Books
Read in our apps:
iOS
·Android
I signed the organ donor form the same day I signed our marriage certificate. Elliot never knew about the first one.
Our marriage was a business arrangement. He needed a wife for one year, a stipulation in his grandfather’s will to unlock his full inheritance. My father needed the payment Elliot offered to save his company. I never objected. How could I, when Elliot Fleischer, the Silicon Valley prodigy, was offering to pull my family out of ruin? I was Olive Yancy from a three-bedroom house in Phoenix; he was the billionaire who bought a penthouse because he liked the view. For a year, I played the part of the perfect corporate wife.
And then his childhood best friend, Genevieve, needed a kidney. A perfect match, the doctors said. Elliot was desperate. I got tested in secret. I was a match. I told him I was visiting my sick aunt. I gave her a piece of myself and came home with a scar I hid with high-waisted jeans. He never noticed.
He was too busy building his empire, securing the final vote for his chairman position. He was too busy taking Genevieve’s calls at 2 a.m., flying her to specialist appointments on our private jet, holding her hand when the news was bad. I was the woman in his bed; she was the one in his heart. His mother, Edith Fleischer, made sure I never forgot it. “It’s so good he has a real friend through all this,” she’d say, her eyes skimming over me at another charity gala. “Someone who understands his world.”
The turning point wasn’t the night he missed our first anniversary dinner to sit with Genevieve. It was the press release. “Fleischer Technologies Chairman Announces Charitable Foundation, Naming Longtime Friend Genevieve Nesbitt as Director of Outreach.” I read it online, sitting at the quartz island in our ten-million-dollar apartment. He hadn’t told me. He used my father's debt to make me agree, and he used my body to save her, and I had no more deals to make.
I left my wedding ring on the counter. Not broken. Just still.
Did he even see me as a person, or just a line item in the contract? Was there anything left of me to save once the terms of the deal were fulfilled?
Our marriage was a business arrangement. He needed a wife for one year, a stipulation in his grandfather’s will to unlock his full inheritance. My father needed the payment Elliot offered to save his company. I never objected. How could I, when Elliot Fleischer, the Silicon Valley prodigy, was offering to pull my family out of ruin? I was Olive Yancy from a three-bedroom house in Phoenix; he was the billionaire who bought a penthouse because he liked the view. For a year, I played the part of the perfect corporate wife.
And then his childhood best friend, Genevieve, needed a kidney. A perfect match, the doctors said. Elliot was desperate. I got tested in secret. I was a match. I told him I was visiting my sick aunt. I gave her a piece of myself and came home with a scar I hid with high-waisted jeans. He never noticed.
He was too busy building his empire, securing the final vote for his chairman position. He was too busy taking Genevieve’s calls at 2 a.m., flying her to specialist appointments on our private jet, holding her hand when the news was bad. I was the woman in his bed; she was the one in his heart. His mother, Edith Fleischer, made sure I never forgot it. “It’s so good he has a real friend through all this,” she’d say, her eyes skimming over me at another charity gala. “Someone who understands his world.”
The turning point wasn’t the night he missed our first anniversary dinner to sit with Genevieve. It was the press release. “Fleischer Technologies Chairman Announces Charitable Foundation, Naming Longtime Friend Genevieve Nesbitt as Director of Outreach.” I read it online, sitting at the quartz island in our ten-million-dollar apartment. He hadn’t told me. He used my father's debt to make me agree, and he used my body to save her, and I had no more deals to make.
I left my wedding ring on the counter. Not broken. Just still.
Did he even see me as a person, or just a line item in the contract? Was there anything left of me to save once the terms of the deal were fulfilled?
288 printed pages
- Original publication
- 2025
- Publication year
- 2025
- Publisher
- Lucy Pembroke
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
👍👎
fb2epub
Drag & drop your files
(not more than 5 at once)