Married to the wrong billionaire

CHAPTER NINE

AVA

I didn't say anything to Ethan about what I'd overheard in the hallway. I told myself it was because there was nothing to say — a trail too clean, a man not yet certain — but the truth was closer to this: some part of me had started keeping my own counsel in this marriage, the way you learn to keep a spare key hidden from someone you're not sure you trust yet.

The board event was smaller than the gala, which somehow made it worse. Fewer people meant less noise to hide behind.

It was held in one of the Van Doren Enterprises conference floors, glass walls on every side, the city stretched out below like something on display for the shareholders sipping wine near the windows. Ethan had been pulled into a conversation about quarterly numbers within minutes of arriving, leaving me standing near the edge of the room with a glass I wasn't drinking from, doing the thing I'd gotten good at — looking occupied so no one would ask why I was alone.

That was when she found me.

I knew who she was before anyone introduced us. Platinum hair, a dress that looked engineered rather than sewn, the kind of posture that came from years of being told she belonged in rooms like this one. She moved toward me with a smile that didn't reach anywhere near her eyes.

"You must be Ava." She said my name the way you'd handle something slightly distasteful. "Victoria Sterling. I've worked alongside Ethan for years."

"He's mentioned you." He hadn't, not once, but I wasn't going to hand her the satisfaction of knowing that.

"I doubt that." Her smile sharpened at the edges. "Ethan doesn't talk about people. He talks about assets and liabilities. It's one of the things I've always admired about him — he doesn't waste words on sentiment."

I thought of Arthur, saying almost the exact same phrase to Ethan in my kitchen days ago, and felt something cold settle low in my stomach.

"Is there something I can help you with, Victoria?"

"Not particularly." She glanced past me, toward where Ethan stood in conversation, his profile sharp against the window light. "I just wanted to see you up close. The photos don't quite capture it."

"Capture what?"

"How temporary you look."

I kept my expression carefully blank, the same trick I'd used a hundred times managing furious clients who wanted to see me flinch before they'd calm down. Victoria studied my face like she was waiting for exactly that, and when it didn't come, something behind her eyes recalibrated, the way Ethan's had the day I'd refused his schedule.

"I've spent eight years building this company beside him," she said, quieter now, almost conversational. "Eight years of board meetings and crisis calls and the kind of loyalty you don't just hand out to anyone. I know what he needs. I know how he thinks. I know what it costs to actually keep up with a man like Ethan Van Doren."

"Congratulations," I said. "Is there a point to this?"

"The point," she said, leaning in slightly, her voice dropping to something almost gentle, which made it worse, "is that a man doesn't unlearn eight years of knowing exactly what he wants just because a crisis handed him a convenient stand-in. Whatever this is—" her gaze flicked briefly to the ring on my finger, "—it's a solution to a problem. And problems get solved. Solutions get replaced."

"That's an interesting theory."

"It's not a theory. It's math. You'll do the job well enough for a while. You're clearly capable of that much. But eventually the crisis passes, the stock stabilizes, and he won't need a solution anymore." She smiled again, and this time it almost looked kind, which was somehow the cruelest version of it. "He'll get tired of you."

She said it so simply, so certainly, that for one unwelcome second I felt the floor tilt slightly under the words — not because I believed them exactly, but because some small, exhausted part of me that had spent a lifetime being useful rather than wanted recognized the shape of the threat immediately, the way you recognize an old bruise being pressed on purpose.

I opened my mouth to respond — with what, I still don't know, some sharp thing I hadn't fully assembled yet — but Victoria was already turning away, her heels clicking against the marble with the unhurried confidence of a woman who'd said exactly what she meant to say and had no further interest in hearing what I thought about it.

I stood there for a long moment, glass still untouched in my hand, watching her cross the room to rejoin a cluster of board members who greeted her like an old friend.

Across the room, Ethan glanced over — just once, just briefly — and something in his expression sharpened when he saw who I'd been standing with. He didn't come over. He didn't ask what she'd said. He simply held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary, like he was trying to read the answer off my face from thirty feet away, before someone pulled his attention back into their conversation.

I turned toward the window instead, looking out at the city so no one would see whatever was happening on my face, and I let Victoria's words settle where they wanted to settle — somewhere low and old and familiar, a place in me that had always believed, on some level, that everything good in my life came with an expiration date I simply hadn't been told yet.

He'll get tired of you.

I didn't know why it bothered me as much as it did. This marriage wasn't real. It was never supposed to be permanent. Victoria hadn't told me anything I didn't already know.

That was exactly the problem. She hadn't told me anything new at all.

Later, in the car home, Ethan asked what Victoria had said to me. I told him it was nothing worth repeating, and he let it go far more easily than I expected, which somehow bothered me more than if he'd pushed. I watched the city slide past the window and wondered whether it was because he already knew, or because some part of him didn't want to know at all.