The Hidden Genius: Leaving His Cage

Britteny POV:

I gripped the signed divorce agreement and stepped onto the cold marble floor of the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, squinting under the harsh white lights. No clerk behind that glass could end a marriage - in New York, a divorce took a petition to the State Supreme Court and a judge's signature - but no court would hear my case until I could prove the marriage existed. So I had come for a certified copy of the certificate first.

Right in front of me, a newlywed couple held up their certificate for a selfie. The girl smiled until her eyes curved into crescents. Her joy hit me like a bucket of ice water, and I quickly looked down at my shoes.

The line moved forward at a crawl. I stared at the papers in my hand, where I had waived all claims to Beau Reynolds's assets. Four years at his side - one of them spent nursing him out of a wheelchair, three of them spent playing the obedient wife - and this was what it came to. A bad joke.

"Next."

The middle-aged clerk behind the glass tapped the counter, snapping me out of my daze.

I stepped up and slid my ID and the marriage certificate through the slot at the bottom of the window, the divorce agreement still crushed under my arm, my fingers moving faster than I intended.

She took my ID and typed on her keyboard. Blue light from the monitor reflected off her glasses. After a few seconds, her brows pulled together. She looked at my ID again and hit a few more keys.

"Is the system down?" I asked. My heart skipped a beat.

She looked up, giving me a strange look.

"Ma'am, the system shows you are currently single."

A heavy ringing filled my ears. I grabbed the edge of the counter.

"That's impossible," I said. "Our license was issued three years ago. May 20th."

She turned the monitor toward the glass.

"There is no marriage record for you and Mr. Beau Reynolds in the city database. The marriage certificate you have is a fake."

The red "NO RECORD" letters burned into my retinas. My spine went rigid, and my fingertips turned ice-cold.

Numbness spread through my limbs as I took back my ID and papers. I couldn't even force out a thank-you. I turned around and stumbled toward the waiting chairs in the corner, my legs so weak they could barely hold me up.

The moment I dropped onto the plastic seat, the memory of Beau staying out all night flashed through my mind. I had called him at two in the morning, only for a woman's soft voice to answer.

It was Kamilah Castillo, his childhood sweetheart. She had laughed softly into the receiver.

"Beau is asleep. How much longer are you going to cling to him?"

That humiliation crashed into the "single" status on the screen, churning my stomach violently. I clapped a hand over my mouth to force down the nausea, and hot tears spilled onto the back of my hand. Four years of swallowing insults, cooking his meals, and taking his family's cold shoulders meant nothing. I wasn't even his legal wife.

With shaking hands, I unzipped my bag, folded the useless divorce agreement, and tucked it inside.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. A text from Beau lit up the screen.

"There's a gala tonight. Have my suit ready."

He sounded like an emperor handing down an order. I didn't reply. I locked the phone, catching a glimpse of my pale, deadpan face in the dark glass. Standing up, I smoothed the hem of my coat, straightened my back, and walked out of the Marriage Bureau.

I pushed open the heavy glass doors. The freezing New York wind rushed down my collar, clearing the fog in my head. I hailed a yellow cab and gave the driver the address to the Reynolds estate.

By three in the morning, the living room was pitch-black. I sat on the sofa, half my body swallowed by shadows. On the coffee table sat my phone, showing a text from an unknown number three hours ago.

"Beau is with me."

I knew it was from Kamilah.

The front door clicked open. Beau walked in and flipped on the foyer light. Seeing me on the couch, he flinched, irritation flashing across his face.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark instead of sleeping?"

Through his slightly open collar, a diamond necklace caught the light. His neck had been bare when he left yesterday.

"I couldn't sleep," I said flatly.

He walked over carrying a bakery box and shoved it into my arms.

"Happy third anniversary."

Today was our third anniversary. While I was downtown trying to divorce him, he was out with Kamilah. I looked down at the box in my lap and my throat tightened. It was a sponge cake, heavy with eggs. I was severely allergic to eggs, and after four years, he still didn't remember.

Beau didn't notice my silence. He tossed his phone onto the sofa and headed upstairs to shower.

I set the cake on the coffee table just as his phone screen lit up. The name "Kamilah" flashed across the display. Moving on pure instinct, I swiped to answer.

"Beau, are you home yet?" Her voice was dripping with sweetness.

My throat constricted. For one absurd second I nearly said yes - let her believe she was talking to him, the way I had spent four years letting everyone believe whatever was easiest.

"He's home," I rasped instead.

The line went dead without a word.

I stood up, walked upstairs to the master bedroom, and sat at the desk. Pulling open the bottom drawer, I took out the marriage certificate. A single sheet of heavy cream paper, embossed with a gold seal - the only copy in existence, and as of this afternoon worth nothing at all. Beneath it lay the only photograph we had ever taken as husband and wife: the two of us pressed close together, his eyes cold and distant even then.

Britteny POV:

Staring at Beau's face in that photo dragged me back to the day I first met him four years ago.

Back then, my mother had just been diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. Dialysis bills piled up on our kitchen table like snowdrifts. I sold the small apartment my father left us and sold my car, but I was still tens of thousands of dollars short.

At my breaking point, I spotted a handwritten card pinned to the hospital bulletin board. It offered full upfront medical coverage in exchange for private live-in care. Knowing it was likely a trap, I was desperate enough to take the gamble and followed the address to the iron gates of the Reynolds estate.

Panicking at the sight of the massive mansion, I turned to leave, but a woman's voice stopped me.

Eleanor Reynolds, the matriarch of the family, stood under the portico in a dark gray cashmere shawl.

"I will pay all of your mother's medical bills," she said, looking me up and down. "In return, you will make my son stand on his feet again."

She led me inside, and I saw Beau for the first time. He sat in a wheelchair by the window, staring blankly outside. Sunlight fell across his pale profile, making him look so fragile he might vanish into the glare.

Eleanor explained that Beau and Kamilah Castillo had grown up together and dated for five years starting at eighteen. Kamilah had wanted marriage, but Beau kept putting it off to build his business empire. On their fifth anniversary, Kamilah left without a word. Beau sped after her in the rain and slammed into a semi-truck.

Losing Kamilah and the use of his legs plunged him into severe depression and rage. He had already driven away over thirty private nurses. Eleanor needed someone who would take his abuse without walking out, and she knew I would endure anything to keep my mother alive.

I signed her private care agreement.

For a full year, I took his screaming fits and smashed plates. I flew with him to seven countries and visited nineteen specialists. When he finally stood up from that wheelchair, our contract was fulfilled, and I packed my bags to leave.

Instead, Beau cornered me in the hallway and pulled me into his arms for the very first time.

"Britteny, I can't get used to life without you," he whispered, the rims of his eyes red. "Stay with me. Be my wife."

He sounded so desperate that my heart softened. I nodded and turned down a job offer from a top architecture firm in Europe. On the day we were supposed to sign the papers, he told me he hated waiting in line at the Marriage Bureau and had his assistant, Colin Foster, handle the paperwork. I actually believed him, never questioning how a marriage license could be processed without the bride showing up.

Months later, I found out that on the exact day he proposed to me, Kamilah had broken a year of silence by posting photos of her own marriage certificate on social media. He hadn't wanted a wife. He had wanted a photograph - something to prove to Kamilah that he had moved on, without ever closing the door he was still holding open for her. That was why Colin Foster filed the papers instead of the two of us standing in line at the Marriage Bureau.

During our first year, we lived like polite roommates, never going past a brief hug. In the second year, Kamilah called him crying, claiming she had only gone abroad to treat an illness and married her attending doctor out of gratitude. Beau boarded a private jet to Europe that same night. At first, he used business trips as an excuse to stay with her for weeks; later, he stopped lying altogether, disappearing without a single phone call.

This year, he brought Kamilah back to New York. His circle of wealthy friends toasted to their reunion, acting as if I were invisible. Since the woman he nearly died for was finally back, I decided to leave with whatever dignity I had left.

Yet the clerk at the Marriage Bureau had shattered even that, telling me the marriage never existed.

I blinked, pulling myself out of the memory, and closed the fake certificate. Opening my laptop on the desk, I found the email from the European architecture firm that I had left unread for four years. My fingers flew across the keyboard.

"I confirm my acceptance of the offer."

The second I hit send, the bedroom door banged open against the wall. Beau stood in the doorway, his chest heaving and his eyes bloodshot with rage.

"What the hell did you say to Kamilah?"

Britteny POV:

Beau strode across the room and yanked me up by my collar, so hard the chair scraped back and tipped.

"Answer me!" he barked.

I froze, my hands coming up to grip his wrists.

"What?"

"Kamilah tried to kill herself! You know she has severe depression, and you still provoked her!"

My throat tightened until I could barely breathe. After a beat of silence, I forced the words out.

"I only told her you were home."

His face darkened, and he shoved me backward onto the chair.

"If anything happens to Kamilah, I won't let you off the hook."

He slammed the door and left the estate. Two hours later, I heard tires crunching on the gravel driveway while I was packing my suitcase. Stepping out of the bedroom, I walked to the second-floor railing and looked down into the living room.

Beau was carefully helping a woman sit on the sofa. She wore a simple white button-down shirt, her frame slender and delicate, with thick white gauze wrapped around her right wrist.

As if sensing my gaze, Kamilah looked up. Four years of hearing her name, and I was finally looking at the woman who owned my husband's heart. Her skin was porcelain-pale, her eyes wide and watery. Even as a woman, I could see why Beau was obsessed with her.

Beau followed her gaze and looked up at me, his dark brows pulling into a hard knot.

I curled my fingers into my palms and walked down the stairs. The moment my foot touched the bottom step, Kamilah stood up.

"Beau, this is your and Britteny's home," she said softly. "It's not right for me to recover here. I should go back to my apartment."

She turned toward the front door, her steps unsteady.

Beau caught her arm and shot me a freezing glare, silently blaming me for her slit wrist.

"Kamilah is staying here until she recovers," he announced.

Kamilah tugged lightly at his sleeve, lowering her lashes.

"Beau, don't be like this. What I did has nothing to do with Britteny. My illness flared up and I lost control."

"I don't trust the hospital staff," Beau said, his voice softening into a tone he had never used with me. "I've called my private physician. You're staying put until your wrist heals."

Kamilah looked at me with an apologetic smile.

"Britteny, please don't overthink this. Beau and I grew up together. He's just looking out for me as a friend."

My face remained blank.

"I won't."

Beau eased her back onto the couch, leaning in to ask if her wrist still hurt. He didn't spare me a single glance. Standing three feet away, I felt like an intruder in another dimension.

My throat bobbed. I wanted to end this farce right now.

"Beau, we are done-"

A shrill ringtone from Kamilah's bag cut me off. Beau immediately pulled out her phone and hit accept.

"It's Chloe," he said warmly.

"Mommy! Uncle Beau!" A little girl's high-pitched voice rang out from the speaker.

Beau sat down right next to Kamilah, his shoulder pressing against hers so they both fit into the video frame.

"Wow, is this Mommy's new house?" Chloe asked. "Is Uncle Beau happy living there?"

Kamilah's eyes curved gently.

"Yes, sweetie. Wait just a little longer. Once Mommy feels better, I'll bring you over."

"Yay! Then I can sleep in the same bed with Uncle Beau!"

Watching their heads pressed together, a suffocating weight crushed my chest. With Kamilah in the house, I couldn't even get ten seconds to finish a sentence.

I turned around and walked back upstairs without a sound. In the bedroom, I pulled the divorce agreement out of my bag. Looking at Beau's scrawled signature on the last page, a dry laugh escaped my lips. When I handed it to him two days ago, he had been too busy texting Kamilah to even read the title page before signing.

I had wanted a clean, quiet exit, yet the whole thing was a solo performance.

"I told you to look after Kamilah, and you're hiding up here slacking off?"

I looked up. Beau stood in the doorway, his eyes devoid of any warmth. Since he was here, I could tell him the truth.

"Beau, we need to talk-"

"Go downstairs and make some porridge for Kamilah," he cut in, turning his back on me.