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My Artist Husband Gave His Mistress a Mansion—Too Bad It Was Mine
Novelix
Completed
Nora Fairchild returns to her inherited estate and finds her artist husband kissing his new muse. He calls Nora a stalker, has security drag her out, and lets his girlfriend’s fireworks set the historic house ablaze. Then he announces a public proposal on Nora’s own lawn. There’s just one problem with his masterpiece: Nora owns the house, the studio building, and the fortune behind his career. While he sells the world a love story, she gathers the records that prove what he’s stolen. His next opening night is about to feature a very different kind of exposure.
Chapters (2)
Chapter 1
I went to my parents' house with flowers on the anniversary of their deaths.
My husband was there, kissing his new assistant beneath a chandelier my mother had chosen.
When I tried to go inside, a security guard blocked the steps.
“Private event. Mr. Rook's celebrating Miss Bell's first exhibition.”
It was my house.
I called Miles. Through the open French doors, I watched him glance at his phone and turn away from the woman in his arms.
“Working late, Nora. Can it wait?”
“Turn around.”
He saw me. For one second, he looked frightened. Then he pushed Tessa away and came down the steps, already angry.
“Her first real show is important. Don't embarrass me in front of my staff.”
I slapped him.
The guard stepped back.
Miles stared at me as though I had broken a rule neither of us remembered agreeing to.
“Are you out of your mind?”
I walked past him.
After the accident, I'd moved into Boston because I couldn't bear the quiet of the Fairchild estate. I kept the caretaker on and paid to preserve the house. Once a year, I came back with flowers.
In the months since my last visit, someone had painted slogans over the antique paneling. My parents' suite had become a candy-colored room full of Tessa's self-portraits.
She stood in the center of the drawing room holding champagne.
“I didn't invite you.”
Miles grabbed my arm.
“Sorry, everyone. She's been following me. She has some problems.”
A few guests laughed. Somebody called me a stalker.
I pulled free.
“I'm your wife.”
He lowered his voice. “You know my brand. Independent. Unattached. You understood that.”
I understood that my money had become embarrassing now that he could pretend it was his.
Outside, Tessa was directing two men carrying crates of fireworks toward the terrace.
“Miles designed the colors himself,” she told the crowd. “An opening-night surprise.”
I grabbed a pitcher from the drinks table and doused the first lit fuse.
“This house is nearly two hundred years old. Get those off my property.”
Chapter 2
Tessa raised her hand, then noticed Miles watching and let it fall.
“She ruined them,” she whispered. “After all that work you did for me.”
Miles seized my wrist.
“Leave.”
I pulled out my phone and started dialing 911. He snatched it before the call connected and smashed it against the terrace wall.
“Stop making a scene.”
Security dragged me toward a waiting car.
Behind them, Tessa smiled.
“This is what happens when you tell people you'll never get married. They all think they have a chance.”
Miles kissed her hand.
“Maybe I just hadn't met the right woman.”
Through the car window, I watched fireworks burst over the slate roof. My mother had spent a year finding craftsmen to restore the carved wooden eaves below it.
A spark caught there.
At first it looked no bigger than a candle. Then flame ran beneath the gutter.
“Stop the car.”
The driver kept going.
I reached for the door. A guard caught me hard enough to send my head against the window, and the world went black.
When I woke, I was in the townhouse in Boston. Miles's new house manager stood at my bedroom door.
“He asked us to give you time to calm down.”
He wouldn't let me leave.
The people I'd hired were gone. The people Miles had hired watched the doors.
He had been preparing for this longer than I had known.
I still had an old tablet in the desk. The estate's exterior cameras were linked to an account in my name.
Firefighters had put out the blaze. The roof was black. Water ran down the painted paneling.
I saved the footage before Miles could remember it existed.
Then another clip loaded: Miles carrying Tessa through the garden entrance toward my parents' bedroom, laughing as though nothing important had been lost.
