taught me, convinced I needed to "unlock my potential."

It was Roman who had burst into my room, snatching the blade from my hands and throwing it against the wall.

"Everything he told you is absolute bullshit!" Roman had yelled, pulling me into his chest as I sobbed. "Bad people will always disguise their selfishness as love. But you don't need to be smart to know the truth, Paige. You just have to listen to your heart. If your heart hurts, you walk away from the person hurting it. Do you understand? Don't listen to their bullshit!"

I looked down now, pressing my palm flat against my sternum.

It hurt so much.

Roman. You were the one who taught me this.

When your heart hurts, you leave the bad person behind.

I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. My fingers were trembling so violently it took me three tries to pull my platinum wedding band off.

I threw it onto the hardwood floor. It bounced with a hollow, metallic ping.

"You turned into a bad person," I screamed, my voice cracking under the weight of the betrayal. "I want to go. I am leaving you!"

Roman froze for two seconds. Then, a dark, humorless laugh escaped his throat.

"You're leaving? Fine. But where exactly are you going to go, Paige? Back to the prison to visit your father?"

He stepped closer, his imposing frame casting a shadow over me. "Don't be naive. The second you step out of this penthouse, you wouldn't even know how to keep yourself fed."

The sharp chime of an alarm on his phone sliced through the tension.

He glanced down at the screen.

"I have to take Valerie to her OB-GYN appointment."

When his eyes met mine again, there was nothing but cold impatience. "I have given you a beautiful life, Paige. Ive treated you like a queen. All I am doing is having a child with someone else. I won't tolerate any more tantrums."

The front door slammed shut with a heavy thud. The sound rattled my bones.

He only remembered that he had to take Valerie to the doctor today. He forgot that today was also my birthday.

He forgot that exactly ten years ago today, he promised he would spend every single birthday with me for the rest of our lives.

Back then, he wasn't the ruthless CEO of Kensington Global. He was just the outcastone of his fathers many illegitimate children, treated like dirt by the legitimate family.

Because he had scored a 98 on an exam instead of a perfect 100, his stepmother had locked him in the windowless equipment closet of our elite prep school.

Roman suffered from severe claustrophobia. In the pitch black of that suffocating room, his panicked sobs echoed through the dark.

Neither Roman nor his stepmother knew that I was already hiding in that closet, skipping a class I couldn't understand.

"P-please... don't cry," I had whispered, reaching out in the dark. "I'm right here with you."

He sounded so broken. I didn't know how to fix it, so I gave him the only thing I had: a small, squished vanilla cupcake I had saved my allowance for weeks to buy.

I just wanted the older boy to stop crying.

He ate the ruined cupcake in the dark, wiped his tears, and made a vow.

"We're friends now, Paige. I will celebrate your birthday with you for the rest of my life."

From that day on, I was his safe harbor from his vicious family, and he was my shield against the world. We held hands and stumbled through the wreckage of our youth together.

When he finally seized control of the Kensington empire, the board lined up brilliant, polished, blue-blooded heiresses for him to marry.

He rejected them all.

No one expected him to marry the girl with the delayed mind. The society papers claimed he was doing it just to humiliate the Kensington name.

Even I had looked at him in my white dress, nervously twisting my fingers. "Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? I... I'm so slow, Roman."

He had slid the diamond ring onto my finger, his smile softer than I had ever seen it.

"Yes, you are. You're too innocent. That's why I have to marry you and keep you right by my side forever. It's the only way I'll know you're safe."

Marrying me had nearly cost him his empire. His fathers wrath, the board's threats, the social ostracizationRoman faced it all without flinching.

He had held my hands tightly and told me, "Paige, you don't know this, but that day in the closet... I was going to end it all. You pulled me back from the edge. I swore then that I would never let you go. I can lose everything in this world, but I will never lose you."

Because I was slow, he always made sure to speak his love loudly, so I would understand.

But because I am slow, he now felt he didn't even need to hide his infidelity.

I stared blankly at our massive wedding portrait hanging on the gallery wall.

A notification ping from my phone dragged me back to the present.

It was a text from Valerie.

[Paige, did you and Mr. Kensington have a fight? He looked so tense when he picked me up.]

[But it's okay, he's thrilled now! The doctor says our baby is perfectly healthy.]

Below the text was a photo. Roman, the man who struck fear into Wall Street, was leaning forward in a sterile clinic chair, a notepad on his knee, diligently writing down every word the doctor said.

He used to do that for me whenever I had an asthma flare-up.

Another sharp, piercing pain ripped through my chest.

Leave. I have to leave right now.

It was the only thought my brain could process.

I picked up my phone, my breath catching in my throat, and dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time.

"Mom? I'll do it. I'll come with you."

"Darling? Is it really you?" My mother's voice cracked over the line. "You finally forgive me? Where are you? Pack your things. I'm taking you to the consulate right now."

After finalizing the expatriation paperwork, I returned to the penthouse with a freshly drafted divorce agreement in my bag.

I hadn't even made it past the grand foyer when the sound of bright, ringing laughter drifted from the dining room.

Roman had brought Valerie into our home.

"You need to eat more salmon. The omega-3s make the babys brain develop faster," Roman was saying.

"Oh, relax, Roman. I graduated at the top of my class at Harvard. With my genetics, I promise you this baby won't be lacking in the brains department."

Standing in the entryway of the house I had lived in for nearly a decade, I felt like a ghost intruding on a stranger's life.

When Valerie saw me, she jumped up from her chair.

"Paige! You're home."

The girl standing in my dining room was radiant, confident, and draped in designer silk.

There was no trace left of the skeletal, bruised teenager I had found in that rundown trailer park in the Deep South.

Back then, she had just gotten her acceptance letter to Harvard. But her alcoholic, gambling-addict father had already promised her to a man three times her age in exchange for clearing his debts. He tore up her acceptance letter and locked her in her room.

She had managed to send out a desperate email blast to every charity she could find.

I was the only one who showed up.

Three hours on a plane, five hours in a rusted rental car. I didn't feel tired. I only had one thought repeating in my head like a metronome: Save her. Save her.

I did save her. But because my reflexes were too slow, I took the baseball bat her furious father had aimed at her head. I spent two weeks in the hospital.

Because of that, Roman had despised Valerie.

"You should have called the police," he had hissed at her in the hospital corridor. "Instead of dragging an innocent woman into your mess."

But eventually, things shifted. He started inviting her to corporate dinners. He would come home and muse, "She really is a once-in-a-generation genius, Paige. It's a good thing you saved her."

And now, here they were. Standing side by side. A perfectly matched, brilliant power couple.

"Paige, please don't be upset. I'm not staying long," Valerie said, stepping forward to gently grasp my hands. "The doctor said I was a little anemic today, and Roman was so worried he insisted on bringing me here so your private chef could make me a proper meal."

I violently ripped my hands out of her grip. I stared at her, genuinely confused.

"Is something wrong with my brain, or is something wrong with yours?" I asked. "You are supposed to be a genius. Do geniuses really think being a married man's incubator is something to be proud of?"

Valeries lower lip trembled. She shot a devastatingly pathetic look at Roman.

"No... Paige, I..." Tears pooled in her wide eyes, threatening to spill.

Roman immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from me.

"Paige, enough. I have explained this to you. I am simply acquiring a capable heir."

His tone was sharp, commanding. "You are too slow to grasp the complexities of my world. So just accept it. Do what youve always done and just listen to me. Is that so hard?"

Yes. It was.

Because you taught me to walk away when it hurts.

I reached into my bag, pulled out the divorce agreement, and slammed it onto the dining table.

I stared into his dark eyes, not blinking.

"We are done, Roman. This is over."

He looked at the papers, his brow furrowing in genuine bewilderment.

"I am never going to sign that. Valerie's presence doesn't diminish your status as my wife. I don't understand why you are throwing this tantrum."

I didn't say another word. I turned on my heel and walked up the sweeping glass staircase to pack my bags.

Behind me, Roman let out a dismissive scoff, clearly thinking I was just playing pretend. He turned back toward the kitchen to check on Valerie's salmon.

But Valerie followed me upstairs.

When she entered my bedroom, her voice was dripping with desperate sincerity.

"Paige, I owe you my life. I would never, ever try to replace you. Roman chose me exactly because he knew I understood my place. Please don't overthink this."

But the second the heavy oak door clicked shut, her posture shifted. The tearful victim vanished.

"God, you really are a retard, aren't you?" she whispered, a cruel smirk twisting her lips. "Do you have any idea that the life you're throwing away is what other women would kill for?"

She walked over to my vanity, picking up my expensive perfume and examining it. "From the first day I walked into Roman's office, I realized something. You two are a joke. You don't understand a single thing he does. You can't ease his burdens. He practically has to baby you while the rest of high society laughs behind his back."

She set the bottle down with a sharp clack. "He was always going to throw you away. It was just a matter of time."

She pulled out her phone, tapping the screen. "By the way... you're not so stupid that you don't know how babies are actually made, right? Want to see?"

She shoved the phone in my face.

It was a video of her and Roman in a hotel room. The tangled sheets, the raw, breathless sounds of their bodies.

Bile rose in my throat. I couldn't take it anymore. I shoved her hard by the shoulders.

"You're disgusting! You're both completely disgusting!"

Valerie stumbled back, but she didn't look scared. She gave me a smile that chilled me to the bone.

"Fools are so easy to bait," she whispered.

Then, she threw herself onto the plush carpet, clutching her stomach, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"Roman! Oh god, my baby! Paige, why did you push me?!"