Loved By My Cold Billionaire Boss

FORGIVE ME MY WIFE

The next morning I woke up in Ethan's arms and for a second I thought I was dreaming.

His bedroom smelled like him, cold mint and expensive cologne. His arm was around my waist, tight, possessive. My head was on his chest and I could hear his heart beating steady and strong. The sun was coming through the big windows and for the first time since I signed that stupid contract, I felt safe.

Last night at his parents anniversary dinner, he had kissed me in front of everyone. Not a fake kiss. Not for the cameras. A real kiss that made my knees weak. He had told everyone I was priceless. No one had ever defended me like that.

"Ethan?" I whispered.

He opened his eyes slowly. When he saw me, he smiled. A real smile, not the cold smirk he gives everyone else. That smile was only for me.

"Good morning, wife," he said, his voice rough from sleep.

My heart did that stupid flutter again. "You are in a good mood this morning, Mr. Cold Billionaire."

"I had a good night. The best night in ten years. I think we should forget about separate rooms, Jennifer. I think you should move into this room permanently."

I sat up, my hair messy. "Are you saying the contract is over?"

"I am saying the contract is changing. I don't want to pretend anymore. I tried to tell myself I don't do love, but you make me want to break every rule I ever made. I want this to be real."

I wanted to cry. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to say yes, I want it real too.

But his phone rang. Loud and sharp. It destroyed the moment.

It was his secretary, Linda. Ethan put it on speaker.

"Sir, you need to check the blogs. Now. It is about your wife. It is everywhere."

Ethan's face changed instantly. The warmth disappeared. The ice came back. He opened his phone and I saw it.

Photos. Of me. With David. My ex boyfriend from university. The same David who had been stalking me since I moved to Lagos, sending me messages, waiting outside my old office. In the photos we were at a hotel, kissing, holding each other. One photo showed us entering a hotel room together.

My blood ran cold. "What is this? This is not real!"

Victoria had posted them. Victoria, his ex girlfriend. Her caption said: "Poor Ethan Cole tricked again. His new wife has a secret boyfriend. Gold digger exposed."

Within ten minutes, the photos were on three big gossip blogs in Lagos. Comments were already flooding in. People calling me a prostitute, a liar, a gold digger.

"Ethan, I swear on my mother, those photos are fake! I have not seen David in one year! He has been harassing me but I never met him! You have to believe me!"

He stood up from the bed, his jaw tight. He was not looking at me. He was looking at the photos like they were burning his eyes.

"Everyone lies, Jennifer," he said quietly. His voice was so cold it hurt. "Sophia lied to me for two years while she was cheating with my best friend. My own father lies to my mother to protect his image. Everyone lies when money is involved."

"I am not everyone! I am your wife!"

"Are you? Or are you a contract wife who saw a chance to get more money from another man?"

That sentence slapped me harder than any hand could. I felt my heart break.

"How can you say that? Last night you said forever! You said you would never let me go!"

"And this morning I see you in a hotel with another man! What do you want me to think?"

I started crying. I could not help it. "I want you to think with your heart for once, not your cold billionaire brain! If you loved me even a little, you would know I would never do that!"

He looked at me crying and for a second his ice cracked. He took a step towards me, then stopped himself. "I can't do betrayal again, Jennifer. I can't."

Then he grabbed his shirt and walked out, slamming the door so hard the windows shook.

I fell on the floor in his big empty bedroom and cried like a child. Yesterday I thought I was falling in love with my cold boss. Today he thinks I am a cheat.

Victoria won. She destroyed me with fake pictures.

But I am not a girl who gives up. My mother raised me in a small house in Enugu with no money but with pride. I did not come to Lagos to be destroyed by a jealous rich girl.

I wiped my tears and called my best friend Chidi, who works in computer forensics for the police.

"Chidi, someone faked photos of me. Can you check if they are photoshopped? I need proof."

"Send me everything, Amara. If it is fake, I will find the original layer, the metadata, everything. Give me one hour."

While waiting, I did something crazy. I went to Cole Tower. I knew Ethan would be there. And I knew Victoria would be there too.

Linda, his secretary, tried to stop me. "He said no visitors."

"He will see his wife," I said.

I pushed open his office door. And there they were. Victoria was standing too close to him, her hand on his chest, fake tears in her eyes.

"Ethan, I told you she was a gold digger. I love you. I have always loved you. I was trying to protect you. Come back to me. Let me help you forget her."

Ethan was not touching her, but he was not pushing her away either. He looked tired, broken.

"Get your hand off my husband," I said loudly.

Both turned. Victoria smirked. "Oh look, the gold digger is here. Come to explain how you cheated on a billionaire?"

I ignored her and walked straight to Ethan. I held up my laptop.

"Chidi found it. The photos are fake. One hundred percent photoshopped. The metadata shows the file was created yesterday at 4:13 PM on a computer with Adobe Photoshop 2024. The original photos are actually you and David, Victoria. You hired my ex to pose with you wearing a wig that looks like my hair. You paid the hotel receptionist to let you use room 412 for ten minutes. I have the receipt. You paid him 50,000 naira."

I opened the laptop and showed the screen. Side by side comparison. The lighting was wrong on my face. My tattoo on my left shoulder was missing in the fake photos but I have it in real life. The hotel camera footage shows Victoria entering with David, not me.

Victoria's face went white. "You... you are lying..."

Ethan took the laptop with shaking hands. He looked at the proof. He looked at Victoria. His eyes turned black with rage.

"Is this true?" he asked Victoria, his voice low and dangerous.

Victoria started crying for real this time. "I did it because I love you! She doesn't belong here! She is not in our class! She will embarrass you!"

"Get out," Ethan said.

"Ethan, please..."

"GET OUT OF MY BUILDING! And if you ever come near my wife again, if you ever post one more lie about her, I will destroy your father's company, I will freeze your accounts, and I will make sure you never work in Lagos again! Do you understand me? Security!"

Two guards came and dragged Victoria out while she screamed.

Then the office was silent. Only me and Ethan.

He looked at me, and for the first time I saw tears in his cold eyes.

"Jennifer... I am so sorry. I should have believed you. My past made me blind. Sophia cheated on me and I thought all women would do the same. When I saw those photos, all my fear came back. But you... you came here to fight for us. No woman ever fought for me before. They only fought for my money."

I was still crying. "You hurt me, Ethan. You said I was a gold digger."

"I know. I was a stupid, cold, i***t billionaire. Can you forgive me?"

He walked to me slowly and knelt down on the floor, right there in his expensive office. The great Ethan Cole, the coldest billionaire in Lagos, on his knees in front of me.

"Please forgive your cold husband, Mrs. Cole. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. No more separate rooms. No more contract. Just you and me. Forever. If you will have me."

I looked at his face. No more ice. Just love and regret and hope.

"On one condition," I whispered.

"Anything."

"No more calling me a contract wife. I am your real wife."

He stood up, picked me up in his arms and kissed me hard, deep, like he was breathing me in.

"You are my real wife," he whispered against my lips. "My only wife. My forever."

And in that moment, in his office, with the door open and Linda peeking and smiling, I knew the contract was over. Our real love story had just begun.

But outside, Victoria was in her car, on the phone, smiling cruelly. "Plan A failed. But I have Plan B. Send the video to his mother. He will leave her tomorrow, I promise."

Our happily ever after was about to be tested again.

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