The Unwanted Wife: No Longer His Shield

Aryanna rolled down the window of the Maybach just an inch.

The freezing Manhattan rain immediately whipped against her face, the icy droplets splashing onto the leather of her Birkin bag. She didn't blink. She couldn't. Her eyes were locked on the floor-to-ceiling windows of Le Coucou across the street.

Inside the warmly lit restaurant, her husband of two years, Branden Montgomery, was standing up.

He shrugged off his custom-tailored suit jacket. With a movement so natural it made Aryanna's stomach violently drop, he draped the expensive fabric over the shoulders of the blonde woman sitting across from him. Kaylen.

Kaylen looked up at him, offering a fragile, trembling smile. Branden reached out. His large hand, the same hand that wore their platinum wedding band, gently tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind Kaylen's ear.

A sharp pain radiated from Aryanna's chest, traveling down her arms until her fingertips went completely numb.

Her lungs forgot how to work. She had to open her mouth, gasping for the cold, damp air filling the car just to keep from passing out.

Her hands shook violently as she unlocked her phone. She dialed Branden's private number, her eyes never leaving the man in the restaurant.

The phone rang. Once. Twice. Five times.

Finally, the line clicked open.

"What." Branden's deep, cold voice filled her ear. The heavy irritation in his tone was impossible to miss.

Aryanna dug her manicured nails into her palm, using the physical sting to keep her voice perfectly steady.

"Are you coming back to the Central Park penthouse tonight?" she asked.

Across the street, she watched Branden glance down at Kaylen.

"No," Branden said flatly into the phone. "The merger requires an all-night board meeting. Don't wait up."

He hung up. Just like that.

The dial tone buzzed in Aryanna's ear. Her vision blurred, the streetlights smearing into ugly yellow streaks. The "old money emotional detachment" she had tried so hard to understand for two years was nothing but a sick joke. He wasn't detached. He just saved his warmth for someone else.

A sudden, violent wave of anger crashed over her, entirely swallowing the grief.

She hurled her phone at the passenger seat. It bounced off the leather with a dull thud.

"Drive," Aryanna ordered her chauffeur, her voice hard. "Find the nearest CVS. Now."

The Maybach's tires screeched against the wet asphalt as the driver hit the gas.

Minutes later, Aryanna pushed through the glass doors of the pharmacy. Her red-soled Louboutins clicked sharply against the cheap linoleum floor. She ignored the wide-eyed stares of the late-night cashier and marched straight to the family planning aisle.

She grabbed the largest box of Trojan Magnums on the shelf. She didn't stop there. She grabbed three boxes of premium personal lubricant and slammed them onto the checkout counter.

Back in the car, she ripped a piece of heavy, cream-colored stationery from her bag. The Montgomery family crest was embossed at the top.

She pulled the cap off her