Naomi West had been sleeping with my husband for less than four months when she decided she was qualified to teach me how to be his wife. She sent me messages every few days, reminding me that I was childless, that Sebastian rarely slept at home, and that some other woman would eventually give him the heir his family expected. By the time she showed up at my front door uninvited on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I had stopped wondering whether she was bold, foolish, or simply too much in love with the wrong man to understand the danger she was in.
Chapter 1
“Clara, you can’t keep ignoring this,” she said the moment she stepped into the foyer. “You’re his wife. You should make him stay home.”
I looked at her expensive wool coat, the diamond bracelet Sebastian had probably bought her, and the expression of genuine distress on her face. Of all his affairs, Naomi’s was almost funny because she seemed less offended that he cheated on me than that he cheated on her too.
“You knew he was married when you met him,” I said.
“That’s not the point.”
“It seems like a fairly important point.”
She followed me into the living room. “He spent Sunday night with Lauren and Monday with that redhead from Boston. Don’t you care what he’s doing to himself? He looks exhausted.”
There had been a time when those words would have torn me apart. Six years earlier, when I learned about Sebastian’s first affair, I had cried until my eyes swelled shut and placed divorce papers on his desk.
His response had taught me everything I needed to know about the man I had married.
He took my passport, dismissed most of the staff, and confined me to a villa he owned in the south of France for nearly a year. Sebastian called it a place for us to “work through our problems.” I called it what it was: a beautiful prison.
He finally allowed me home after I promised never to ask for a divorce again.
Sebastian Miller did not believe marriage could end. He believed possessions could be purchased, protected, and kept.
And in his mind, I was a possession.
The front door opened while Naomi was still lecturing me. Sebastian entered, loosened his tie, and gave us both the tired glance of a man inconvenienced by other people’s emotions.
Naomi rushed to him. “You need to rest. You look terrible.”
Sebastian’s mouth curved in amusement. “Now you understand why Clara is my wife.”
Naomi blinked.
He glanced at me. “She knows when not to make trouble.”
I almost laughed.
He thought my silence was obedience.
What Sebastian never understood was that silence could also be preparation.
He went upstairs to shower, and Naomi marched into my kitchen as if she owned it. She opened cabinets, inspected the refrigerator, and began discussing steak, vegetables, and some elaborate charcoal-grilled dinner she thought would restore Sebastian after his exhausting schedule of betraying both of us.
“Make coffee,” she ordered me.
I stared at her.
“For Sebastian,” she added. “And find the charcoal. He needs a proper meal.”
“If you want to feed him, feed him.”
Her face flushed. “You really don’t care at all, do you?”
“No.”
“You have no children. You don’t take care of him. You live in this enormous house and spend his money while other women give him everything he wants. Frankly, I don’t understand why he keeps you.”
Neither did she understand why I smiled.
The fortune Sebastian thought I spent carelessly had allowed me to move almost forty million dollars through accounts he never checked. My best friend, Maya Foster, had spent two years helping me build a second identity, secure property overseas, and establish an escape route.
I was no longer waiting for Sebastian to grant me freedom.
I was preparing to take it.
Naomi stepped closer. “You should let someone else be Mrs. Miller if you don’t appreciate the position.”
“You’re welcome to it.”
She stared at me, apparently unable to understand that I meant every word.
Sebastian returned before she could answer. Naomi immediately softened her voice, leaned against his arm, and told him she had only been trying to prepare dinner.
He kissed the top of her head.
Then he looked at me.
“Naomi likes grilled meat,” he said. “Make some for her.”
Years ago, I might have thrown something.
Instead, I smiled. “Of course.”
Satisfied, he wrapped an arm around Naomi and led her upstairs.
My phone vibrated.
Maya.
Are you certain? Once we start this, you can’t come back.
I typed my reply beneath the sound of Naomi laughing upstairs.
Completely certain.
The following afternoon, Sebastian’s mother arrived.
Judith Miller was seventy-one, perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and completely devoted to the preservation of the Miller family name. She tolerated Sebastian’s affairs because wealthy men had always behaved badly in her world. What she could not tolerate was the absence of grandchildren.
“You’re forty-one,” she told me over tea. “This family needs an heir.”
Naomi happened to be present, of course.
“I know an excellent fertility specialist,” she offered. “Dr. Eleanor Price. She could examine Clara privately.”
The doctor arrived the next morning.
After an hour of tests, she announced that my general health was acceptable but claimed my eggs were not viable.
I saw Naomi hide a smile.
The diagnosis was a lie. I knew it immediately.
Naomi had finally found a way to remove me.
Judith turned to Sebastian. “Then you need another wife.”
For one glorious second, I thought the nightmare might end without Maya’s elaborate plan.
Then Sebastian asked the doctor, “Could Clara carry a pregnancy using someone else’s egg?”
The room went silent.
Dr. Price hesitated. “Potentially.”
Sebastian relaxed.
He turned to Naomi.
Then he looked at me.
“We’ll use Naomi’s egg and my sperm,” he said. “Clara can carry the baby. Legally, the child will be raised as ours.”
Naomi’s triumphant expression vanished.
I felt the walls of the room closing in.
“No,” I said.
Sebastian touched my cheek as though I were a frightened child.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“I said no.”
His eyes hardened. “And I heard you.”
That night I texted Maya.
Move everything up.
Her answer came immediately.
Three words.
I’m ready now.
But Sebastian moved first.
I woke the following evening beneath white hospital lights, an IV in my arm and the taste of chemicals in my mouth.
Through the haze, I heard Sebastian outside my room speaking on the phone.
A woman was crying.
He sounded annoyed.
“All right,” he said. “You want a child too? Fine.”
Another pause.
“No. Clara will carry it.”
My blood went cold.
He ended the call.
Another came almost immediately.
Then another.
By the time the doctor entered, Sebastian had made promises to four different women.
He looked at the physician as casually as if ordering rooms at a hotel.
“I want my wife implanted with multiple embryos.”
The doctor frowned. “Mr. Miller, multiple pregnancies carry serious risks.”
“I’ll pay whatever it costs.”
“How many are you considering?”
Sebastian glanced toward my room.
“Six.”
And for the first time since planning my escape, I realized I might not live long enough to use it.
