He Had A Wife Before He Had Me Novel by Silas Darke _ Novel




He Had A Wife Before He Had Me Chapter 01

With the big day fast approaching, Dominic Calder was holding the wedding invitations, checking the guest list with me.
Then, without warning, he spoke, "Legally, I already have a wife."
"As long as you don't mind... the wedding invitations go out as planned, and the wedding proceeds as usual."
He lit a cigarette nonchalantly.
He offered a perfunctory explanation. "My family forced her on me years ago."
"Since I took her in, I have to be responsible."
My mind went completely blank. I couldn't get a single word out for what felt like forever.
"Then what were the last six years... to us?"
"Consider me a bastard."
He tapped the ash from his cigarette. "Now, it's your choice."
My hand, resting on my lower abdomen, trembled slightly.
Inside was a surprise I had planned to tell him about today...
...
"But for six years, you never mentioned it once..."
That unplanned truth hit me like a ton of bricks, my chest constricting so tight I could barely breathe.
He had been so diligent that I never suspected another life was hidden behind that veil of tenderness.
Dominic exhaled a puff of smoke. "What difference would mentioning it make?"
The corners of his mouth twitched, carrying an inexplicable certainty in his voice. "Celine Marlowe, we don't need those formalities between us."
I looked at the unsent wedding invitations in my hand.
So his initial hesitation to have a wedding wasn't about being practical. He was just scared his bigamy would get out to everyone.
My stomach flipped, and I bolted to the bathroom, throwing up dry heaves into the toilet.
"There's no need to overreact like that!"
Dominic followed, gently patting my back. "She's just a girl my relatives in the countryside pushed on me before I met you."
"She served my parents back in our hometown for a few years, and I brought her here last year. I just set her up somewhere in the city."
Dominic paused. "I see her once or twice a month and give her some living expenses."
I turned to look at him.
He stood there, tall and upright, dressed in a suit and leather shoes. It was the image of the man I had loved for six years.
But right now, the indifference in his eyes made me go cold all over.
"So for the past six years, every time you said you were going home to visit your parents, you were actually..."
"Going to see her." He answered calmly, "My parents are getting old; someone has to take care of them. She does an okay job."
Does an okay job.
I wanted to laugh, but the corners of my mouth were too heavy to lift.
Six years, over two thousand days and nights.
He had countless times, countless opportunities to deal with this relationship. To deal with her, or to deal with me.
Yet he chose to stand in the middle, calmly enjoying a double portion of stability.
A faint cramping pain came from my lower abdomen again. I subconsciously pressed my hand against it.
Dominic's gaze fell on my hand, and his brow furrowed slightly. "You look pale."
He walked over, reaching his hand toward my forehead.
I jerked back, my spine slamming against the cold tiles. "Don't touch me."
His hand froze in mid-air. His phone rang at that moment.
He glanced at the screen and declined the call. It rang again, and he declined it again.
When it rang a third time, he clicked his tongue and picked it up.
Broken, quiet sobbing came from the other end of the line.
"Dominic... I won't take my medicine... I'll get better if you just come see me..."
Dominic rubbed the space between his brows. "Enough, I'll send my assistant over."
Hanging up the phone, he looked at me, his tone softening. "She's always been in poor health. She's high-maintenance."
I didn't speak; I just looked at him.
Over the past six years, this scene had played out countless times. His phone was always ringing nonstop.
I used to say it so understandingly. "You go ahead with your work."
It turned out that in those moments...
The hurried late-night departures.
The broken promises on holidays.
Some of that time was being devoted to another "wife."
I let out a broken laugh as tears rolled down my face. "Take me to see her."

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