The Wife They Called Fool Chapter 2

I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. My fingers were trembling so violently it took me three tries to pull my platinum wedding band off.

I threw it onto the hardwood floor. It bounced with a hollow, metallic ping.

"You turned into a bad person," I screamed, my voice cracking under the weight of the betrayal. "I want to go. I am leaving you!"

Roman froze for two seconds. Then, a dark, humorless laugh escaped his throat.

"You're leaving? Fine. But where exactly are you going to go, Paige? Back to the prison to visit your father?"

He stepped closer, his imposing frame casting a shadow over me. "Don't be naive. The second you step out of this penthouse, you wouldn't even know how to keep yourself fed."

The sharp chime of an alarm on his phone sliced through the tension.

He glanced down at the screen.

"I have to take Valerie to her OB-GYN appointment."

When his eyes met mine again, there was nothing but cold impatience. "I have given you a beautiful life, Paige. I’ve treated you like a queen. All I am doing is having a child with someone else. I won't tolerate any more tantrums."

The front door slammed shut with a heavy thud. The sound rattled my bones.

He only remembered that he had to take Valerie to the doctor today. He forgot that today was also my birthday.

He forgot that exactly ten years ago today, he promised he would spend every single birthday with me for the rest of our lives.

Back then, he wasn't the ruthless CEO of Kensington Global. He was just the outcast—one of his father’s many illegitimate children, treated like dirt by the legitimate family.

Because he had scored a 98 on an exam instead of a perfect 100, his stepmother had locked him in the windowless equipment closet of our elite prep school.

Roman suffered from severe claustrophobia. In the pitch black of that suffocating room, his panicked sobs echoed through the dark.

Neither Roman nor his stepmother knew that I was already hiding in that closet, skipping a class I couldn't understand.

"P-please... don't cry," I had whispered, reaching out in the dark. "I'm right here with you."

He sounded so broken. I didn't know how to fix it, so I gave him the only thing I had: a small, squished vanilla cupcake I had saved my allowance for weeks to buy.

I just wanted the older boy to stop crying.

He ate the ruined cupcake in the dark, wiped his tears, and made a vow.

"We're friends now, Paige. I will celebrate your birthday with you for the rest of my life."

From that day on, I was his safe harbor from his vicious family, and he was my shield against the world. We held hands and stumbled through the wreckage of our youth together.

When he finally seized control of the Kensington empire, the board lined up brilliant, polished, blue-blooded heiresses for him to marry.

He rejected them all.

No one expected him to marry the girl with the delayed mind. The society papers claimed he was doing it just to humiliate the Kensington name.

Even I had looked at him in my white dress, nervously twisting my fingers. "Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? I... I'm so slow, Roman."

He had slid the diamond ring onto my finger, his smile softer than I had ever seen it.

"Yes, you are. You're too innocent. That's why I have to marry you and keep you right by my side forever. It's the only way I'll know you're safe."

Marrying me had nearly cost him his empire. His father’s wrath, the board's threats, the social ostracization—Roman faced it all without flinching.

He had held my hands tightly and told me, "Paige, you don't know this, but that day in the closet... I was going to end it all. You pulled me back from the edge. I swore then that I would never let you go. I can lose everything in this world, but I will never lose you."

Because I was slow, he always made sure to speak his love loudly, so I would understand.

But because I am slow, he now felt he didn't even need to hide his infidelity.

I stared blankly at our massive wedding portrait hanging on the gallery wall.

A notification ping from my phone dragged me back to the present.

It was a text from Valerie.

[Paige, did you and Mr. Kensington have a fight? He looked so tense when he picked me up.]

[But it's okay, he's thrilled now! The doctor says our baby is perfectly healthy.]

Below the text was a photo. Roman, the man who struck fear into Wall Street, was leaning forward in a sterile clinic chair, a notepad on his knee, diligently writing down every word the doctor said.

He used to do that for me whenever I had an asthma flare-up.

Another sharp, piercing pain ripped through my chest.

Leave. I have to leave right now.

It was the only thought my brain could process.

I picked up my phone, my breath catching in my throat, and dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time.

"Mom? I'll do it. I'll come with you."

"Darling? Is it really you?" My mother's voice cracked over the line. "You finally forgive me? Where are you? Pack your things. I'm taking you to the consulate right now."