I Faked My Death to Take His Empire

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Twice in my life, I've been another man's kept bird.

The first time I was young and green, taken in by a brutal Riverton nouveau riche.

Back then I was naive and soft, certain that if I was sweet enough, I'd earn something real in return.

Then I found out he only kept me as something to use, while behind my back he threw a fortune at the working girls all over the Tri-State area.

I walked away with nothing but the clothes on my back. Clean.

The second time, I thought I'd gotten smarter. I went with Val James, the financial titan the whole circle knew as cold and untouchable, a man who supposedly wanted nothing from anyone.

In our three years of marriage,

he doted on me beyond reason. Wherever I went, he sent bodyguards to shadow me, never letting me out of their sight.

People in the circle laughed that the old tree had finally bloomed, that he'd lost his head over some unknown woman.

And I believed it too. I thought this time I'd won the favoritism on my own.

Until this Memorial Day weekend, when I went with Val back to Harborview to visit the family elders.

Out on the terrace of the old estate, I heard Josephine James let out a long sigh.

"When it comes to obsession, no one in this world can match you."

"Back then the Crawford heiress looked down on you for being a bastard. She nearly let you drown in the sea, and you swore you'd make her wish she were dead."

"And now? Your wife. You went and found one with the face she had before her surgery, didn't you?"

""

The man was silent a long time. "Grandmother, don't let Penny hear that."

I was standing on the other side of the terrace, my fingertips locked around the railing.

"Why are you out here alone in the wind? You'll catch cold."

Val's gentle voice came from behind me.

He draped a coat over my shoulders, then slid his arms around my waist from behind.

My whole body went rigid.

Those three things Josephine had said kept echoing through my head, over and over.

Val took my hand. "Penny, why are your hands so cold?"

He lifted my hand to his lips and breathed warmth over it.

I turned around and quietly drew my hand free.

"Val. Who am I?"

Looking into those tender eyes, I couldn't stop the last three years from rising up in me, every day and every night of them.

The way he brought me a glass of warm milk every night, late, without fail.

The way he canceled a ten-billion-dollar merger when I had cramps and stayed up the whole night rubbing my stomach.

""

So all of it had been for another woman?

He smoothed a hand over my hair.

"Silly. Do you even need to ask? You're the wife I love most."

I opened my mouth to speak, and his phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen. His expression didn't change.

"Penny, something's come up at the European office. I have to go to the study and take an overseas video call."

He bent and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

"Be good. Go to sleep. Don't wait up for me."

I watched his retreating back, numb.

I went back to the bedroom alone.

On the nightstand, the tablet Val used for his financial news suddenly lit up.

A chat window popped open on the messaging app, no name saved to the contact.

What came through was a photo.

The background was one of those high-end hotels in Harborview known for its privacy.

In the frame, a woman in black lace lingerie, her eyes wet and gleaming.

Her features were delicate, exquisitely done.

And yet you could still see it, the line of her face, just a little like mine.

The Crawford heiress. Seraphina Crawford.

Before I could even react,

the chat log was wiped clean.

On his end, Val had cleared the whole conversation.

Less than a minute later, footsteps came down the hall, deliberately soft.

I listened to the engine fade into the distance.

My hands gripped the sheets, knuckles white.

After a moment, I drew in a long breath.

I followed the logo that had slipped, unnoticed, into the corner of that photo, hailed a car, and went after him.

I didn't storm in to catch them in the act and make a scene.

I just did something close to self-torture instead. I booked the room next to theirs.

The walls didn't muffle much.

Or maybe they simply never bothered to hold anything back.

The sounds coming through the wall were violent. I had never once seen him like that.

With me, he was always gentle, always restrained.

Seraphina's voice broke into a sob.

"Val, three years ago, you were so angry I left you out there in the water"

"Today, let me give myself to you to make up for it. Please?"

The moment the words faded, the noise on the other side of the wall grew even more savage.

I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted blood.

I forced down the urge to break, took out my voice recorder, and saved the evidence.

A wave of nausea kept rising up my throat.

I tucked the recorder away and stumbled out.

I walked the streets alone, cold wind driving fine rain into my face.

My phone lit up. A message from Val.

"Penny, this case is dragging. I'll be home late. Go to sleep early, don't stay up."

I tipped my head back.

I tried to push the tears back down, but my eyes blurred over anyway.

I'd believed I was the happiest woman in the world.

The evidence in front of me had just slapped me across the face for it.

I don't know how I got home.

I picked up the woodcarving by the entryway and carried it to the display stand in the living room.

The stand was crowded with small carvings of a woman.

For three years, I had taken them as proof that he loved me.

I used to be obsessed with woodcarving.

So Val canceled every dinner and engagement and came along to learn it with me.

He'd circle me in his arms, his hands over mine, working the knife stroke by stroke.

He said he wanted to keep every version of me, carved and held forever.

I walked to the half-length carving in the center, the one I loved most.

The suspicion kept rising in me, and almost without thinking, I lifted the carving aside.

There was a hidden compartment underneath.

I opened it, and I couldn't stop shaking.

Inside lay a single old photograph, yellowed with age.

The girl in it smiled wide and bold, with a particular melancholy resting in her eyes.

It was Seraphina, before the surgery.

I held the photo up against the carving in front of me.

The brow, the eyes, the expression. None of it was me at all.

I was only a reference, something to trace Seraphina's old face onto.

Just then the front door chimed with the fingerprint lock.

Val was home.

"Still awake? Were you scared, here on your own without me?"

He came over and reached out to ruffle my hair, the way he always did.

I couldn't hold it back any longer.

I dodged his hand and flung the photo into his face.

"So these three years of being good to me. All of it was fake?"

"You were only ever looking at her through me?"

Val glanced down, and a flicker of displeasure crossed his eyes.

He bent and picked the photo up, brushing the dust off it gently.

Not a trace of a man caught cheating.

"Penny, the title of Mrs. James will always be yours."

"Seraphina is just an obsession from when I was young. I need a little time to put it to rest."

I let out a cold laugh. "Put it to rest? In bed?"

Val looked up, eyes narrowing at me. "You followed me?"

He crossed one leg over the other.

"She has severe depression now. I can't just stand by and watch a living person die, can I?"

"I trust you can understand me. You're so tender-hearted with stray cats and dogs. This is a human life."

Just then his phone, lying on the table, lit up.

A voice message from Seraphina.

Val didn't bother hiding it. He just tapped it onto speaker.

The woman's voice was lazy, satisfied.

"Thank you for remembering I like pink diamonds. And one more thing, I like strawberry flavor. Don't bring the wrong kind next time."

The pink-diamond bracelet he'd outbid everyone for at last year's auction, paying a fortune for it.

It turned out that, too, had been for Seraphina.

He held out his hand to me.

"That bracelet wasn't a good piece. I'll have my assistant pick out a better one tomorrow to make it up to you."

I stood.

"Val James, I want a divorce."

The moment he heard those words, he caught my wrist.

He didn't grip hard, but his eyes had already gone cold.

"Stop this. I don't like you when you're like this."

"And where would you go without me? Crawling back to that nouveau-riche brute?"

"Let go. Where I go is none of your business." I stared coldly at the hand clamped around mine.

His eyes darkened, and in the end he slowly eased his grip.

He drew a deep breath and put on that long-suffering, indulgent look.

"Penny, don't throw a tantrum. I promise, I'll see her as little as I can from now on."

Just then his private phone rang in his pocket, that special ringtone.

It was the number he'd set up just for me, so I could reach him first the moment anything urgent happened.

Val's brows drew together as he answered.

Seraphina's voice came through, thick with tears.

"Val, I'm so scared."

His voice snapped taut.

"What? You cut your wrist?"

He turned without a second's hesitation.

"I have to go out. Get some rest, don't wait up."

"Val." A dragging ache spread low in my belly.

My hand went to my stomach on instinct, the other reaching out to catch the hem of his coat.

Impatience crossed his face.

"Penny, don't pick now to put on a jealous little act."

"She's in real danger right now. I have to go to her."

He pried my fingers loose, one by one.

He didn't spare me another glance. He walked out, long strides, and was gone.

I sank down onto the floor, cold sweat soaking through the back of my shirt.

I called 911 and went to Downtown General alone.

I lay in the hospital bed, holding the thin slip of paper from the test, my hand resting over the belly that didn't show yet.

Baby, I'm sorry. You really couldn't have picked a worse time to come.

I curled my hand into a fist.

But now that you're here, Mommy is going to take you with me and raise you.

I called my lawyer.

After I sent the evidence, I got up to leave.

That was when I saw Val, carefully supporting Seraphina as the two of them came out of the VIP ultrasound room.

There was a cartoon bandage on her finger.

He was murmuring something to her, his expression tender.

Seraphina lifted her head and met my eyes.

She stopped, and tugged at Val's sleeve.

He followed her gaze, and his face shifted slightly.

She slipped free of his hand and walked straight up to me.

She studied my face.

"How nostalgic. I'd almost forgotten myself, that I used to look like this."

Those weightless words landed like a hard slap across my face.

She raised her hand to touch my cheek.

I turned my head away. "Don't touch me. I'm not you."

Seeing me refuse, she swung her hand back and struck me across the face.

The sting burned hot, and I lifted my own hand to hit her back.

Val crossed the space in a few quick strides and stepped between us, shielding her.

"Penny, she's sick. Don't stoop to her level."

I drove my palm across his face without holding back.

He didn't get angry. His eyes dropped to the test results in my hand.

He pulled the slip away and scanned the result on it.

His brow creased.

"Penny, we can't keep this baby. Not now."

"Seraphina's pregnant too. She has severe depression. She can't take any kind of shock."

I stared at the man in front of me, unable to believe it.

She was pregnant too.

So they'd been together all along.

A wave of nausea rose and I doubled over, retching.

He rubbed my back.

I pushed him off. "This is my baby. It has nothing to do with you."

Val brushed away the tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

"Be good. Get rid of it."

He sighed, like he was coaxing a child who didn't know any better.

"We'll have others later. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

I stepped back, out of his reach.

"I already told you. I want a divorce. This baby is mine."

Right on cue, Seraphina clutched her chest behind him and let out a low, pained gasp.

Val's face darkened, and he waved his hand at the bodyguards behind him.

"Take the young Mrs. James to the operating room. Get her the best doctor."

The bodyguards moved at once, seizing my arms and hauling me up.

I fought with everything I had. It made no difference.

In the end they shut me into a VIP room to wait for the operation.

Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes. Fear and helplessness closed over my head.

The door opened. It was Seraphina.

I glared at her with everything in me.

She smiled at me, cold and sly.

"You think a dirty twice-married woman like you could give birth to the James heir? Keep dreaming."

"If you didn't have a face that looks like mine, do you really think you'd ever have gotten your claws into Val's brother?"

The words were barely out before she swung at my face again.

This time I bit down hard on her hand and didn't let go until I tasted blood.

She screamed for the doctor. "Don't give her any anesthesia!"

The operation began.

I screamed, a raw, tearing sound, watching my baby torn out of my body alive.

Body and soul in agony, I coughed up a mouthful of blood and passed out.

When I came to, a cramping pain twisted through my lower belly, wave after wave.

I stared at the ceiling, and the tears wouldn't stop.

My baby was gone.

In the next room, Val and Seraphina laughed and talked, looking forward to a new life coming into the world.

I wiped my face dry and made a call. "I'll work with you. Meet me at the coast."

Numb, I went home and walked straight into Val's study.

I took a tiny flash drive from my pocket and plugged it into his private computer.

I thought for a moment, then keyed in a number.

The password was right.

It was the day Seraphina nearly let him drown in the sea.

But there was a second password.

I tried several. None of them worked.

In the end, on some impulse, I typed in our wedding anniversary.

The screen unlocked completely.

I couldn't help laughing. What a ridiculous kind of devotion.

The progress bar raced through James Group's core confidential files.

I went out alone to the beach on the edge of the city.

Whenever I was hurting, I came to look at the sea.

Then footsteps sounded beside me.

"It really is you, Penelope. He wasn't lying to me."

A greasy man's voice slid into my ear.

I turned my head, and my pupils shrank.

Calvin Sanchez.

The nouveau-riche bully from Riverton, my ex-husband, the one who'd treated me as something to take it out on.

I backed away on instinct.

"What are you doing here? How are you here?"

Calvin looked me over, a lewd grin spreading across his face.

"Penelope, long time no see. You've only gotten prettier since you left me."

"I hear Val James dumped you. Why not come back to me? I promise I'll have you begging for more every single night."

I turned to run, but he was faster.

He caught me by the hair and dragged me toward a private yacht moored not far off.

"Let go of mehelp!" I kicked and clawed, but I couldn't break free of those thick arms.

He forced the mouth of a bottle between my teeth and poured something unknown down my throat.

In an instant my whole body went hot and weak.

He threw me down on the deck and bore down on me with a leer.

I pushed at him with everything I had, but my limbs had gone soft, every ounce of strength drained out of me.

Despair and helplessness swallowed me whole.

In that razor's edge of a moment, an SUV smashed through the guardrail and screeched to a stop at the water's edge.

It was Val James.

He saw the scene on the deck, and his eyes flooded red.

He charged onto the yacht and kicked Calvin clear across the deck.

Fist after fist landed in flesh. He was going to beat Calvin to death.

I lay curled on the deck.

Limbs limp, face burning, I couldn't even force out a cry for help.

Seraphina Crawford strolled up the gangway, and something unsatisfied flickered through her eyes as she looked at me.

"Val, stop. You'll kill him."

She clung sweetly to Val's arm.

"Penny was probably just lonely... after all, you've been with me."

"Going to her ex-husband on her ownthat's only human."

"Still, this is a little desperate, isn't it? She just lost the baby."

His fists stopped. He turned and stared at me, hard.

At my glazed eyes and the flush burning across my face.

The fury in his eyes came laced with disgust.

"Penelope, have you no shame at all?"

Before I could say a word, he bent down and swept me up into his arms.

"Since you're so eager to be in heat, let me sober you up properly today."

The words had barely left him before he carried me to the rail and jumped, no hesitation at all.

A crash, and seawater poured into my mouth and nose.

The drug's burning heat and the bite of the cold water tore my body in two.

Under the water, Val clamped his hand around my wrist and held me down, would not let me surface.

The suffocation made me thrash on instinct, but there was no fight left in me.

When the pain had almost dragged me under into unconsciousness

he finally pulled me up.

He looked at me, broken like that, and something like reluctance, like ache, crossed his eyes.

A huge wave slammed in, and the yacht rocked hard.

Seraphina, who had been standing at the deck's edge watching the show, lost her footing and tumbled screaming into the shallows.

"Val, help! I can't swim!"

He heard her cry.

And he turned to me and ordered:

"Swim back to shore yourself and wait for me. Don't you dare run off again."

He let go of the wrist he'd been gripping.

Without a moment's hesitation he turned and swam hard toward Seraphina.

With nothing to hold me up, I dropped straight down into the sea.

No strength left to struggle, I let the water flood my mouth and nose.

Over in the shallows, Val hauled Seraphina onto the sand.

Then his eyes swept the surface of the water.

"Where's Penelope?"

He frowned.

"Hasn't she made enough of a scene?"

The waves beat against the rocks. Nothing answered him.

His face darkened. He shoved Seraphina aside and threw himself back into the sea.

"Penelope, come out!"

He searched like a man gone mad, and found nothing.

Panic took him completely. He called in a search team and they dragged the water through the night.

A whole night, and they found nothing.

From the marks on the scene and the direction of the current, the police ruled it a drowning. Penelope Henson was dead.

When Val heard the news, all at once