The Neglected Wife Makes Her Spectacular Comeback

The call had come half an hour ago. A single, frantic message from the housekeeper, Maeve.

"Mrs. Bolton, it's Eleanor. She collapsed. They've taken her to the Lennox Hill private clinic."

Ciel's heart had stopped, then restarted with a painful, hammering beat. She ran. Down the marble staircase of the penthouse she never felt was hers, past the doorman who still looked at her with polite disdain after three years, and into the back of a yellow cab.

Now, she was sprinting down a hushed, carpeted hallway on the VIP floor. The air was sterile, cold. Her lungs burned, each breath a ragged gasp. The oak double doors at the end of the corridor were her only focus. Eleanor. The only person in the Bolton family who had ever shown her kindness. The only reason she had endured this hollow marriage for so long.

She shoved the heavy door open, her palm slick with sweat.

But the smell that hit her wasn't the sharp, antiseptic scent of an emergency.

It was freesia.

Expensive, cloying freesia. Baylie Kane's signature scent.

The air in Ciel's lungs froze. The room was a suite. To her right was a small sitting area with a glass coffee table. Straight ahead, another door stood slightly ajar, leading to the patient's room.

Through the horizontal slats of the blinds on the inner door's window, she could see a sliver of the scene inside.

Baylie was on the bed, propped up against a mountain of plush pillows. She was wearing a silk robe, her honey-blonde hair perfectly styled. Her eyes were a little red, as if she'd been crying.

And sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, was Dion.

Her husband.

He was leaning in, his broad shoulders curved toward Baylie in a protective arc. He was murmuring something, his voice too low to hear, but the expression on his face was one Ciel had only ever seen in magazines. A soft, unguarded tenderness. A look he had never, not once, given to her.

Something inside Ciel's chest constricted, a brutal, physical clenching so tight it stole her breath. Her hand, still on the door, went rigid. Her knuckles turned white.

The door's hinge let out a faint groan.

It was enough.

Dion's head snapped up. The tenderness on his face vanished, replaced by a mask of cold fury. His gray eyes, the color of a storm-tossed sea, locked onto hers. He dropped Baylie's hand as if it were burning him and stood up.

A man in a tailored suit, his lawyer, Alex, stepped out from a corner of the sitting area. He held a beautifully bound document, handing it to Dion with a respectful nod.

Dion strode out of the patient room, pulling the inner door shut behind him. He didn't look at Ciel. He walked to the glass coffee table and tossed the document onto it. The heavy paper landed with a dull, final thud.

Ciel's gaze dropped to the cover. The bold,