The Wife He Never Saw
Aria Castellano spent five years loving a man carved from marble. She married Dominic Kane because of a pregnancy scare after one drunken night—a baby that never came, but vows that trapped them both. She told herself it was enough. Being Mrs. Kane, managing his household, attending galas on his arm while he looked through her like she was glass. She could live with being second place, as long as she had pieces of him.
What she couldn't live with was knowing exactly who held first place: her sister, Celeste.
Beautiful, delicate Celeste—the girl Dominic loved since college, the one who broke his heart when she chose a music career in Paris over him. For five years, Aria watched her husband keep Celeste's photo in his wallet. She heard him murmur her sister's name in his sleep. She felt him pull away every time she tried to get close, as if loving his wife would be a betrayal to the woman who left him behind.
Aria became the perfect wife anyway. She learned his coffee order, memorized his schedule, supported his business deals, and asked for nothing. When Celeste's name appeared on his phone, Aria pretended not to notice. When he forgot their anniversary for the third year running, she smiled through dinner alone. When he spent Christmas at the office instead of with her, she told herself next year would be different.
She was a fool.
Everything shatters the night Celeste returns from Paris, her music career in ruins, looking for the man who promised to wait forever. The sister Aria hasn't seen in five years shows up at their door with tears in her eyes and a suitcase in her hand. And Dominic—cold, controlled Dominic—looks at Celeste like she's oxygen after drowning.
That night, Aria hears them in his office. Not doing anything inappropriate, but something worse: talking. Laughing. Connecting in ways he never did with his own wife. And when Celeste touches his hand and whispers, "I made a mistake leaving you," Dominic doesn't pull away.
Aria Castellano has spent five years begging for crumbs. She's done.
She packs her bags in the guest room she's been sleeping in for months. She calls the best divorce attorney in the city. She sends the papers to Dominic's office with a simple note: "Sign them. Set us both free."
She expects relief. Maybe even cooperation.
What she doesn't expect is her husband showing up at her new apartment at midnight, divorce papers torn in half, eyes wild with something she's never seen before: panic.
"You can't leave."
"Watch me."
"Aria, we need to talk—"
"We've had five years to talk, Dominic. You spent all of them talking to her ghost."
For the first time in their marriage, Dominic Kane is fighting for something. Unfortunately for him, Aria Castellano has finally stopped fighting. And the man who realizes too late what he had is about to learn that some doors, once closed, don't open again—no matter how hard you bang on them.
Too bad his wife forgot to mention one tiny detail before she left: the pregnancy scare from five years ago? It wasn't a false alarm after all. She just never told him about the little girl who has his eyes and her mother's strength.
