The King Foundation Gala was not a party. It was a performance.
And Esme Lee, for the past six months, had been the star performer in the tragedy of her own life: The Temporary Wife.
She stood near the grand ballroom's entrance, a perfect image of spousal duty. Her long, wavy brown hair was swept into an elegant knot, framing a face with soft, delicate features.
She had the pale complexion of someone who had never seen a day of hardship—a cruel irony, given her heart. Her heart fluttered too fast, like a bird trapped in a cage, that was drowned out by the orchestra.
She was just playing a role. The role of wife to Raphael King—the arrogant, untouchable heir to the King conglomerate, the man who held her family's survival in his hand, and the childhood enemy she had despised since birth.
Across the ballroom, he was in his element.
Raphael King was a flawless, intimidating picture of power in his sharp black suit.
His dark, almost black hair was combed back from a face that seemed carved from marble: a high-bridged nose, a sharp, defined jawline, and dark, intense eyes.
He was laughing at something a senator had said.
His gaze kept drifting, his eyes finding Esme every few minutes. He'd scowl, his expression darkening for a split second, and then turn back to his conversation, his laugh never faltering.
Esme, oblivious to his glances, was just trying to survive the night. She moved to the main table, checking placements: her one "wifly" duty she bothered to perform.
Her eyes scanned the list. And then they froze.
Sienna Vance.
The air went out of her lungs. Not her. Anyone but her.
Sienna was his most notorious ex-lover. Their contract, their one rule, was that he would clean up his playboy act. No scandals. Esme had built her entire sacrifice on that one promise.
She found him near the grand staircase.
"I need to speak to you," she said, her voice low and tight.
Raphael excused himself, his annoyance a visible, cold aura. He followed her into a small, empty alcove.
"What is it, Esme? You're interrupting."
"I saw one of your lovers today in the guest list," she said, her hands trembling. "Are you still seeing her while being my husband?"
Raphael's expression went from annoyed to dangerously cold.
"What does it have to do with you?" he sneered. "Her father is a business partner. I invited his company, not her."
"I told you," Esme seethed, the word "business partner" feeling like a lie. "If we are doing this contract marriage, you need to control what's in-between your damn legs. I do not want unnecessary scandals."
His dark eyes turned arctic. He took a step closer, forcing her to tilt her head back.
"You only care about your family's reputation."
"Yes!" she shot back, her voice rising. "Because everything you do affects us! Remove her company's name. Now."
He laughed. A cold, sharp sound.
"Shut up," he said, his voice a low, furious growl. "I will do whatever I want to do."
He expected her to fight back, to throw something, to scream. He lived for the fire from his childhood enemy.
But instead, something inside her broke.
For six months, she had swallowed his arrogance, his dismissal, and his barely-veiled contempt. But this was the final cut.
Her duty didn't matter. Her family didn't matter.
"Fine," she whispered.
The word was so quiet, so devoid of its earlier fire, that it made him pause.
"Then do it as a single man."
His arrogant expression faltered. "What did you say?"
Esme looked him straight in the eye, her heart hammering a painful, desperate rhythm against her ribs.
"I want a divorce, Raphael. We're done. I would rather my family go bankrupt than spend one more second as your wife."
She turned to walk away.
"Esme?" he said, his voice suddenly sharp, no longer arrogant, but... shocked.
He'd seen her angry a hundred times. Why did this one feel different?
Divorce? He had never, in all his fantasies, imagined that. He grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into her skin, ready to tell her how pathetic and dramatic she was being...
But it was too late.
The words were out. The stress of the last six months, the fury of the argument, the final, crushing weight of his pride...it all converged.
A white-hot pain seized her chest. Her vision tunneled. The glittering lights of the gala blurred.
She didn't even have the strength to cry out. She just... fell.
Raphael, who had been bracing for a fight, was left holding air.
He stared as Esme, his fiery, infuriating Esme, crumpled to the marble floor.
For one second, his anger held. 'What a stunt. How pathetic.'
Then he saw her face.
Her pale skin had gone a terrifying, waxy, blue-white. Her pink-tinted lips were bloodless. She wasn't breathing.
The anger didn't just fade; it evaporated, replaced by a pure, unadulterated terror so cold it stopped his own heart.
This wasn't a stunt.
"Esme!"
He lunged, dropping to his knees, his hands hovering over her still form.
"Esme! What are you doing?! Wake up! ESME!"
Raphael's mind went white.
The sound that ripped from his throat "ESME!" was not the command of a CEO. It was the raw, primal howl of something breaking.
For a single, agonizing second, the man who controlled empires was paralyzed, his dark eyes wide with a terror that was completely foreign to him. He was on his knees, his hands hovering over the pale, delicate face of the woman who had just demanded a divorce.
"No, you don't," he whispered, the words a furious denial. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to leave."
His terror morphed into a terrifying, singular focus. He ripped off his black suit jacket and wrapped it around her, then scooped her frail body into his arms.
He burst from the alcove, a predator carrying his wounded mate, and the ballroom's music screeched to a halt. A collective, horrified gasp sucked the air from the room.
"Get out of my way!" he roared.
He didn't care about the hundreds of staring eyes, the flashing phones, or the whispers. He didn't even care when he spotted Sienna Vance near the bar, her face a mask of pale, shocked fury.
All he saw was the woman in his arms, her head lolled back, her skin a terrifying shade of blue-grey.
"Call Dr. Ahn," he bellowed to his security chief, who was already running alongside him. "Tell him to have the VIP suite at King Medical ready now. If he is not there when I arrive, he is fired. Everyone is fired!"
The drive to the hospital was a blur of red lights and the sound of his own, ragged breathing. He refused to let the paramedics take her in the ambulance. He held her in the back of his Maybach, one hand cupping the back of her head, his thumb stroking her temple as if to physically will her back to life.
"You are not doing this, Esme," he growled at her still face. "You wanted a divorce? Fine. You can have one. But you have to be awake to sign the papers, you hear me? Wake up and fight me!"
---
Two hours later, Raphael was a caged animal in the sterile, white-walled VIP lounge of the hospital.
He had ripped off his tie. His dark hair, usually so perfectly combed back, was a mess from his own frantic hands.
He was pacing, his mind replaying the scene over and over.
Divorce.
She had said it. After all these years, after he'd finally gotten her, she was going to leave. The fury was still there, a hot coil in his gut. He'd thought she was strong.
He'd always known her as the fiery, infuriating girl who was the only person on earth not afraid of him.
For her to pull a stunt like this—to faint just to win an argument...
The door hissed open. A grim-faced, older man in a doctor's coat walked in. Dr. Ahn.
"Mr. King."
"Is she awake?" Raphael snapped, his voice all business. "What is it? Dehydration? Is she just pulling a dramatic stunt? Because if she thinks this gets her a—"
"A stunt?" Dr. Ahn's voice was ice. "Mr. King, did you know your wife has severe, chronic cardial insufficiency?"
Raphael froze mid-pace. "What?"
"Her heart. It's... weak. It's a condition she has likely managed her entire life. She's not a strong woman, sir. Not physically."
The doctor's eyes were cold with judgment. "A severe emotional shock, an argument like the one you described... the stress... it could have killed her."
The words hit Raphael with the force of a physical blow.
Frail.
The word the tabloids used. The word he'd always sneered at. He thought it was a metaphor.
He thought back, a terrifying, high-speed reel of his entire life with her: the fights in middle school, the screaming matches in high school, the bitter, cold arguments of their marriage.
He'd always pushed her, always enjoyed the fight, because he thought she was as strong as he was.
He'd been... he'd been a monster.
"She's..." he couldn't breathe. "She's sick?"
"She is," Dr. Ahn said, his voice softening slightly at the genuine, horrified shock on Raphael's face. "And the stress of the collapse, on a heart that weak... well, it's why we ran a full panel."
"And?" Raphael's voice was a whisper. "Is she... is she okay?"
Dr. Ahn took a deep breath. "Her heart is stable, for now. But that's not all we found. The stress was likely exacerbated by her condition. Mr. King..."
The doctor looked down at his chart, then back up, his expression unreadable.
"Mr. King... your wife is approximately six weeks pregnant."