I Was Never His Real Wife

Start Reading

Everyone said Cecil Henson and Leah Sullivan were made for each other.

Thirteen times they sought the omens, and every reading came back perfect.

Even if he'd been a poor nobody, the Sullivan family would have accepted him.

But he happened to be her uncle in name, the fourth heir of the Sullivans.

The night Leah was sent abroad, they put him through hell.

And through all of it, all he ever said was the same line. "I'll love her until I die."

The next day he came to steal a bride, still covered in his wounds, and I was the bride he stole.

Everyone said he'd loved and lost, and finally gone mad.

But after we married, we were happy. I pulled him out of his dark place.

He gave me a love that knew no limits.

For so long, I believed we were meant to be.

I believed we'd stay happy forever.

Until the eldest Sullivan daughter came home.

Only then did I finally understand what it meant for two people to be made for each other.

Leah's welcome-home banquet was a grand affair.

It was the first time I'd ever seen her.

Sweet, reserved, with something sharp hidden underneath.

Everyone admired her, fawning as they greeted her.

Only Cecil sat quietly in the corner. He didn't rise, and he made no move to go to her.

"Uncle."

"Mm."

Leah glanced at me, her expression complicated.

I could tell she'd meant to just walk past, but all those years of breeding told her she ought to be polite.

So she swallowed her disgust and said, "Aunt."

The banquet began, and somewhere someone said, "It's the fourth's third wedding anniversary today, isn't it?"

Everyone's eyes turned to us.

That was right. The third year since Leah went abroad.

The third year since Cecil and I had been together.

Leah propped her chin on her hand and asked, lightly, "I heard Uncle stole his wife by force back then. What is it you like about her?"

Cecil never touched a drop of alcohol.

Today he'd had a few too many, head braced on his hand, his face slack with the weariness of being drunk.

Vincent Henson and Theo saw which way this was going and tried to laugh it off.

"Come on, let's all drink to Leah being home!"

Leah's voice dropped a shade heavier. "Uncle still hasn't answered me."

The air went tight. Everyone who'd raised a glass now sat watching, and no one dared drink.

Cecil suddenly gripped my hand, his eyes burning into mine. "All of it. There's nothing I don't like."

"Daisy, come to the restroom with me."

I nodded and held him up, careful with every step.

Outside the restroom, I stood looking down at the dirt on the tips of my shoes.

A voice came from behind me. "What are you looking at?"

Cecil wrapped his arms around me from behind, nuzzling at my ear, the smell of liquor rolling off him in waves.

"Before she came back, you didn't drink."

A soft laugh against my ear, and he gave me a light, idle bite.

"Jealous? Daisy, did you forget. I drink every anniversary."

Cecil tipped my chin up and kissed me, slow and deliberate.

The hand at my waist pressed harder and harder, until it hurt and my eyes flew open. In the mirror was the lovely profile of Leah's face.

She bent over the sink, washing her hands.

Seeing me freeze, Cecil narrowed his eyes and lifted his head, impatient.

In the mirror, their gazes found each other.

"Uncle's in fine spirits."

Cecil's brow creased. "You're everywhere."

He took my hand and led me back.

The wind outside was strong, and he tucked his coat around me.

When we got home, his phone lit up.

The notifications came fast, one after another.

When I leaned in to look, he turned the screen off.

He only ruffled my hair. "My eldest brother wants me. I'll be back soon, be good."

I nodded and went to shower alone.

When I came out, Cecil was already back, slumped drunk against the couch.

He saw me and pulled me hard into his arms, his voice rough and unsteady. "Happy third anniversary."

His kiss was fiercer than it had ever been.

It took, and it left nothing of me behind.

His tie was wound across my eyes, and on that tie I caught

a faint trace of perfume that wasn't mine.

"Cecil, not here."

He pressed me into the wall. The wall was cold, and the chill seeped slowly into my back.

I watched him, clear-headed.

Something about Cecil tonight was just wrong.

In this we had always kept to the rules.

Against a wall was a first.

Maybe it was the drink.

That was how I soothed myself.

In the night, Cecil drifted off, but I couldn't sleep, so I stepped out alone for air.

The moment I was through the door, I ran into Leah Sullivan.

She'd come out of the room next door.

She looked at me, her gaze cool and clear.

When I saw her, I went still too, just for a beat.

So the other side of that wall was Leah's room.

I stood alone on the rooftop, letting the wind move through me.

I kept feeling that something between us was quietly slipping away.

The rooftop was pitch dark, which made the streetlamps below stand out all the sharper.

Cecil and Leah came from two different directions.

Catching sight of each other, they both froze for a moment.

The two of them stood a few yards apart, facing each other.

I wanted to hear something. I was afraid of hearing something.

So I just sat there, still.

The two of them stood there just as still, looking at each other.

A full twenty minutes, and not half a word.

I drew a deep breath and felt like I was burning up from the inside.

That delicate, silent air killed me firstthe outsider.

"I'm going to find your aunt."

Cecil spoke first and brushed quickly past the person in front of him.

Leah lifted her chin, drew a breath, and said, "I'll be bringing my boyfriend home tomorrow."

She turned away, unbothered, and Cecil gave her only his back.

"You've got her anniversary to make up for tomorrow. No need to come."

He answered flat, one word. "Fine."

Once we were back, Cecil quickly went quiet.

But I knew he wasn't asleep.

With Leah home, our anniversary was pushed back a day.

Cecil had always said the third anniversary was an enormously important day.

That he had to throw me a grand party.

Building this island alone had taken three years.

Every guest who arrived was a person of standing.

The flowing-silk gown I wore was thirty million.

Every detail of the party he had shaped with his own hands.

I wanted to lose myself in the happiness too, but Cecil stayed apart from it, in a corner, staring at his phone.

When I came over, he calmly put it away.

In that single instant I saw it. On the screen was a photo of Leah and a man.

"Daisy, happy third anniversary."

He took my hand, smiling, and under bank after bank of spotlights he told the room every small piece of our three years.

Three years of overwhelming love had made everyone forget the awkward history between him and the eldest Sullivan daughter.

I couldn't blame them.

I'd nearly forgotten it myself.

On the rare occasion I heard it brought up, I treated it as a joke.

But after seeing Leah, the love I had been so certain of was crumbling.

"Cecil is so good to his wife. You all should have seen ithe came in on the yacht at the crack of dawn and saw to everything himself, terrified anything would go wrong. His wife must be a wonderful person."

"More than that every time Cecil's wife comes up, he can't keep the smile off his face."

"Talk about a good husband in Harbor Bay, and who doesn't think of Cecil first?"

"Exactly. Cecil's famous around here for being devoted."

Cecil's love for me was real.

But I'd always felt that his love for her was just as real.

I knew the two of them were innocent.

And still, the one truth no one would say out loud was the thing driving me out of my mind.

"Cecil, what's got you so distracted?"

He shook his head.

Leah was bringing her boyfriend home today. His mind, I knew, was already there.

So I made up my mind and skipped straight to the last part of the program.

Every guest had dropped a wish slip into the jar.

We would draw one out and help see it granted.

I reached in and unfolded the slip.

And, without thinking, I looked over at Cecil.

He had his head down over his phone, his driver standing behind him.

Lucas Chavez was thumping his own chest, beside himself.

"Mrs. Henson, don't tell me it's mine!"

I smiled. "It is. Congratulations."

He whooped and jumped for joy, again and again.

I looked down at the slip in my palm.

*Wishing Leah peace and joy, and that everything goes her way.*

Anonymous. But the handwriting was Cecil's.

I crumpled the slip and dropped it in the trash.

From the crowd, someone asked, curious, "Lucas, you never told us your wish! Come on, let's hear it."

He scratched his head and gave a sheepish laugh. "I don't really want anything. I wrote that I hope Cecil and his wife stay happy together for a lifetime."

The hand still over the trash gave a violent jerk.

"Daisy, Leah brought someone home, and Charles wants me to go back for a bit. I"

"Is it Charles who wants you back, or you who wants to go back?"

Cecil held up his phone.

On the screen was a message from Charles.

"If your brother wants you there, then go."

I didn't go over with him.

I didn't have to see it to hear how things were going.

Word had already swept through the whole Sullivan house.

The eldest daughter had brought home some useless piece of trash.

Ordinary face, ordinary background, ordinary talents.

And his character a street thug, plain and simple. Word was Charles had been so furious he'd swallowed two of his pills.

The man couldn't find a single thing to recommend the boy. Charles smoked through a pack before he finally called the brothers back to figure out what to do.

They went at it until dawn, and Leah still insisted on marrying him.

When I went looking for Cecil, the whole front hall held only the two of them.

He was frantic, the breath all bottled up in him with nowhere to go.

And he simply had no hold on Leah.

The eldest daughter, by contrast, sat there calm and cold, nothing about her like someone who'd lost her head.

She watched Cecil rage. She watched him come up empty.

She was savoring the man's collapse.

"Tell me what's so good about him. An ordinary fool, the most ordinary man alive, and you'd debase yourself to marry him!"

"Isn't she the most ordinary woman alive too? And you still honored her, loved her. Why can't I?"

Cecil froze. "Are you doing this out of spite?"

The moment it landed, he slammed the tea table in the front hall.

He clutched his hair, dragged a hand down his face.

The whole of him on the edge of breaking.

Leah stayed serene through all of it. "Cecil, you could pick an ordinary person, cut your losses in time, love her completely. I should be allowed the same."

"Loving completely, loving fiercely every bit of it was a performance. Praise my acting if you want. I know exactly how wretched a love like that is to live inside, and that's the one thing I won't watch you do to yourself."

I stood beneath the pear tree, my hands curling into fists without my meaning them to.

She wouldn't praise him, so I would.

Cecil. After acting for so long, he must be exhausted.

Leah tilted her head and gave a cold laugh. "Which word of yours am I supposed to believe?" She shook off Cecil's hand and asked, voice like ice, "If you'd stayed faithful to her, I might have given you some credit. But your cheap excuse for love makes me sick."

"Cheap?"

"I grabbed someone at random and married her, just so I could play at being happy. That wasn't a marriage to me, it was a performance. I lived with her day and night, I gave her everything I had, and my heart stayed cold the whole time. I couldn't make myself love her. I close my eyes and all I see is you. And you call that cheap love?"

"Leah, you call that cheap love!"

Cecil came apart, gripping Leah's shoulders, his voice shaking.

"My eldest brother gave me an ultimatum. Either I find someone and marry, or I cling to you like a fool and never see you again for the rest of my life. He said if I married, he'd bring you home in three years. So the next day I grabbed the first person I could find and married her, and I played the part for three years straight!"

Each thing he said landed heavier than the last.

Word by word, like stones, they dropped against my chest.

Cecil knelt in front of Leah, his face working through something he couldn't hide.

Almost begging, he said, "I'm asking you. Don't do something reckless."

"You're a Henson, I'm a Sullivan. Why can't it work? If I really go to my father, he'll agree to it."

"Your aunt might not agree to the divorce."

Leah's foot stopped mid-step.

The two of them fell silent again.

When they looked at each other, there was something in it words couldn't reach.

If it had been anyone else, I really would have been moved for them.

But the man standing there wasn't anyone else. He was my husband.

I slipped away without a sound and sat alone at the foot of the bed, staring at nothing.

I hadn't been desperate to marry Cecil.

I hadn't loved him from the start either.

I'd been about to marry my childhood sweetheart when Cecil snatched me away by force.

And then, in the small things over three years, I'd fallen for him bit by bit.

At the moment I loved him most, he brought it all down on my head.

It was deep into the night when Cecil came back.

He flicked on the light. "Still up?"

I'd only just noticed. "Look. The pear tree we kept for three years has withered."

He went blank for a second. "What?"

"I mean, let's get a divorce."