The Billionaire’s Silent Wife

Eve's POV Eve set the table at 10:00 p.m. again. Ryan still wasn’t home. He never was. She adjusted the silverware until each fork and knife aligned perfectly with the edges of the plates. Steam rose faintly from the roasted chicken, the smell of rosemary and garlic drifting through the dining room, but the food was already losing its warmth. She lit a single candle in the center of the table and stepped back. Its flame flickered against polished marble, a fragile glow swallowed by the vastness of the Ashbrook estate. She didn’t bother with her phone anymore. The last message she’d sent him still sat unread, a blue bubble left hanging. Calls went unanswered. Silence had become their most fluent language. The mansion, with its twenty-four rooms and glass walls, had no warmth to offer. Everything gleamed with money but felt hollow, like a hotel stripped of guests. Even the air carried a chill that no fire or candle could soften. Eve’s gaze lingered on the food. She had made grilled chicken with roasted vegetables and rice, the kind of meal Ryan used to enjoy when they were younger. She hadn’t cooked it for him out of hope; she cooked it because it gave her something to do, some reason to keep moving. His parents’ voices echoed in her mind as clearly as if they stood beside her. Leah’s sharp words, Jonathan’s polite indifference. Their contempt was no secret. They had never forgiven her father, and by extension, they had never forgiven her. Her father’s betrayal was what brought her here. Three years ago, when her grandmother’s hospital bills began to crush their family, he had pulled the ugliest card he had. As Jonathan Ashbrook’s chauffeur, he knew things, secrets powerful enough to ruin. He demanded Ryan marry his daughter in exchange for silence and money. The Ashbrooks agreed, not out of compassion but out of fear. So Ryan was sacrificed, and Eve became the price. The boy who used to sneak her chocolates while she waited in the chauffeur’s lounge, the boy who once laughed with her over silly jokes, was gone. In his place was a man who barely looked at her, who treated her presence as an intrusion he had no choice but to endure. “You’re nothing but your father’s daughter.” He’d never said the words, but she read them in every look. Some nights, she stared through the guest room window and imagined running, getting on a bus, disappearing into a city where no one knew her name. But the thought always ended the same way: her grandmother. Frail. Brave. Dying. Eve couldn’t leave her. She had stayed, not for Ryan, not for the Ashbrooks, but for the woman who raised her with love. Ryan hadn’t pretended otherwise when she moved in. He had laid out the rules in one clipped sentence: “You stay in the guest room. Don’t come into mine. Don’t expect anything from me.” And he had meant it. They shared nothing but a name on paper and occasional, reluctant nights in her bed, nights that ended with him walking out, leaving her colder than before. No kisses. No small kindnesses. No shared mornings. He didn’t allow staff into their private wing, not after what her father had done. Trust was dead to him. So Eve kept the space running herself. She scrubbed his bathroom tiles, ironed his shirts, stocked the fridge with his favorites. She didn’t do it for thanks, he never offered any, but because order gave her control when everything else was out of reach. Tonight was no different. When the food cooled, she covered the dishes neatly with foil, not a wrinkle out of place, and carried her laptop to the couch. The candle still burned on the table, a small rebellion against the emptiness. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard before she opened the lecture she’d left paused earlier. Business communications. A course she’d been working through for months. College had been the first casualty of her father’s blackmail, but she was clawing her way back one late-night class, one assignment at a time. Her dream wasn’t glamour or wealth, it was independence. A career. A life no one could strip away. Ryan didn’t know she worked. Each morning, before dawn, she walked five blocks to a neighbourhood diner. The first time she asked for the job, the owner, Mr. Vargo, had stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Do you know who your husband is?” he’d asked. She had nodded. “Unfortunately.” And he had hired her as an assistant chef. The pay was modest, but in that kitchen, surrounded by steam and noise, she felt something close to freedom. She earned her own money, bought her own books, paid for her tuition. She kept a separate phone, one Ryan didn’t know about, so she could take calls from the hospice when her grandmother’s nurse sent updates. Tonight her back ached from hours on her feet at the diner, and her eyes burned from staring at the lecture slides, but still she typed notes, underlined phrases, kept going. She would not be erased, not completely. The front gate chimed softly. Her heart stilled. Then it sank. She didn’t move. A moment later, the lock clicked and the door opened. He was home. She closed her laptop and folded her hands in her lap. But when the sound of his footsteps crossed the marble floor, she didn’t look up. Not this time.