The Fake Wife's Billion-Dollar Revenge

Start Reading

1: 1

Seven months pregnant, I took the cup of milk tea Philip Weiss handed me and drank a big mouthful without a second thought.

The scalding pepper water burned straight through my throat.

I doubled over coughing, and warmth I couldn't stop ran down between my legs.

The pale maternity dress soaked through fast, and drops fell onto the mall's tiled floor.

His little assistant, Althea Pruitt, came rushing out and draped herself all over Philip.

"See, I told you pregnant women are loose down there. A few coughs and she can't hold it."

"Philip, you lost. You have to take me to a movie tonight."

"Anyway, Amber Donaldson's wet herself like this, so you won't feel like touching her, right?"

Philip steadied her by the waist and nodded with a smile. "A bet's a bet."

Althea leaned against his shoulder, beaming as she made another offer.

"Let's bet again. Guess whether Amber's going to cry."

Philip turned and looked back at me.

He didn't cover the hem of my dress. He didn't stop the people filming all around us.

He just smiled and said,

"I bet she does."

"She cares too much about her pride. She won't last three minutes."

The two of them walked into the elevator, laughing, and left me standing there in everyone's curious, sneering stares.

I didn't cry. I just dialed a number.

Late that night, a few hundred bodyguards surrounded Althea's home.

I pressed the dagger to her cheek and gave a soft smile.

"Want to make a bet?"

"Guess where my next cut lands."

"Across your face."

"Or into your heart?"

Althea stared at the blade against her cheek, flinching back again and again.

"Amber, don't do anything stupid!"

"There are cameras everywhere. You lay one finger on me and Philip won't let it go!"

Even now, she still dared to use Philip against me.

I pressed my wrist down.

Althea screamed and squeezed her eyes shut.

The blade grazed past her ear and sheared off a lock of hair.

"Relax."

"I've always kept score fairly. It just so happens I made a bet with someone too."

"I bet on how many bottles of pepper water it takes before Miss Pruitt coughs herself wet!"

I signaled a bodyguard to open the box on the table.

Inside sat dozens of prepared cups of pepper water.

"However you toyed with me this afternoon, we're going to do it again, exactly the same."

"Drink."

Althea clamped her lips tight.

The bodyguard had just held out a cup when Philip's furious shout came from outside the door.

"Stop!"

He shoved aside the men blocking the doorway and strode in fast.

Seeing Althea pinned in the chair, he didn't think twice before pulling her into his arms.

"Amber, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

The moment she saw him, the tears came at once.

"Philip, I was only joking around with Amber."

"And she brings all these people to corner me, and holds a knife to scare me."

She pointed at the hair on the floor.

"Any later and she'd have carved up my face."

Philip looked down at her for a long while.

Only after making sure she wasn't hurt did he turn to me.

"This afternoon Althea did take it too far, I'll admit that."

"But there was no need to blow it up this far, was there?"

"You're healthy. A few coughs won't do anything to you."

"Althea has a stomach condition. Drinking that would actually land her in the hospital."

So he knew Althea had a stomach condition.

Yet he couldn't remember that I was seven months pregnant, that the doctor had warned me over and over not to touch anything irritating.

I didn't argue with him. I only asked one thing. "The bladder leaking during my pregnancy you told her about that?"

Philip was silent for a few seconds.

"I only mentioned it once, in passing."

"How was I supposed to know she'd turn it into a bet."

Three months into the pregnancy, I leaked for the first time from a sneeze.

I hid in the bathroom then and wouldn't even open the door.

Philip coaxed me for a long time outside.

Afterward he carried me back to bed and changed the sheets for me.

He said there was nothing shameful between husband and wife.

He even promised me, "Only the two of us will ever know about this."

And now even his little assistant could hold my private life up and laugh at me.

Althea hid behind him and explained in a small voice,

"Amber, don't take it the wrong way."

"Philip only talked to me about it because he was worried your recovery after the birth wouldn't go well."

"I even looked into pelvic floor therapy for you specially."

I looked at her coldly.

"And secretly filming it was to help me recover too?"

Her expression froze for a beat, then her lips curled again.

"I just sent it to a few friends."

"They're the ones who spread it around. That's not my fault."

She held the phone up in front of me.

That clip had already been shared tens of thousands of times.

The comments were nothing but mockery of my body and the wet hem of my dress.

Someone had even cut out my face at the moment I leaked and turned it into a GIF.

Philip gave it only a glance.

"The internet has no memory."

"Give it a few days for the hype to die down, and no one will remember."

He said it so lightly.

He wasn't the one filmed at his most humiliating.

He wasn't the one tens of thousands of people were gathered around to laugh at.

I had a bodyguard pour a fresh cup of pepper water.

"I won't make it hard on her."

"Drink it, delete the video, then apologize publicly."

"And this whole thing is over."

But Althea didn't take it.

She touched her belly. A moment ago she'd been crying so pitifully, and now her eyes were full of smugness.

"This cup, I really can't drink."

"The doctor said pregnant women can't touch anything too irritating."

I thought I'd misheard.

"What did you say?"

Althea took a prenatal test result out of her bag and unfolded it for me to see.

"I'm pregnant. The baby is Philip's."

2: 2

I stared at that pregnancy test result and, for a long moment, couldn't get a word out.

Althea seemed pleased with my reaction.

She looped her arm through Philip's and deliberately pressed her belly against him.

"Amber, don't be angry."

"I've never thought about taking Mrs. Weiss's place."

"But you shouldn't be so controlling either. My child is going to need to see his father often from now on."

Philip didn't push her away.

Instead he bent his head and murmured to her gently, "The doctor told you not to stand so much. Go sit on the sofa."

He steadied Althea as she sat, then had someone take away all the pepper water on the table.

Only once he'd confirmed there was nothing in the room that could hurt her did he turn back to me.

His tone was as calm as if he were discussing some minor piece of business.

"One of the times I went with you to a prenatal checkup, Althea was young and playful and insisted on making a bet with me."

"She bet on whether you'd catch us kissing in the hospital corridor. One thing led to another, and I couldn't help myself."

"But I never intended to divorce you, and I won't let her threaten your position as Mrs. Weiss."

When he finished, he even walked over and pulled my coat closed around me.

The gesture was as gentle as it had always been.

But the words out of his mouth were cold enough to make him a stranger.

"Amber, we both grew up steeped in this world."

"What household out there doesn't keep a few women on the side?"

"Keeping an obedient little bird around for a bit of amusement, isn't that perfectly normal?"

"You were raised from childhood to be a high-society wife. You should know which things are worth making a scene over, and which things you turn a blind eye to."

I looked at him, and suddenly I remembered something from many years ago.

The thing Philip had hated most was exactly these so-called high-society rules.

His father had kept countless women outside the marriage.

His mother spent her whole life guarding her position as Mrs. Weiss, and in the end didn't even get to see her husband one last time.

The day she died, eighteen-year-old Philip knelt in the memorial hall all night with red-rimmed eyes.

The next day, he took my hand and said:

"Amber, I will never become a man like my father."

At twenty-two, the Weiss family picked out a marriage match for him.

But Philip flipped over the tea table in front of the elders of both families and walked out of the old Weiss estate holding my hand.

Behind him, dozens of elders shouted their fury, and outside a whole row of luxury cars sat waiting.

He didn't even look back.

That night, the Weiss family froze his cards and took back every property in his name.

He had only a few hundred dollars left to his name, yet he still smiled and said:

"What's there to be afraid of?"

"Even without the Weiss family, I can still give you the best life there is."

Later, he actually did it.

To propose to me, he booked out a private island.

Hundreds of drones spelled out my name over the sea.

The pink diamond on that wedding ring was one he'd bid a nine-figure sum for at the Geneva auction.

The night before the wedding, in the Weiss family chapel, in front of all the elders, he signed a loyalty agreement.

The agreement spelled it out clearly.

If he was ever unfaithful during the marriage, or had a child with another woman,

his Weiss shares, the funds in his name, and his overseas assets would all be transferred to me.

Everyone urged him not to sign it back then.

But Philip handed the pen to me, grinning, full of high spirits.

"Sign it."

"In this life, I'm never going to give you a reason to use it anyway."

I really believed him.

So when the Weiss Group's cash flow broke, I convinced the Donaldsons to put up the money to cover the gap.

When the board came after him, I handed him every vote the Donaldsons controlled.

The day Philip secured his place as heir, he held me and said:

"Everything I have now, you gave me."

"In this life, I will only ever have one wife, and that's you."

Now he still has the Weiss family.

And he's finally become the very man he despised most.

3: 3

Philip took my silence as a sign that I'd finally come around.

His voice went soft.

Once the baby's born, I'll get Althea a house and set aside a sum of money for her.

She'll never show up in front of you.

You'll still be Mrs. Weiss, and our child will be the only heir the Weiss family openly acknowledges.

Althea leaned back against the couch, stroking her belly.

Amber, the one Philip loves most is still you.

I'm more than content just having him come by to keep me company now and then.

She said it so sweetly.

But the smugness in her eyes gave her away.

In their eyes, I suppose.

I was supposed to be like Philip's mother, swallowing every last humiliation for the sake of so-called dignity.

I gave a small laugh and told the bodyguard to bring the legal team in.

Invoke Clause Seven of the prenuptial agreement.

The words had barely left my mouth when more than a dozen lawyers filed in through the door.

Fabian Swanson, at the front, held the documents out to Philip.

Mr. Weiss.

Miss Pruitt's prenatal records are already enough to prove you've breached the prenuptial agreement.

As of now, the thirty-seven percent of Weiss Group shares in your name will be taken over by Ms. Donaldson.

The Donaldson family's cash funding to Weiss Group has also been formally terminated.

Philip's phone rang at once.

It was the chairman.

Even from where I stood, I could hear the roaring on the other end.

Philip, what the hell did you do?

The Donaldsons pulled their funding out of nowhere, and the banks are already coming after us for repayment!

The board is demanding your immediate suspension from every position!

Philip gripped the phone, the color draining from his face bit by bit.

Amber, we've been together all these years.

Are you really going to destroy everything I have over something this small?

I looked at him and, all at once, I laughed.

Philip, don't you like keeping a pretty little bird in a cage?

I'll leave her to you.

As for the cage, the feed, and the money you used to keep her.

I slipped the villa keys out of his hand.

All of it is mine.

From today on, I'm not leaving you a single thing.

I turned and walked toward the door.

Behind me, for the first time, Philip dropped every ounce of his pride and called my name in a rush.

I didn't look back.

At the door, I said one last thing to Althea:

Congratulations.

This man with nothing left to his name is now completely, wholly yours.

4: 4

I'd just reached the door when the lawyer suddenly called me back.

"Ms. Donaldson, wait."

His tone was heavier than I'd ever heard it.

"We just pulled the marriage registration records."

"There is no record of any marriage between you and Mr. Weiss."

My steps froze.

"What do you mean?"

Lawyer Swanson glanced at Philip.

"It means the marriage certificate in your possession is fake."

"From beginning to end, Mr. Weiss's legal wife has always been Althea Pruitt."

I slowly turned around.

The last trace of humiliation had left Althea's face.

She drew two marriage certificates from her bag and waved them at me, smiling.

"Amber, you didn't really think I was just some kept woman Philip kept on the side, did you?"

"The one who had to stay hidden, the mistressthat was you all along."

I stared at the date on the certificate.

Three years ago, June seventeenth.

The exact day I thought I'd registered my own marriage.

That day, after I got the certificate, I buried my face in Philip's chest and cried for a long time.

Philip kissed the tears away and told me,

"Amber, from today on, we're a real family."

But it turned out every bit of that day had been a lie.

Althea covered her mouth and laughed.

"Oh, and that day I made a bet with Philip too."

"I bet that you trusted him so much you'd never notice the clerk was fake, or that there was no real official seal on the certificate at all."

"If you caught it, I'd leave him forever."

"But if you didn't, he'd go with me to the real registry office and file for a license."

She flipped the certificate open.

"And sure enough, you didn't catch it."

"So the moment you carried that fake certificate home, Philip came to pick me up."

"We got to the registry office before it closed and filed the real marriage license."

I looked at Philip.

"Is what she's saying true?"

Philip avoided my eyes.

"It was just a bet."

"I never thought things would come to this."

Just a bet.

He lost, so he handed the wife's title that should have been mine over to Althea.

And I, because I trusted him too much, lost my own marriage with my own hands.

Althea stroked her slightly rounded belly, her smile turning even sweeter.

"Philip said something else that day. He said you were easy to fool."

"That all he had to do was hold you and kiss you, and you wouldn't look too closely."

"Amber, you lost three years ago and never even knew it."

"And now you want to use a marital loyalty agreement to carve off the Weiss family's shares? Don't you think that's absurd?"

Lawyer Swanson quickly flipped the agreement open, his face growing darker.

The first clause of the agreement stated it plainly.

The agreement takes effect from the date the two parties legally register their marriage.

But Philip and I had never legally married.

So whether he cheated, or whether he got Althea pregnant

the agreement would never be triggered.

That thirty-seven percent of sharesI couldn't claim a single point of it.

Philip finally lifted his head again.

He straightened the collar the bodyguards had yanked out of place, and the confidence was back in his eyes.

"Amber, it's not too late to pull back now."

"Have the Donaldsons restore the funding, withdraw the pressure on the board."

"I'm willing to overlook the fact that you broke in here tonight with a crew of people."

"From now on you can move out to the hillside villa in the suburbs, wait quietly to have the baby, and stop making trouble."

I looked at him.

"And if I don't agree?"

Then, from beyond the door, came the sound of measured footsteps.

Several police officers walked in.

Althea instantly ducked into Philip's arms, clutching the spot where a lock of her hair had been sliced off, and burst into tears.

"Officers, it's her."

"She broke into my home with hundreds of people, held a knife to my face, and forced me to drink chili water."

"I have a baby in me."

"She wants to kill us both, me and my child."

Philip shielded her completely.

"Officer, this madwoman, Amber Donaldson, has been emotionally unstable lately."

"Making a scene at the mall wasn't enough for hernow she's brought people to my home at night."

"I'm afraid she'll hurt my wife and my child."

Wife.

He could finally call Althea that out in the open.

The officers looked at the dagger in my hand, then at the bodyguards filling the room.

"Ms. Donaldson, please come with us to cooperate with the investigation."