My Husband's Secret Public Wife

For eight years, I was the perfect, understanding wife. My husband, Gavin, insisted his company retreats were strictly for employees. No spouses allowed. I never questioned it, believing I was supporting his demanding career. Then I saw a photo from his last ski trip to Aspen. All his colleagues were there, smiling beside their wives. And in the center stood Gavin, his arm wrapped possessively around another woman. She was wearing my blue silk dress-the one he swore I must have lost at the dry cleaners. My world didn't just crack; it shattered. I discovered that for our entire marriage, he had been living a double life. This woman, Chanelle, wasn't just his mistress. She was his public wife. She was the one who went on lavish trips to Hawaii and Europe. She was the one introduced to his colleagues and clients. She was even listed as his emergency contact-his spouse-in the official company directory. I wasn't just the wife he cheated on. I was the wife he completely erased. But my heartbreak quickly hardened into cold resolve. He was expecting tears and a quiet breakdown. He wasn't expecting me to show up at his company's annual awards gala, marriage certificate in hand, ready to introduce myself to the world he' d hidden from me.

Chapters

Chapter 3

Eliza POV:

I called in sick the next morning. My head throbbed, but it wasn't from a headache. It was from the weight of everything I'd uncovered.

I told Gavin I had a client meeting. He didn' t question it. He just kissed my forehead, told me to feel better, and left for work.

I drove straight to his office building. The gleaming glass tower loomed over me. This was his world. A world I was never allowed to enter.

I waited in the lobby, my heart pounding. I texted Jamie Mason. My old college friend. She worked in HR for Gavin' s company.

Hey, Jamie. Free for coffee? I' m in the area.

Her reply was instant. Eliza! What a surprise! Of course! Give me 10.

Ten minutes later, Jamie appeared, her face lighting up when she saw me. "Eliza! It's been too long!" She hugged me tight. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Just... running some errands," I said, forcing a smile. "Thought I' d swing by and catch up."

We walked to a coffee shop nearby, the air buzzing with the morning rush. Jamie ordered us lattes.

"So, how's Gavin?" Jamie asked, stirring her coffee. "Still the charming workaholic?" She chuckled. "You two are still the picture of stability, aren't you?"

I nodded, a bitter taste in my mouth. "Something like that," I said, trying to keep my voice even. "He's... Gavin."

I took a deep breath. This was it. "Jamie," I began, trying to sound casual, "I had a quick question about company policy. Just out of curiosity."

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "Sure, what's up?"

"Gavin always says spouses aren't allowed at corporate retreats. Or most company events, for that matter," I said, watching her face carefully. "Is that really true?"

Jamie frowned. "What? No, that's not right at all. In fact, it's the opposite. Spouses are almost always invited. Especially to the bigger events, like the annual gala or the Aspen ski trip."

My world tilted again. "He said... there was a very strict policy against it," I whispered, my voice barely steady.

Jamie's expression changed. Her eyes narrowed, a flicker of concern in them. "Eliza, that's absolutely not true. It's never been true. We actively encourage family attendance at most social functions."

My hands started to tremble. The coffee cup clattered against the saucer. "Are you... are you sure?"

"One hundred percent," Jamie said, her voice firm. "I work in HR, remember? I draft those policies. Spouses are welcome. Always have been."

I felt a cold dread spread through my chest. My mind raced, trying to find an explanation for Gavin. Any explanation. "Maybe... maybe he just meant it was too much hassle for him. Or he thought I wouldn't enjoy it."

Jamie leaned forward, her gaze piercing. "Eliza, what's going on? Has Gavin been telling you something else?"

"No! No, everything's fine," I said quickly, perhaps too quickly. "Just... curious. You know how it is."

Jamie sighed. Her eyes held a knowing sadness. "Eliza, I'm your friend. You can tell me anything." She paused, then took a deep breath. "Look, I've always felt a bit... uneasy about something. But it wasn't my place to say anything."

My heart pounded. "About what?"

She hesitated. "Gavin... he never comes alone."

My breath hitched. "What do you mean?"

"At every event, every retreat, every company dinner," Jamie explained, her voice low. "He brings someone. A woman."

My body started to shake uncontrollably. "A woman?"

"Yes," Jamie confirmed. "We all just assumed she was you. For years, we thought that was Eliza. His wife."

The shame was a physical blow. "Who... who is she?"

"Chanelle Bryant," Jamie said, her voice soft with pity. "She owns Bryant Solutions. They're a big client of ours. A key partner."

Chanelle. The name I' d seen in the company press release. The name in Gavin' s messages.

"How long... how long has he been bringing her?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Jamie hesitated again. "Eliza... ever since he joined the company. Eight years ago."

Eight years. The exact length of my marriage.

He didn't just meet her after we got married. He brought her to events as his wife for our entire marriage.

"Does he... does he always introduce her as his wife?" I asked, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat.

Jamie nodded slowly. "Yes. Every time. We always thought you were incredibly private, Eliza. Or maybe just changed your name after marriage. He always introduced her as 'my wife, Chanelle.'"

My public wife. While I was his hidden shame.

Eight years. Eight years of being erased. Eight years of being a secret.

Jamie reached across the table, taking my trembling hand. "I'm so sorry, Eliza. I really am. I never knew."

"It's not your fault, Jamie," I said, pulling my hand away. My vision blurred with tears. "You couldn't have known."

I stood up, pushing my chair back. "Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for telling me." I turned and ran, the tears finally breaking free. I ran out of the coffee shop, ignoring Jamie's calls, ignoring the stares.

Eight years. Eight years of my life. Wasted.

I had been so naive. So trusting.

He had a whole other life. A public life. A glamorous life with Chanelle. While I was at home, raising our daughter, building a life around his lies.

She was his wife. To everyone. The beautiful, successful wife he proudly brought to every event.

And I? I was just the other woman. The hidden wife. The secret he kept in the shadows.

Continue to next part

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Action Modern Romance

9.5

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9.5

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Horror Modern Young Adult

8.7

GLACIER TRUCE

8.7

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Mafia Modern Romance

7.6

His Unwanted Wife, The Rival Don's Queen

7.6

The gunman pressed a Glock to my temple and gave my husband a choice. "One walks out. One stays. Choose, Mr. Underboss." I wasn't worried. I was Haven. I was his wife of ten years, his Consigliere, the woman who built his empire. Beside me sobbed Gemma, a fragile twenty-two-year-old he had known for six months. "Take Gemma! Leave Haven!" Connor screamed, his honor twisting into something unrecognizable. He walked out of the warehouse with another woman in his arms, leaving me to be butchered. I didn't wait for the bullet. I threw myself through a glass window into the freezing canal. I survived the fall, but the life inside me didn't. After five years of failed IVF, the miracle baby I hadn't even told Connor about was gone. While I lay in a cold hospital room, bleeding out the remains of our child, my husband was buying diamond earrings for the woman who had set me up to die. When the doctor tried to sedate me for the surgery, I grabbed his wrist. "No anesthesia," I commanded. "But the pain..." "I want to feel it," I said, staring at the ceiling. "I want to feel every scrap of him leaving my body." I burned that pain into my soul. Then, I went home, poured gasoline over our wedding bed, and lit a match. Two years later, I returned to the city. Connor thought I was dead. But when he saw me on the arm of his mortal enemy, wearing the crown of a rival Queen, he realized his mistake. He didn't just lose a wife. He started a war.

Mafia Modern Romance

9.0

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

9.0

I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge. The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations. When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me. I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up. My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor. "Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light." By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.

Action Modern Romance

7.4

Playground 51 - The Wildest Magic School on Earth

7.4

Magic school was a lie. Love was the experiment. Rahbeem Roth thinks he's taking a job at America's first official magic school...but really, he's the newest participant in America's biggest science experiment! The teenagers are the lab rats, and the staff is made up of all kinds of demons. And Rahbeem is trying his best to keep everything together, which is no easy task. When a love-struck young man, and his friends gather together to try to bring his girlfriend back from the dead, all HELL will break loose. And in these High School halls, science and the supernatural will go to war in this bizarre paranormal comedy!

Fantasy Modern Sci-Fi Young Adult

My Husband's Secret Public Wife

Chapter 3

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