Chapter 1 - THE WIFE HE THREW AWAY
“Get out of my sight before I have you thrown out.”
Those were the first words Christian Ryder said to his wife after waking from a coma.
Amelia Jones stood beside his hospital bed, her fingers trembling around the marriage certificate she had signed three days earlier.
She was twenty-one years old.
He was thirty-three.
She had never met him before the wedding.
And he was the most dangerous man in Chicago.
“You don't understand,” she whispered. “Your mother asked me to—”
“My mother bought me a wife?”
Christian's voice was dangerously quiet.
He pushed himself upright despite the monitors attached to his chest.
“Tell me how much.”
Amelia blinked.
“What?”
“How much did she pay you to marry a man who couldn't even open his eyes?”
Amelia swallowed.
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
Christian laughed without humor.
“That's all?”
“It was for my mother's hospital bills.”
“Of course it was.”
He reached toward the bedside table, picked up a checkbook, and wrote something.
Then he tore out the check and threw it onto the blanket.
“One million dollars. Take it and disappear.”
Amelia stared at the check.
For one terrible moment, she considered taking it.
Her mother was dying.
Her father had stolen the inheritance her grandfather had left her.
Her stepmother had thrown her out of the family home.
And the man she had just married was looking at her as though she were something filthy.
But Amelia slowly placed the check back on his bed.
“I don't want your money.”
Christian's eyes narrowed.
“Then what do you want?”
She looked at the wedding ring on her finger.
“Nothing.”
She removed it.
Placed it beside the check.
And walked away.
Christian watched the door close.
He didn't call her back.
He didn't ask her name again.
And he certainly didn't know that the frightened young woman he had just rejected was carrying his children.
Eight months later, Amelia was cleaning the marble floors of Chicago's most exclusive private club.
Her stomach was enormous.
Twins.
A boy and a girl, according to the latest ultrasound.
She had named them in her heart already.
Noah and Grace.
“Are you deaf?”
The supervisor's voice cracked through the empty hallway.
Amelia looked up.
“I'm sorry?”
“There's water on the floor.”
“I'll get the mop.”
“No.”
The woman pointed toward a dirty rag.
“On your knees.”
Amelia instinctively touched her stomach.
“Ma'am, I'm eight months pregnant.”
“And I'm not paying you to stand around discussing your personal problems.”
Amelia looked toward the exit.
She could leave.
But she needed the money for her next prenatal appointment.
So she lowered herself carefully onto the cold marble.
Her knees hurt immediately.
She pressed the rag against the floor.
Then the elevator opened.
Six men in black suits stepped out.
Behind them came a tall man wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit.
His dark hair was swept back.
A silver watch gleamed beneath his cuff.
Every employee in the hallway lowered their head.
“Mr. Ryder.”
Amelia froze.
She knew that voice.
She had heard it only once before.
In a hospital room.
When it told her to disappear.
Christian Ryder stopped walking.
His gaze fell on the pregnant cleaner kneeling in front of him.
Something about her seemed familiar.
The dark hair.
The delicate face.
The faint scent of lavender.
But before he could speak, the supervisor grabbed Amelia's arm.
“Get up, you stupid girl!”
Amelia cried out.
Christian's expression changed.
“Take your hand off her.”
The entire hallway went silent.
The supervisor released Amelia immediately.
“Mr. Ryder, she's just a cleaner.”
Christian looked at the woman.
Then at Amelia's swollen stomach.
“Does your club normally force pregnant women to scrub floors on their knees?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Then why is she doing it?”
Nobody answered.
Christian turned toward his security chief.
“Make sure she receives every dollar she's owed. And investigate this place.”
“Yes, sir.”
Amelia struggled to stand.
Christian extended his hand.
She stared at it.
The same hand that had thrown a million-dollar check at her.
“Don't,” she whispered.
He frowned.
“Don't what?”
“Pretend you care.”
Christian studied her face.
“Have we met?”
Amelia's heart began pounding.
For a moment, she almost told him everything.
That she was his wife.
That the babies inside her were his.
That she had spent eight months trying to survive after he threw her away.
Instead, she lowered her eyes.
“No, Mr. Ryder.”
She stepped around him.
But Christian caught one word as she passed.
A word so quiet he almost missed it.
“Husband.”
He turned.
“What did you call me?”
Amelia stopped.
Then slowly looked back.
“Nothing, sir.”
Christian watched her disappear down the hallway.
May you like
And for the first time in eight months, he wondered whether the wife he had thrown away had ever truly disappeared.
But upstairs, someone had already recognized Amelia—and was preparing to make sure she never left the club alive.
