The Billionaire's Forsaken Wife

Chapter 15

ROOSEVELT’S POV

My head snapped to the side. A sharp, burning pain shot across my face. I stumbled back, hitting my hip against the table. I tasted warm copper in my mouth.

For a moment, the room was silent.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Zyran roared.

His deep voice shook the crystal glasses on the table. He grabbed his mother’s arm and violently pushed her away from me. He stood in front of me, his broad back standing between me and his family.

"Don't you ever lay a hand on her again!" Zyran shouted. The veins in his neck bulged, he looked like a wild animal ready to attack. "She is my wife!"

Beatrice stumbled back, holding her chest in shock. Clara gasped, covering her mouth. They had never seen Zyran raise his voice at his mother.

"Your wife?" Beatrice shrieked, her shock shifting. "Look at her, Zyran! She is a cheap, useless gold-digger! She hurt the woman you really love, and then she ran off to open her legs for your biggest enemy!"

I stood behind Zyran, holding my burning cheek.

"Mina is lying in a hospital bed, permanently scarred!" Clara yelled, pointing around Zyran’s shoulder to glare at me. "And this barren tramp is sitting in your house eating breakfast! She has given you nothing, Zyran! Four years of marriage and she can't even give you a child! Throw her out!"

Barren.

The word hit me harder than the slap. My hand instinctively dropped to my flat stomach. I was carrying his heir right now and I was the one they were cursing.

Zyran went completely rigid.

"Get out," Zyran commanded. His voice dropped to a cold whisper. He pointed to the doors. "Both of you, get out of my house right now."

"Zyran, you cannot be serious!" Beatrice gasped. "You are choosing this psycho over Mina? Over your own mother?"

"I said get out!" Zyran shouted, slamming his fist onto the dining table. The wood cracked loudly under his strike. "If you ever come into my home and touch what belongs to me again, I will cut off your credit cards and banish you from the King Empire! Go!"

Beatrice’s face turned pale. She knew Zyran didn't make empty threats, she grabbed her expensive handbag, shot me one last look of pure hatred, and stormed out of the room. Clara followed right behind her.

The doors slammed shut.

Zyran stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. His broad shoulders rose and fell. Slowly, he turned to face me.

His dark eyes dropped to my mouth. He noticed the drop of bright red blood on my bottom lip and the dark red handprint already forming on my pale cheek.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean white handkerchief, and stepped toward me.

"Don't touch me," I said. My voice was flat. I swatted his hand away.

Zyran’s jaw clenched. He dropped the handkerchief onto the table.

"I protected you," Zyran said, his voice hard and cold. "I kicked my own mother out of the house for you. But don’t think for a second that I have forgotten what you did."

I let out a bitter, exhausted laugh. "Oh, I know, Zyran. You protected your property, you didn't protect me."

"You are going to go upstairs and put on a nice dress," Zyran ordered, ignoring my words. "Then, you are going to get in the car with me. We are going to the hospital."

I stared at him. "Why?"

"Because you are going to walk into that hospital room and kneel down to apologize to Mina," Zyran stated simply. He said it as if he was asking me to pass the salt. "You are going to beg for her forgiveness in front of the doctors. It is the only way to prove you are sorry and keep the police from investigating you for assault."

My blood turned to ice.

"I will die first," I whispered. I looked him in the eye. "I will never kneel to that wicked witch, I didn't touch her."

Zyran’s eyes twitched. He stepped closer, trapping me against the table.

"You will do exactly as I say, Roosevelt," Zyran warned softly. His tone was brutal. "Or I will make a single phone call to the bank. I will bankrupt Nixie’s husband’s company by noon. I will leave your best friend and her kids on the streets. Do you understand me?"

My breath caught, my heart stopped.

He knew exactly where to hit me. He knew I would sacrifice myself to protect Nixie, this ruthless bastard.

"You are evil," I choked out, staring at the stranger I married.

Yes he's a stranger now

"I am a man cleaning up his wife's mess," Zyran said smoothly. He checked his gold watch. "You have twenty minutes to change. I will be waiting in the car."

He turned and walked out of the dining room.

I stood there, trembling with rage. He had finally pushed me over the edge, I was not going to that damn hospital.

I had to run, like now.

I needed my passport and the emergency cash I kept hidden. But my passport wasn't in the bedroom. Zyran kept all our important documents locked in the safe in his private study.

I ran out of the dining room and dashed down the hall.

Zyran’s study was at the end of the corridor. The door was usually locked, but in his anger this morning, he had left it slightly cracked open.

I slipped inside and quietly closed the door. The room smelled of old books and him. I went behind his desk and dropped to my knees. The safe was hidden behind a wooden panel.

I punched in the code. Our wedding anniversary.

The safe beeped and clicked open.

I reached inside, pulling out stacks of cash and searching for my dark blue passport. I shoved the money into my pockets quickly. My hands were shaking so much that I knocked over a stack of thick files sitting on the bottom shelf of the safe.

The files spilled onto the floor.

I cursed quietly and reached down to pick them up.

But as my hand touched the top folder, my eyes caught the bold black letters printed on the front.

My heart stopped, the air vanished from my lungs.

It was a document. It had the official stamp of the King Empire’s top lawyers.

I slowly opened the cover.

DIVORCE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.

Between: Zyran King (Husband)

And: Roosevelt King (Wife)

I stared at the paper. My hands began to tremble violently.

I looked at the date printed at the top of the page.

It was dated exactly three years ago. The very first year of our marriage.

A choked gasp escaped my lips, three years ago. He had his lawyers draft divorce papers right after we said our vows. He had planned to throw me away before our marriage even had a chance to begin. I was just a placeholder, a convenient distraction until Mina came back.

A hot tear fell onto the paper.

"Roosevelt?" a deep voice asked from the doorway.

I gasped and snapped my head up.

Zyran was standing inside the study, the door was closed behind him. He was staring at me, but his dark eyes quickly dropped to the papers shaking in my hands.

His face drained of color, panic flashed in his eyes.

"Roosevelt, put that down," Zyran said, taking a quick step toward me. His voice lost all control. "That is not what you think it is."

"It is a divorce agreement," I whispered. I stood up slowly, holding the paper up. Tears streamed down my bruised cheek. "You had this drawn up three years ago. You planned to leave me from the very start."

"I was a fool back then!" Zyran shouted. He rushed forward, reaching out to grab my hands, but I pulled them away sharply. "I didn't know you. I didn't love you yet! It was just a stupid backup plan my lawyers made to protect my assets! I swear to you, Roosevelt, I forgot it was even in the safe!"

I stared into his desperate, dark eyes.

"You forgot?" I let out a bitter laugh. "You expect me to believe you just forgot you drafted divorce papers against your own wife?"

"It is the truth!" Zyran pleaded, breathing heavily. He stepped closer, desperation in his voice. "I love you now. I haven’t touched those papers in three years!"

I looked at him. He seemed sincere, afraid of losing me.

"If it meant nothing," I said, my voice icy, "then why didn’t you throw it away, Zyran?"

Zyran opened his mouth, but no words came out. He hesitated.

And that brief moment of hesitation was all the answer I needed.

"You kept it because you were waiting for her," I whispered. I let the divorce papers slip from my hands. They scattered across the floor. "You kept me trapped in this house, playing the good wife, just in case she never came back, but she is back now."

Zyran shook his head wildly. "No, Roosevelt, please listen to me."

"Don't touch me," I warned, stepping back toward the door. I glanced at the red handprint his mother left on my face, reflected in the glass window, and then at the divorce papers strewn on the floor.

"I am not going to the hospital to kneel for your mistress," I said softly, my voice calm but final. "And I am not staying in this fake marriage. I am leaving you, Zyran, this time, you cannot stop me."

I turned and reached for the door handle.

But before I could pull it open, Zyran’s large hand slammed flat against the dark wood and shut the door hard.

He leaned close to my ear. His panic had vanished, and struggling to hold on to me tightly

"I told you," Zyran whispered, his warm breath grazing my

neck. "You are not leaving me."

He turned the lock on the study door. Then he pulled out the key, sliding it deep into his pocket and trapping me inside with him.