My Husband Lost Me, His Billionaire Friend Wants Me

"Stand-in?" Elliot Burton made a short, contemptuous sound. "That's giving her too much credit. She doesn't come close to Lindsay in any way."

On the other side of that door, his wife, Rebecca Tucker, stood holding a tray of coffee. The words reached her before she had even touched the handle, and the color drained from her face completely.

Elliot kept talking inside the study, entirely oblivious to the fact that the door had drifted open just far enough to let every single word carry through.

Elliot tapped his cigarette over the ashtray and spoke with the kind of detachment one might use to discuss a piece of furniture. "She serves a function. She's legally convenient, physically available, and my parents are happy with her. That's the full extent of it."

"You know if Rebecca catches even a word of this, she'll fall apart completely," one of his friends said, grinning with the casual cruelty of someone who found the whole thing amusing. "Everyone knows she's completely gone for you. Meanwhile, your heart hasn't moved an inch from Lindsay."

Another friend leaned in. "So what happens when Lindsay comes back? Will you divorce Rebecca?"

Elliot turned the question over like it barely warranted the effort. "Why would I do that?"

"But Lindsay's the one you actually want," his friend pointed out.

"Rebecca does the job well enough," Elliot said simply.

She was mild-mannered, educated, easy on the eyes, and never pushed back on anything. When he had told her to leave her job and stay home, she had handed in her resignation the following morning without a single word of protest.

After that, she threw herself into looking after him and his entire family without being asked twice.

Even at this very moment, she was the one shouldering every last detail of his grandfather's funeral by herself.

Elliot drew on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. "Divorcing her makes no sense. I just need to make sure the two of them never cross paths."

"Lindsay lands the day after tomorrow," his friend reminded him. "And she's nothing like Rebecca. She won't just accept whatever you tell her. What happens when she finds out you're still married?"

"Everything I'm doing is for Lindsay's benefit," Elliot said. "Rebecca handles the cooking, the cleaning, all of it. That's not the kind of life Lindsay should have to live. That work is beneath her."

"Elliot, you have staff. A full household of them," his friend said, curious. "So why is Rebecca the one running herself ragged? Is this actually intentional on your part?"

Elliot took another long drag and exhaled with a sneer curling at the corner of his mouth. "You don't understand how this works. The more she pours herself into this house and into me, the more convinced she becomes that I'm completely hers. That's how women like her operate. The worse you treat them, the more devoted they become. No self-respect means no limit to what they'll endure."

Outside the room, Rebecca clutched the tray tighter. Their laughter reached her ears, quietly shattering something inside her.

Five years. She had given Elliot five years and had nearly lost her life for him, and he had never once looked at her as anything worth taking seriously.

She glanced down at the black outfit she was wearing for his grandfather's grief and almost laughed at how fitting it felt in a completely different way.

She had been running on almost no sleep for two straight days, handling every single thing for the funeral on her own, without once being asked if she needed help.

And now, in the only quiet stretch the evening had offered, she had been in the kitchen making coffee by hand, exactly as he had told her to.

Pain tightened around her chest, leaving her breathless as tears burned behind her eyes.

She swallowed everything down, stepped away from the door without making a sound, and walked away as fast as her legs would carry her.

The lights inside a bar pulsed and shifted, and on the floor, dancers moved in and out of the colors like they had nowhere else to be.

Rebecca was at the bar, slumped forward with her cheek propped in her hand, well past the point of being sober.

Her phone had been going off in her pocket for a while now.

She yanked it out, jabbed the power button, and dropped it back down. "If you can't stand me, why are you even calling?" she muttered to nobody in particular.

A woman's voice cut through the noise behind her, tight with urgency. "Has anyone seen Lily? The guest has been waiting! Where did she disappear to?"

"She was right here two minutes ago," someone called back.

"Then go find her!" the woman snapped, her voice dropping dangerously low. "Mr. Kolton Parker asked her personally to look after his VIP guest tonight. If this falls apart, every single one of us is going to hear about it."

Rebecca turned around on her stool, not entirely steady but still managing her manners. "I'm sorry, but would you mind keeping the noise down a little? It's quite loud."

"Lily?" The middle-aged woman behind her went rigid. Her disbelief lasted about half a second before her expression curdled. "What on earth are you doing sitting here getting wasted?"

She grabbed Rebecca's wrist without ceremony. "Move. Mr. Parker is waiting for you right now."

The pull was sharp enough to drag Rebecca off the stool entirely, sending her stumbling forward to catch her balance.

The alcohol had done its work, but she still had enough of her wits about her to know what was happening.

"You've made a mistake," Rebecca said, pulling against the woman's grip. "I'm not Lily. You have the wrong person."

"Don't waste my time," the woman said flatly. "I've known your face for years, Lily Flynn. Don't try that with me."

"Please, just listen to me. I'm not her." Rebecca's voice had taken on an edge of genuine alarm. "Where are you taking me? I need to go home."

The woman turned and flagged down two security guards standing nearby. "You two. Take her directly to Mr. Parker's private room. Now."