His Unwanted Wife, My New Dawn

For six years, I was the wife of a tech billionaire with crippling mysophobia. To my husband, Killian, I was a contaminant he was forced to tolerate for a business merger, a ghost in my own home.

But for his mistress, the influencer Isabel, every rule was broken. He worshipped her, believing she was the angel who' d saved him from a near-fatal climbing accident two years ago.

The truth was, I was the one who braved a blizzard to rescue him, suffering severe frostbite in the process. But he laughed in my face, calling me too fragile. He knelt on a filthy police station floor to touch her bare feet, yet he' d recoiled from my touch for years.

He destroyed my grandmother' s priceless locket because she wanted it. He forced me to kneel and apologize for her lies, threatening my family's company if I refused.

The final humiliation came when he publicly declared her the true mistress of the house and made me climb a dangerous, thorny hill on my injured ankle to pick roses for her.

As I stumbled back, covered in mud and blood, I felt nothing. The love I had stubbornly held onto was finally, completely dead.

I walked away that night with the signed divorce papers in my hand. My old life was over, and my fight for a new one had just begun.

Chapter 1

AVA DODSON POV:

The phone rang, shattering the dead silence of 2 AM. My heart didn' t even flinch. It was always 2 AM, and it was always the same caller. My assistant' s number flashed on the screen, but I knew who the call was truly from.

"Mrs. Rutledge, I am so sorry to disturb you," a harried voice mumbled. "But Mr. Rutledge and Ms. Griffin… they' ve been detained."

I closed my eyes, a dull ache settling behind them. Detained. Again. For public indecency. Again. My world had shrunk to this predictable cycle of chaos and cleanup, a routine I was so used to, it barely registered anymore. It was just another Tuesday.

"Where are they?" I asked, my voice flat. I was already reaching for my coat, my body moving on autopilot.

The police station was a sterile, unforgiving place. The fluorescent lights hummed, washing out the already pale faces of the officers and the grimy walls. I walked through the heavy doors, my heels clicking on the linoleum, a sound that felt too loud, too sharp in the quiet despair of the night.

And then I saw them.

Killian, my husband of six years, was leaning against a chipped Formica counter. His usually immaculate clothes were rumpled, his dark hair falling over his forehead. He looked disheveled, yes, but not unhappy. Not really. Isabel Griffin, the influencer who had effortlessly stolen his attention, was clinging to his arm. Her silk dress was torn at the shoulder, her mascara smudged, but her eyes held a triumphant glint. They were laughing, a low, intimate sound