Just A Substitute: The Wife He Failed

At the family dinner, the waiter stumbled, sending a tray of boiling onion soup flying toward the table.

My husband, Marcus, moved instantly.

But not for me.

He threw his body over my cousin Chloe, shielding her completely in his arms.

I was left exposed. The scalding liquid hit my chest and arm, burning my skin instantly.

While I screamed in agony on the floor, Marcus was frantically checking Chloe for scratches, whispering, "Thank God it missed you. You are more important than her. Always."

In the hospital, he handed me a check for fifty thousand dollars.

"It was an instinct," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Don't make a scene."

He didn't notice my hollow expression.

He didn't ask why the doctors were looking at him with pity.

And he certainly didn't know that the shock and trauma had caused me to miscarry our six-week-old baby.

For four years, I had been his perfect doll. I dressed like Chloe, painted like Chloe, and waited for him to love me.

I thought I was his wife.

I didn't realize I was just a placeholder until he sacrificed our child to save his true love from a splash of soup.

When he left to comfort Chloe again, I pulled the IV from my arm.

I placed the signed divorce papers on the bedside table.

Underneath them, I left the medical report confirming the miscarriage of his child.

Then, I vanished.

Chapter 1

Ellie POV

The knife was cold against my ribs in that Florence alleyway, but the silence on the other end of the phone was colder.

I called Marcus three times.

The first time, the thief ripped my purse from my shoulder. The second time, he shoved me into the rough brick wall. The third time, I was bleeding on the cobblestones, watching the screen light up the darkness before fading to black.

He never answered.

Marcus was my guardian, my husband, my world. He was thirty-two, powerful, and wealthy enough to buy the very city I was bleeding in. I was twenty-two, the orphan he had molded like clay. He bought me the finest oil paints, hired the best tutors, and guided my hand on the canvas until my strokes mimicked the masters. I thought it was love. I thought his obsession with my posture, my clothes, and my hair was devotion.

I was wrong.

I flew back to New York with a bandaged arm and a story about a clumsy fall. Marcus did not pick me up at the airport. He was waiting in the living room of our penthouse, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

"You are back early," he said. He did not look at my bandages.

"I lost my phone," I said. My voice was steady. It scared me how steady it was.

He nodded, indifferent. "Buy a new one. Put it on the card."

He set his phone on the marble coffee table and went to the shower. The screen lit up. I did not mean to look. I respected his privacy because he told me to. But the name flashed bright and clear.

Chloe.

My cousin. My high school bully. The woman who made my teenage years a living hell.

I picked up the phone. My thumb hovered over the screen. I knew the passcode. It was the date he took me in.

I unlocked it.

The message was a photo. It was taken three days ago. In Florence.

It was a selfie of Chloe, laughing, holding a gelato. In the background, a man stood with his back to the camera, buying tickets to the Uffizi Gallery. I knew the slope of those shoulders. I knew the charcoal coat. I had bought it for him.

Marcus was in Florence.

While I was being mugged three streets away, begging for his help, he was buying art tickets with Chloe.

I scrolled up.

"She is so boring, Marcus," Chloe wrote. "When are you going to leave her?"

"Soon," he replied. "She is just a placeholder. You know that."

My lungs stopped working. The air in the room turned solid. I could not breathe. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a vice.

A placeholder.

All the art lessons. The way he made me part my hair to the left. The specific shade of red lipstick he insisted I wear. It wasn't for me. It was for her. I was just a canvas he was painting Chloe onto.

I put the phone back exactly as I found it.

The bathroom door opened. Marcus walked out, drying his hair with a towel. He looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time since I walked in.

"You look pale, Ellie," he said. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were warm. They used to make me feel safe. Now, they felt like branding irons.

"I am fine," I said.

He smiled, that charming, practiced smile that had fooled me for four years. "Good. I got you a gift."

He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a pair of pearl earrings.

Chloe wore pearl earrings. Always.

I took the box. My fingers did not tremble.

"Thank you, Marcus," I said.

"I have a request," I added softly.

He raised an eyebrow. "Anything."

"I want a list of every dollar you have spent on me. Since the day you took me in. Education, clothes, food. Everything."

He laughed. It was a dismissive sound. "Why? You do not need to worry about money."

"I just want to know my value," I said.

He shrugged, losing interest. "Fine. I will have my assistant send it to you."

His phone rang. He glanced at the screen and his entire demeanor shifted. The indifference vanished, replaced by an urgent, hungry intensity.

"I have to take this," he said. "It is business."

He walked out to the balcony, sliding the glass door shut. I watched him answer. I saw the way his shoulders relaxed, the way he leaned against the railing, the way he smiled. It was a smile I had never seen directed at me.

I touched my stomach. I had not told him yet. I had planned to surprise him tonight with the test results.

I walked to the fireplace. Above it hung a portrait he painted of me. Or so I thought. Now, I saw the tilt of the chin, the specific sadness in the eyes. It wasn't me. It never was.

I took the pearl earrings out of the box. I walked to the trash can and dropped them in.

"From this moment on," I whispered to the empty room, "we are nothing."