The Wrong Wife, page 1
THE WRONG WIFE
KIRSTEN SAGER
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
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A Note From The Publisher
Copyright © 2025 Black Swan Digital
The right of Black Swan Digital to be identified as the Author of the Work
has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2025
Concept created by Black Swan Digital. Developed by Annie Kenyon.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the author or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
1
Melissa Hunter stood barefoot in the silent kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. The stainless-steel refrigerator reflected her face back at her. The carefully placed highlights, perfect cheekbones, smooth skin, the look of a woman who had everything. But her eyes gave her away. They looked tired. Watchful. Calculating.
Outside, the evening was slipping into dusk. A chill wind brushed the manicured lawns and rattled the branches beyond the pool. The house, her house, though Brad liked to think of it as his, glowed like a glass lantern against the fading light. Floor-to-ceiling windows, gleaming surfaces, all of it polished and soulless. It had never felt like a home. More like a showroom or a gilded cage.
She drained the glass and set it carefully on the counter. Every movement had become deliberate these days. Controlled. She couldn’t afford a slip. Not now, not when she was this close. Brad was out. A meeting, he’d said. Always a meeting. She knew what that meant. He was with someone else. Some woman he’d picked up at one of his so-called sporting events, maybe. Or another one of his “assistants,” disposable and interchangeable. She used to pretend not to know. Smile through it. Be the perfect wife, the perfect hostess. But she had stopped faking it a long time ago.
The photographs in the study told their own story. Brad at the governor’s gala, Brad at the fundraising dinner, Brad at the Christmas ball. Always Brad at the center, tall and golden-haired, his cold blue eyes softened just enough for the camera. And as always, Melissa was by his side, on his arm, smiling like the perfect accessory.
She had smiled for more than a year after she knew the truth. After the lipstick on his collar, the overheard phone calls, the weekends that “ran late.” After the dinner where he laughed at her in front of their friends, calling her a wonderful trophy wife who played at yoga and charity luncheons. It was meant to be a joke but it didn’t make her smile and the other guests, well, mostly they looked embarrassed while those who were in Brad’s pocket laughed along.
She remembered the way her stomach dropped, the way she brushed it off. And then, later that night, the way his voice sharpened when she asked about some missing funds from their company account. Don’t ask me about business. It’s not your world. He was right, it wasn’t and she was glad, but it didn’t stop him using her name and contacts for his own good. She’d been smiling and pretending ever since.
Now, in the quiet kitchen, Melissa pressed her palms flat against the counter and let herself remember. Her parents’ vineyard in California. How she’d loved it there. The wide, sunlit house, the smell of pressed grapes, the sense of belonging. They were gone now, the estate sold, the money invested. Her inheritance, her money, was what Brad had really wanted. He’d never loved her. Not really. He had seen her as a ticket. A ladder on which to climb.
He thought she was still naïve enough to cling to him. That she was too dependent, too insecure to walk away. He didn’t know her at all.
She moved down the hall, past the empty dining room with its gleaming table, past the dark living room where the pool lights shimmered blue through the glass wall. Brad’s cologne lingered faintly, as though he were still here.
In the smallest spare bedroom, one that, like the other three had never been used because Brad didn’t encourage guests, she opened the closet and slid out the box from behind the stack of unopened linens. It was plain, the kind of thing used for storage and labeled – spare napkins. But this box was her insurance policy. She set it on the bed and opened the lid.
Inside, carefully arranged, were flash drives, photographs, ledgers, envelopes of cash. Her new passport and driver’s license, crisp and ready. Each item a piece of the life she had been building in secret.
The private investigator had done his job well. Photographs of Brad slipping into hotels. Recordings of meetings with men in suits whose faces should never have been near him. Evidence of bribes, debts, gambling losses. The hacker had given her access to accounts Brad thought were invisible: offshore holdings, digital wallets, encrypted emails. Enough to bury him if she wanted. She didn’t want to bury him in court, though. She didn’t want to risk him wriggling out of it, smirking as he always did. No. She wanted something simpler. Cleaner. She wanted to vanish.
Her flight was booked. Three days from now. A new name, a new life, already waiting.
Melissa traced her finger over the smooth cover of an old photograph tucked in among the files. Her parents’ vineyard, the rows of vines running toward the horizon. A life where love had been real. She would build something like that again, somewhere far away.
She closed the lid.
“It’s going to be over soon,” she whispered.
The sound of her own voice startled her. She hadn’t spoken the words out loud before. They made it real. Brad thought he still had her trapped. He thought she was still playing her part. Dutiful, compliant, dependent. He had no idea she was already gone, mind body and soul.
Melissa lifted the box, feeling the weight of it in her arms. She carried it back to the closet, slid it behind the linens, out of sight. She would wait. Three more days. She would smile and nod, pour his whiskey, ask no questions. She would keep playing the role. But when she walked away, she wanted him to know. She wanted him to realize too late, that she had been smarter than him all along. She wanted that moment. The flash in his eyes when he understood.
Her lips curved in the dark, the first real smile she’d felt in months.
“Game on,” she said softly.
The next morning the house gleamed in the sunlight, its glass façade throwing back the Portland sky in hard, dazzling blue. Melissa stood at the kitchen island in chic workout gear, sleek black leggings, pale grey hoodie, hair tied in a neat knot. Her makeup was flawless, discreetly covering the tiredness under her eyes. She looked like a woman with no problems, the picture of health and wealth.
The housekeeper slid a green smoothie across the counter. “Your usual,” she said softly.
Melissa smiled, accepting the glass. “Thank you.” She never drank them anymore. Not if she could help it. She took a polite sip and set it down, the taste of kale and chalky protein powder sour on her tongue.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Brad. Dinner tonight. Don’t be late. Wear the red new dress.
Melissa stared at the screen, her smile still in place. The command, not a request. As if she were a piece of furniture he could arrange. She set the phone face down on the counter. After she’d poured the smoothie down the drain Melissa let herself out of the house and headed for the gym, to be seen, look normal, happy. Time to play her part.
The hotel ballroom was already filling when they arrived. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead, tall vases of tulips stood on white-clothed tables. Waiters in black carried trays of champagne flutes, and the thrum of conversation rose beneath the soft music.
Melissa stepped into the room and was instantly enveloped by warmth, by familiar voices. Lou-Anne, Gina, Sandy, Bella, her supposed close circle. Women she had once called friends, though now she wasn’t sure of any of them.
“Melissa!” Lou-Anne kissed her cheek. “You look amazing.”
She laughed lightly, brushing it off, her smile automatic, her comment laced with sarcasm. “Just keeping up appearances like everyone else.”
She moved among them, laughing, raising her glass, posing for photos. To the outside world, she was radiant: the perfect wife of a wealthy man, socializing with her friends. No one would see the strain in her eyes. No one would hear the tick of the metronome in her head, counting down days, rehearsing each step of her plan.
She caught Charley watching her from across the table. Charley, her closest friend, or what used to pass for friendship. Melissa had noticed things in recent months. The way Brad’s eyes lingered on Charley too long at parties. The way Charley leaned in when she whispered to him, the half-smile curling her lips. The times she had gone missing at exactly the moments Melissa couldn’t account for Brad.
Charley reached for her hand now, squeezing it. “Are you all right?” she asked, voice pitched just low enough for the others not to hear. “You seem… distant.”
Melissa smiled, smooth as glass. “I’m fine.”
“Are you and Brad okay?”
The smile didn’t falter. “We’re wonderful. Why wouldn’t we be?”
Charley’s gaze lingered a beat too long. Melissa felt the heat of suspicion flare in her stomach.
The dinner went on, course after course. Melissa played her part flawlessly. She laughed when expected, posed for more posed photographs, clinked glasses. The brittle gloss of society, nothing more, nothing deep or meaningful or sincere. But inside her mind ticked relentlessly. Every word was calculated. Every smile, every laugh, perfectly placed. None of it real. She watched the others, wondering which of them reported back to Brad, which of them gossiped too freely at the hair salon or over coffee. She no longer trusted any of them.
By the time she left, her face ached from smiling.
While she waited in the limousine while Brad said prolonged goodbyes to his cronies, she opened her bag, sliding out the small burner phone she kept hidden at the bottom. One message waited, encrypted. She entered the code, heart hammering.
Brad’s latest offshore transfers cloned. Safe.
Relief washed through her. Another piece of the plan locked into place. She almost smiled. And then a flutter of guilt flew in. She was lying to everyone. To her friends, her staff, the society that thought they knew her. But most of all, she was lying to him. And the lie would kill him. She pressed the thought away, staring out the window.
Her father’s voice came back to her, a memory from years ago at the vineyard table. Real power is quiet, Melissa. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t need to. She finally understood.
The house was silent when they returned. The staff gone to their quarters or home. Brad went straight to his study to drink brandy and no doubt text his mistress. She climbed the stairs, her footsteps soft on the polished wood. In the bedroom she sat at her dressing table and tilted the mirror, looked at her own face. Perfect makeup. Flawless skin. The practiced smile of Melissa Hunter, the society wife. But then the mask slipped. Just for an instant.
Her smile changed, becoming something sharper, something dangerous. The real smile.
“The clock’s ticking, Brad,” she said in a whisper.
Her voice sounded strange, decisive and cold. She sat there a little longer, breathing, holding the moment. She felt the power of it rippling through her. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t a victim. She was in touching distance of being gone, free. In just three more days.
2
The first thing she noticed was the sound. Low and rhythmic that seemed to seep into her ears and pulse behind her eyes. Machines. She didn’t know what kind. A monitor, maybe, something that counted time in a steady electronic heartbeat. There was another sound, softer: the whoosh of air through tubing. Breathing that wasn’t hers.
Then light. Thin daylight pressing in through half-drawn curtains. White walls. Shadows moving beyond them. She blinked, but the effort made her eyes sting and water. Something tugged at her skin. A bandage? Her throat was raw, her chest tight, each breath painful, as though she had smoked a thousand packets of cigarettes. She tried to move but couldn’t. She tried to speak but only a rasp came out. A hand tightened around hers.
“Melissa?”
Her eyes shifted, slow and heavy, and landed on the man sitting beside her bed. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hair pale and wavy, jaw sharp, eyes the colour of ice. His suit jacket was off, sleeves rolled, tie loosened.
He squeezed her hand again. “Melissa, can you hear me? It’s me. Brad.”
The name slid across her mind without finding purchase. Brad. Who was he? Her husband, brother, friend. He said it as if that explained everything. But she didn’t know him.
The doctors came quickly after that, voices brisk, footsteps purposeful. White coats. Stethoscopes. Their faces swam in and out of view above her.
“You’ve been in an accident, Mrs. Hunter.”
Mrs. Hunter. The words clanged in her head.
“You were pulled from your vehicle after it crashed and caught fire. You’ve sustained multiple injuries including fractured ribs, a broken leg, head trauma. Severe burns to your face and right arm and severe smoke inhalation.”
The words spilled out, clinical, detached.
“You were placed in an induced coma to allow your body to recover. We’ve kept you under for several days. We’re bringing you round gradually. You’re very weak, but you’re alive. You’re extremely lucky.”
Lucky.
Her eyes flicked to the man again. Brad. His hand still clamped over hers, as if he would never let go.
The doctor’s voice gentled. “You may struggle to speak at first. Your vocal cords were damaged from smoke inhalation. That will improve in time.”
Her throat burned as she tried again. Nothing came but a whisper.
Brad leaned closer. “Don’t try to talk yet. It’s okay. I’m here.”
She drifted in and out. Time blurred. One minute the room was crowded, with nurses checking her dressings, machines beeping, voices discussing grafts and scarring. The next, it was quiet, Brad the only constant, always in the chair by her side. She would wake and find him watching her, phone in his hand, eyes sliding back to her face every few seconds. As though he were guarding her.
Sometimes he spoke in low tones. “I thought I’d lost you. You don’t know what that did to me. When they called and said you’d crashed… Melissa, I thought my life was over.”
The words should have comforted her, but they didn’t. They felt heavy and rehearsed, fake. Other times he didn’t speak at all. Just sat there, hand on hers, thumb stroking the edge of her bandage. It should have felt intimate. Instead, it made her skin crawl.
One morning she opened her eyes to find sunlight pressing through the curtains. Brad leaned forward instantly, his expression one of relief.
“You’re awake,” he said softly. “Thank God.”
She tried to pull her hand free, but her muscles wouldn’t obey.
“You’ve been asleep for so long. Days.” His voice caught, then steadied. “But you’re coming back to me now, bit by bit. That’s all that matters.”
She blinked, trying to piece his words together. Coming back. But from where? She had no memory of any of it. The accident. The fire. Him. Nothing. Her mind was a blank wall.
Later, when the doctors checked her again, she managed to summon the strength to signal for a pen. They hesitated, then handed her a pad. Her fingers trembled as she scrawled the words.
I don’t remember.
The doctor read it silently, then crouched by her side, speaking gently. “Memory loss after trauma is common. You may feel confusion, even disorientation. Sometimes memories come back quickly, sometimes more gradually. For now, don’t be frightened. Just give yourself time.”
She looked at the words again. I don’t remember. She wanted to scream.
Brad came back into the room as the doctor left. He read the note upside down, his expression tightening before he smoothed it away and it told her more than she suspected he’d like.
He bent closer, his lips brushing her bandaged hand. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll remember for you and help you piece it all together.”
Her stomach turned.
The days blurred again. She began to see more of her body: the dressings unwound, glimpses of raw, angry flesh beneath. Her arm, mottled red and pink, skin grafts already attempted. The shape of her face altered. The first time she saw herself in the mirror she almost screamed. A nurse touched her shoulder gently.
“You’re healing,” the nurse said. “It will get better.”
But she could still see the melted lines where her cheek should have been, the angry ridges. Her eyes looked wrong, too large in the altered frame.
Brad sat beside her, his hands on hers. “You’re still beautiful,” he murmured.
She wanted to believe him. But she didn’t know if he meant it, or if it was just another line. Like when he told her things. Stories. Their wedding day, the dress, the trip to Paris. The house, the pool, the friends they shared.
