He didn't just cheat; he destroyed me. He framed my brother, leaving him permanently disabled, all to protect her. Then, at Cassie's birthday party, he played our private video for everyone to see, a final, public humiliation.
The man I sacrificed everything for had chosen a liar over me, and I was left with nothing but shame and a broken family.
But in the depths of my despair, I discovered two things.
First, I was pregnant with his child. Second, my brother had found a secret that could bring Edwardo's empire to its knees.
I made an appointment to end the pregnancy. Then, I planned to use that secret to end my marriage.
1
The day I married Edwardo Steele, I wasn't just walking down the aisle towards a man I secretly loved, but towards a life sentence, sealed by my father's dying wish and a debt of honor. I signed away my future, hoping my heart would somehow find its way through the contract, only to have it ripped to shreds before the ink even dried on our marriage certificate.
My father, a brilliant but financially reckless man, had once saved the Steele empire. He developed a security algorithm that was revolutionary. Now, he was terminally ill. His medical bills were astronomical, and the Moreno family was sinking. Grafton McDonald, Edwardo' s grandfather, held the key to our survival. He proposed the marriage. A strategic alliance, he called it. A sacrifice, I knew it was. But deep down, a foolish part of me, the part that had harbored a secret crush on Edwardo since we were teenagers, dared to hope. He was always so distant, so focused, but even from afar, his brilliance, his sharp mind, captivated me. I thought, maybe, if I was close enough, he would finally see me. He would finally feel something.
The wedding night was a bitter prelude to the three years that followed. Our sprawling mansion, usually a beacon of cold, sterile perfection, felt colder that night. I stood at the threshold of his bedroom, a room I would rarely enter without an invitation, my heart hammering against my ribs. I wore a silk robe, the delicate fabric doing little to hide my trembling. He was already there, standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to me. His silhouette was sharp against the city lights.
"Don't come any closer," His voice was a low, precise command, slicing through the quiet.
I froze. My breath hitched.
He turned then. His eyes, usually a piercing blue, were flat, devoid of any warmth. "You are not to touch anything in this room without my explicit permission. Especially not me."
The words hit me like a physical blow. My cheeks burned. "Edwardo, it's our wedding night." I tried to inject some softness into my voice, some appeal.
He looked at me as if I were a particularly unpleasant scientific specimen. "This marriage is a transaction, Blair. Nothing more. We have an agreement. You uphold your end, and your family remains solvent. Do you understand?"
"I... I understand." The air was sucked out of the room. My foolish hope shriveled and died.
"Good." He walked to a glass cabinet, pulled out a small, sterilized bottle of hand sanitizer. He squeezed a generous amount onto his palm, rubbing his hands together with a meticulous, almost violent intensity. "My OCD is severe. My contamination phobia, even more so. You will respect it."
He didn't just respect it. He weaponized it.
For three years, I walked on eggshells in my own home. Every surface was a potential threat. Every touch, a violation. He set rules, strict and unyielding. The bedrooms were separate, of course. My bathroom was not to share a single towel, a single bar of soap, with his. Our meals were served by staff who wore gloves, and only after he had meticulously inspected his cutlery and plate. He never ate anything I had prepared, even if I swore it was untouched.
I tried, in the beginning. I truly did. I left small, thoughtful notes on his desk. They went unread, or, perhaps worse, were found crumpled in the waste bin. I cooked his favorite dishes, leaving them for the staff to serve, hoping the gesture might soften him. The dishes would often return untouched.
Once, I saw him struggling with a complex code, frustration etched on his face. He' d been up for days. I brought him a cup of coffee, just placed it gently on his desk, a safe distance away.
He looked up, his eyes narrowed. "Did you touch the rim of the cup?"
"No, I was careful."
He picked it up with a tissue, carried it to the sink, and poured it down the drain. "Don't bother me with trivialities."
The rejection was a cold, constant companion.
One night, reminded by my father's doctor of the mounting bills, I realized I needed to secure my position. A child was part of the contract. I wore a silk nightgown-not for seduction, but because it was expected of a wife. I stood in the doorway of his study.
He didn't look up from his screen for a full minute. When he did, his gaze swept over me, then quickly away, a flicker of something that looked like disgust. "What are you doing?"
"We have an agreement, Edwardo," I said, my voice steady despite the humiliation I felt. "An heir. For the company. For my family's debt."
He pushed his chair back, the screech of metal on wood jarring. He stood, his expression utterly repulsed. "Get out. Now. I can't work with... that." He gestured vaguely at me, as if I were an unsightly stain.
I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I simply tightened my robe around me. "You are a difficult man to help, Edwardo."
"Get out!" he barked, immediately going to the dispenser to aggressively sanitize his hands.
I watched him scrub his hands raw, realizing then that his OCD wasn't just a condition; it was his shield against intimacy, against me. I retreated, not as a ghost, but as a woman who realized her husband was broken beyond repair. My foolish teenage crush began to die that night, replaced by a cold resolve to simply survive the contract.
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