The Husband Who Fell in Love With Me Twice
"Do you enjoy this? Ignoring me like I don't exist? Do you have any idea how humiliating this feels, waiting for you like some fool?"
After three years of a cold, loveless marriage, Selene Henderson finally gathers the courage to walk away from her distant billionaire husband, Sebastian Kingsley.
She's ready to file for divorce... until a tragic accident changes everything.
When Sebastian wakes up with no memory of the woman he once pushed away, Selene finds herself trapped in a marriage she was desperate to escape, this time with a man who suddenly looks at her like she's his whole world.
But can love born from broken memories survive the truth of their painful past?
Or will the secrets she's been hiding destroy them all over again?
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Chapter 6
SELENE
I lied to him.
And the scariest part wasn't that I did, it was how easily the words slipped past my lips. How naturally they settled between us. Even as I looked into his eyes, even as my conscience screamed at me, I didn't take them back.
Sebastian smiled, then pulled me into a hug, his arms wrapping around my waist as though they belonged there.
"Thank you, Selene." He murmured.
His warmth seeped into me, and guilt followed right behind it. I told myself the truth would only confuse him, that it would overwhelm him in his fragile state. That I was protecting him.
But who was I really fooling?
This wasn't for him.
It was for me.
I tightened my fingers against the back of his shirt, closing my eyes. Just for today. Just this one day, I wanted to pretend. I wanted to have him, to feel what it was like to be held without being pushed away.
Tomorrow, I promised myself, I would tell him the truth.
I slowly eased out of his arms, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "You should take some rest." I said gently.
"But I just woke up." Sebastian protested, frowning slightly as I guided him toward the bed.
"Exactly." I replied, pressing him down until he lay back against the pillows. "The doctor said you need as much rest as possible."
He sighed but didn't resist as I adjusted the sheets around him.
When I turned toward the window, my chest tightened. Outside, a small crowd had already gathered. Journalists clustered together with their cameras poised, waiting. Even with all our efforts to keep the accident quiet, the news had still found its way out. It always did when it came to Sebastian Kingsley.
I drew a quiet breath and pulled the curtains shut, shutting out the flashing lenses and prying eyes.
"Can you pass me my phone?" He asked suddenly.
I paused. I was standing between him and the bedside cabinet where his phone rested. I reached for the phone and held it out to him, but the moment his fingers brushed against it, I suddenly remembered...
The messages!
Those angry words I had sent before I knew about the accident. If he saw them now... everything would unravel.
My breath hitched.
As he tried to take the phone from my hand, my grip tightened instinctively, refusing to let go. The phone trembled between us for a second before I pulled it back.
Sebastian frowned, confusion flickering across his face. "Selene?"
I didn't answer. I withdrew the phone completely and took a step back, clutching it to my chest as if it could protect me from the truth it carried.
"Wow." Sebastian snorted, leaning back against the bedrest with an exaggerated groan. "I survive an accident... and still can't get my own phone."
I fumbled for an excuse, holding the device tightly behind me. "Doctor's orders."
He tilted his head, playfully narrowing his eyes. "The doctor said I can't text?"
I swallowed hard. "He... implied it."
Sebastian's brow quirked, and suddenly he whirled, folding his arms like a general surveying a battlefield. "Or... maybe you implied it."
I rolled my eyes, though my cheeks betrayed me with a faint blush. "Either way, you're not allowed to touch it."
He smacked his lips as though tasting a joke. "Hmm... is there something on here I'm not supposed to see?"
My stomach flipped, betraying me, and my voice followed. "Ab... absolutely not." I stammered.
Sebastian snorted, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Oh, there's definitely something in there. What could it be?" He tapped his chin thoughtfully, as if trying to solve the world's greatest mystery.
There was no way he could guess it, right?
He scanned me from head to toe, a mischievous glint in his gaze. "Could it be...," he drawled slowly, "nude?"
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. Seriously? My heart had been in overdrive for nothing but his mind was stuck on this?
"Well, we're married and in love," he added with a sly grin, "so seeing each other nude is nothing. Just one little sneak peek, huh?"
Jesus. My instincts kicked in. I yanked a pillow off the couch and hurled it at him. "Why on earth would I send my nude to you?"
He caught it effortlessly, chuckling as his grin widened. "Oh... that's cute." he teased, holding it like a trophy.
I groaned, realizing that keeping him from the phone was going to be far more exhausting than I ever imagined.
Sebastian straightened, pushing himself off the bed with an easy grace that made my stomach twist. "Alright." He said, a teasing lilt in his voice. "Enough games. Give me my phone and show me what's on it."
I took a small step back, clutching the device like it was a lifeline. "I... um..." I stammered, searching for an excuse, and finally settled on the first thing that came to mind. "Oh my god! What's behind you?" I exclaimed, pointing wildly over his shoulder.
He didn't flinch. "You think I'll fall for that?"
"I'm serious! There's something there-look!" I insisted, my voice trembling just enough to sell it.
"If I find out you're lying..." His eyes narrowed as he finally turned to glance behind him. That was my cue. I bolted. My legs carried me to the door in one panicked dash, and I slid it open just as he spun back around.
"I knew you were lying!" He called, spotting me at the door. "Come back here!"
A wicked grin spread across my face. As he strode toward the door, I slammed it shut and sprinted down the hall to the women's bathroom.
"Selene!" I heard him shout after me. I didn't look back, only exhaled sharply and laughed as I locked the door behind me.
For a moment, I let myself breathe. The chase was over, for now.
I double-tapped the screen and swiped up, but his phone remained stubbornly locked. I hadn't even thought this far ahead.
What could his password be? I tried his birthday, but no luck.
"What on earth is his password?" I muttered to myself. Then an idea struck. I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed his secretary's number. It rang once, twice, and was picked up immediately.
"Hello?" Vincent's calm voice answered.
"Tell me Sebastian's phone password." I blurted the moment he picked up.
There was a pause on the other end. "Pardon?" He asked, clearly taken aback.
"His phone! What's the password?" I urged. "Sebastian doesn't remember."
"But I told him earlier." Vincent replied.
"Earlier?" I frowned.
"Before I left the ward." He clarified. "He asked for his phone. I gave him the password, but... he didn't seem to retain it."
"Huh?" I blinked. "He forgot?" I added, muttering as if Sebastian could hear me. "How can you be so forgetful?"
"His password is 140924." Vincent said patiently.
"Hold on." I swiped Sebastian's phone and entered the numbers. The screen unlocked instantly. "Thank you." I cut the call before he could say anything else.
I stared at the glowing screen, the numbers echoing in my head.
140924
I repeated them slowly, and then my breath caught.
Fourteen. Zero nine. Twenty-four.
My eyes widened as the realization struck me all at once. It wasn't just a random set of numbers. It was a date.
14/09/24
Our wedding day.
My fingers tightened around the phone as my heart began to pound. Of all the dates he could have chosen, he decided to use the one day he had made me believe was a mistake.
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7.4
I single-handedly saved my family's corporate empire from a hostile takeover, securing our market share for the next decade.
But my grandfather didn't see me as a hero. He saw me as a flawed piece of inventory.
To calm the board and fix the reputation I supposedly ruined, he forced me into an arranged marriage, auctioning me off to the highest bidder.
Desperate, I turned to my childhood friend, Egnacio, the only person who ever promised to protect me.
But instead of saving me, he publicly humiliated me. He used my desperation as a networking opportunity, pitching my arranged marriage as a business deal to a ruthless private equity king named Dexter Mathews.
Later that night, I caught Egnacio holding my cruel cousin in his arms.
"What man wants to be with a woman who looks at you like she's planning a hostile takeover?"
Hearing him mock my pain shattered the last bit of hope I had.
I realized I was never family to them. I was just a sharp knife, used to cut down their enemies and then traded for cash before I got dull.
The heartbreak vanished, replaced by a cold, violent rage.
I didn't break, and I didn't run.
Instead, I got into the back of Dexter Mathews's car. He had watched my family tear me apart, but he didn't see a broken pawn. He saw a queen.
And together, we were going to burn their entire empire to the ground.
9.0
Ashlyn was supposed to be just a fragile college student, selling her rare blood to a vicious crime syndicate enforcer to keep his dying sister alive.
But the dynamic shattered when Alex returned from a two-month disappearance. He stepped into the penthouse covered in dirt and blood, sporting a horrific, jagged knife wound slashed completely across his face.
Knowing exactly how to exploit his insecurities, Ashlyn played the role of the terrified victim to perfection. She screamed, pushed against his chest, and called him a terrifying monster. Humiliated and enraged by her blatant disgust, Alex violently smashed a marble table and kicked her out. He forced her out into a freezing, torrential rainstorm without a coat, vowing to kill her if she ever showed her face again.
What the ruthless enforcer didn't know was that her pathetic, trembling tears were a flawless, calculated lie. She wasn't a helpless, greedy girl. She was a cold-blooded corporate mastermind hiding from a family of elite assassins. She desperately needed his impenetrable penthouse fortress to stay alive, and she knew the only way to secure her place wasn't to ask for it, but to make him beg for her return.
Three days later, his sister's organs began to fail, and the hospital's blood bank ran dry.
"I'll pay you whatever you want. Just get here."
Listening to the desperate, broken voice of the monster over her burner phone, Ashlyn smiled coldly in the dark. The trap had snapped shut, and he had just handed her all the power.
7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
8.2
I went to a private clinic for a routine physical, only to find out I was pregnant.
It was impossible. I took my birth control every single day. But when the doctor tested my pills, they turned out to be high-purity vitamin placebos. My billionaire husband, Denton, had been systematically replacing my medication.
Yet, on our anniversary, he brought my sister Beverly home, demanding a divorce so he could marry her. When I refused to sign a settlement that left me with nothing, he froze my accounts and blacklisted me across New York.
My own father disowned me. When an old friend offered me a job just so I could afford prenatal care, Denton launched a ruthless financial attack to bankrupt his firm.
Then, Beverly got into a car crash. Denton's bodyguards dragged me off the street and forced me into a hospital trauma room. Beverly was hemorrhaging, and I was the only blood match.
I cried and begged Denton to stop, desperately trying to protect my fragile pregnancy without exposing my baby to the monster who controlled my life.
"Please, my body can't handle this. Don't do this to me!"
But he just looked at me with pure disgust and ordered his men to strap me to the chair, forcing the needle into my vein while threatening to kill me if his mistress died.
As I dragged my bleeding, cramping body out of the hospital into the freezing snow, my last shred of hope died.
I touched my stomach and made a vow: I would disappear, and I would make them all pay.
7.2
For three years, I was imprisoned by Anderson Hopper, the monster who forced me to watch my fiancé, Kendall, plummet into a freezing river.
But when I saw the morning news, I realized Kendall wasn't dead. He had returned as Eben Gill, a ruthless tech billionaire.
I risked my life to escape and find him, only to be met with eyes full of absolute hatred.
He publicly humiliated me, dragged me to the exact bridge where he "died," and sneered at the C-section scar on my stomach.
"Anderson Hopper's bastard," he spat, completely unaware that the baby was actually his—the very child Anderson had murdered in the operating room to break me.
To make matters worse, Anderson used Kendall's dying mother as a hostage to force me back into my cage.
I knelt on the freezing asphalt, begging the man I loved to just visit his mother, while he coldly ordered his driver to run me over.
I had lost my baby, my freedom, and my dignity, all to protect him from Anderson's blackmail. Why was I the one being tortured and treated like a traitor?
"Don't think your little kneeling stunt earned you my forgiveness."
He whispered those cruel words before walking away without looking back.
Staring at his cold, retreating figure, the last shred of my love finally turned to ash.
That night, under the cover of a torrential storm, I bypassed the estate's laser grids and walked out into the dark.