Untouchable ex-wife of the ruthless billionaire CEO

She turned to check the time. 2:47 a.m.

Damon hadn't arrived back at home.

She felt a stinging pang in her chest, but she pushed herself to consciously breath gently. It was not novel. Like last night, he had spent many evenings away. But tonight, after everything, the whispers, the looks, the humiliation, his absence felt different. It came across as a statement.

On the nightstand, her phone buzzed, its vibration breaking through the quiet.

She reached for it with doubtful fingers. one note from Vanessa.

Look at Seraphina's post.

dread knotted low in her gut. Her pulse pounding against her ribs, her hands became sweaty as she swiped open the app. The screen loaded slowly, but when it did, each breath she had left left one sharp exhale.

Her most recent piece was a darkly lit, closely close picture. A woman's bare back against silk sheets, a masculine hand resting possessively on her hip.

Lillian's blood ran cold.

The caption beside it said: Tonight will live in memory.

Her fingers got tighter around the phone. Her knuckles went white from that great hold. She knew that hand, even though the picture itself was deliberately vague and ambiguous. Its form, the veins on the wrist, the way the cuff hardly peeped into the picture.

Damien.

Her vision became hazy.

She wanted to scream, toss the phone across the room, break anything, anything, that would help her to release this intolerable agony inside her.

She closed her eyes rather instead.

taken in. Pushed out.

Sharp and merciless pain turned inside her, but she choked it down. This was not the first turnabout. That would not be the last.

She moved over the rotating doors, the air smelling fresh coffee and polished wood. Executives in tailored clothes, helpers carrying files, quiet chats filled with urgency, the elegant lobby alive with movement, its tall marble columns and immaculate black flooring.

Then she entered.

And the globe froze.

Heads looked around. Slower movements. Though the murmurs were subdued, she sensed the change in the air, the stolen looks, the way certain staff members lowered their eyes, suddenly busying themselves with chores absent on the list.

She was not only a surprise visitor.

She was unique.

Lillian kept on her stroll.

She passed old faces, people who had attended their wedding, who had once congratulated her for assuming Mrs. Ashford. They now saw her as though she were only a ghost living in the empire her husband governed.

As she walked to the executive floor, her pulse pounded in her ears.

Straightened at the sight of her, the young woman in a navy blazer, the main desk receptionist, had immaculate hair tied into a bun.

Lillian spoke in a cool, steady manner. "I should see Damon."

The woman stopped, her fingers hanging over the keyboard. "Mr. Ashford is... right now in a meeting."

Lillian wrinkled her brow. "then I'll wait."

The receptionist swallowed and looked down, maybe looking for a justification.

Lillian had no need for hearing it.

She realised.

New from the woman's posture's tightness, the hardly hidden pain in her eyes. New from the way the whole floor seemed electrified with something unsaid.

Damon was on hand.

And he was not isolated either.

An intense pulse of wrath curled under her ribs. She nodded once. "Don't trouble me announcing."

She turned without further word and headed directly towards his office.

Ahead loomed the door, its sleek black finish a sharp contrast against the glass walls encircling it.

The last gate.

She extended her hands for the handle.

The receptionist answered uncertainly and called after her. "Mrs. Ashford, I really don't think,"

Lillian closed the door.

Langley, Valhalla.

She stood next to Damon's desk, wearing just his white dress shirt, the neat cloth draping off her tiny form as though she belonged in it. Her lips curved in a deep, contented smile as her damp, raven hair hung to her collarbone.

Lillian's hands shook at her sides as her stomach turned.

Seraphina spoke in a purr, full with victory. "Oh, beloved, shouldn't you knock?"

Lillian's world slanted, but she kept anchored in place; her body was unresponsive as her thoughts shouted at her to react, to move, to speak, to act.

She then turned to see him.

Damian.

Arrangements folded up under his large oak desk, shirt undone at the collar. Arrangements He radiated that same easy control, the man in charge. But the ground changed beneath her not because of his looks.

It was his demeanour.

Not shocked at all. Nothing guilt about.

Simply disinterest.

As though she did not exist.

Like she hadn't simply entered on his treachery.

He reached for his cufflinks, fastening them with slow, careful accuracy, his every movement meticulous, as though her presence were only a slight annoyance.

Lillian's nails sank into her palm.

Inside her, a dozen emotions battled: anger, hurt, shame. She forced herself to stand tall though, smothering them all.

Seraphina let out a really long sigh. "You impoverished person." Her fingertips straying the edge of Damon's desk, she turned to him. "You omitted telling me we had an audience this morning."

Though her pulse hammered, Lillian refused to let anybody see her break.

At last Damon turned to look at her.

Their stares locked.

She wasn't sure if she imagined anything flickering in his sight, so ephemeral, so unreadable.

Then he uttered the words that broke her in a voice as silky.

"You should not be here, Lillian."

Her heart halted.

Seraphina giggled quietly. She turned her head to say, "Yes, darling." "Have you not sufficiently embarrassed yourself?"

First to move was Seraphina.

She moved slowly and deliberately across the distance between them, her bare legs showing from under Damon's clean white dress shirt. The fabric swallowed her frame, yet Lillian's tummy turned over from her thoughtless, intimate wear.

Sitting on Damon's desk's edge, she crossed one long leg over the other. She leaned in and planted a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek then, as if bending the knife further.

Lillian sensed the tilt of the world.

Damon didn't respond. He wasn't rigid. He stayed.

He just let it to happen.

Seraphina's lips opened into a languid, contented smile. Her head tipped and her emerald eyes sparkled with laughter. "You're early, darling.."

Lillian's pulse burst into her ears.

Every instinct screamed for her to respond, to smack that haughtily off Seraphina's face, to demand responses from the guy seated so coolly behind the desk. She refused to provide them the gratification, though.

Rather, she raised her chin, trained indifference hiding the fury inside her.

"How unfortunate," she murmured with a flawless flow. "I had no idea I should schedule a meeting to see my own husband."

Seraphina laughed lightly and airily. She cooed, whirling a strand of her raven hair. "Oh, Lillian," she said. Damon is a rather busy man. She let the words hang between them then spoke in a conspiratorial tone, downing. "I guess I just fit into his calendar more precisely than you do."

Lillian's fingers curled at her sides into fists.

She turned to Damon then, looking for anything, anything, in his manner.

A flickering of remorse. a sloshy guilt.

She came across nothing.

Damon let out a slow, almost bored-measuring tone. With unfathomable serenity, his black eyes locked with hers, his fingers tapping a meaningless cadence against the desk.

At last, he spoke.

Not a clarification. Not a denial; rather, a statement of fact.

Just three cold, intentional sentences.

You ought not to be here.

Her one knowledge was that she had to go.

The doors fell silently behind her with a sombre finality the instant she entered the lift. Trapped with the ghosts of what she had just seen, the narrow walls pressed in.

She grabbed for the button, her fingers shaking, but she did not press it straight away.

She stood there, fixed on her reflection in the mirror doors.

Her hair was still immaculate and her makeup was perfect. She seemed unbroken from the outside. Made. But her eyes revealed her differently.

There was the storm, building under surface level.

She breathed then pressed the button.

The fall was shockingly slowly slow. Every floor that went by, every second that passed tightened the knot in her chest.

Her hands had stopped shaking as she arrived at the lobby.

Her heels tapping on the polished marble floor, Lillian emerged into Ashford Enterprises' great hall. Executives racing to meetings, interns bearing trays of coffee, security officers positioned at the door encircled her in normal morning hustle.

Still, she strolled feeling like a ghost.

nothing stopped her. Nobody gave her a call afterwards.

They all knew.

She pushed open the glass doors leading outdoors to breathe the clean morning air. The city was waking, vehicles honking, people moving deliberately. Still, the world had not stopped.

Still, there was something inside her.

She had assured herself she could live with this marriage. She could swallow the loneliness, the whispers, the humiliation. She could stay, regardless of everything.

But nowadays days...

Something broke today.

Lillian, this is not about love. It comes down to obligation. Her father spoke with a hard, relentless quality. Edward Ashford was a man fashioned from stone, his presence an immobile force in the upper society of New York. His slicked back salt-and-pepper hair, his perfect tailored suit, a picture of control and expectation.

Lillian's emerald-green eyes flicked up to meet his sight. And what about satisfaction?

A scorn. A contemptuous sweep of his hand. You have wasted too much time believing in illogical dreams. Married to Damon Blackwood guarantees our legacy. Only that counts.

Blackwood, Damon Just the name caused her to shiver involuntarily. Everyone in the city knew him, the cold, merciless billionaire who used iron fists to build his empire. Their participation had been planned for years, whispered in elite social circles, but he had never once acknowledged her presence.

just a contract; nothing more. No flowers, no proposals, no softly worded pledges. Just a legal agreement tying her to a man who had not even bothered to show up for his own engagement announcement.

The attorney cleared his throat with a bland, businesslike attitude. "Miss Ashford, if you are ready..."

Lillian squeezed her fingers over the pen. ready? She wasn't exactly. But did there exist another choice? Her father's eager gaze, the silent weight of the Ashford name, the crushing walls of their past, all of it collapsed down on her, pushing her forward.

She agreed. The ink dried quickly, dark swashes marking her doom.

A minute of quiet, weighty and stifling. The attorney nodded then quietly snapped the folder closed.

The contract is finalised.

Lillian breathed, half-expecting the ground to move beneath her, for something to feel different.

Nothing.

Her pulse thumping, she moved towards the door looking for the guy she had just legally pledged herself to.

There was no Damon Blackwood visible.

The door moaned open.

Inside Damon Blackwood carried the weight of an unheard storm.

Tall, broad-shouldered, and shockingly composed, he was the kind of man whose presence quieted rooms. Precision cut jet-black hair framed a face made from harsh angles, cheekbones carved like stone, lips set in an incomprehensible line. But his eyes caused the air to stop in her throat. ice-blue, cutting, cold, devoid of warmth.

Neither spoke for a little instant.

Then he started the quiet breaking. Let's not pretend this implies something.

She cut the words over her.

Lillian's fingers curled across her gown's silky silk. I never said it as well.

Though it never came to his eyes, a smile ghosted his lips. Good. Then we really get each other.

Like a guy evaluating an investment rather than a bride, his eyes strayed over her, aloof, uncaring.

She raised her chin, not allowing the embarrassment show. At least you could have been there at the deal signing.

Damon's face stayed devoid of emotion. I squander time on formality not at all.

Her chest began to ache hollow-style. His speech was devoid of hatred, of cruelty, only a pure, unvarnish indifference.

"then I hope you don's expect me to waste my time pretending." She faked a grin, cool and practiced, the ideal copy of a lady not breaking inside.

His eyes stayed too long, something unreadable blazing behind those frigid blue eyes.

It vanished then, just as fast.

Damon started to face the door. The ceremony gets underway in one hour. Don't be late.

Lillian watched him vanish, his presence hanging like a ghost in the poorly lighted room.

She cracked something inside of her.

not noisy. Not quite obvious.

Just a little silent, breaking thing.

"Poor girl," someone said in a whisper. a loveless marriage.

Blackwood hardly even looks at her.

Lillian stood at the altar, calm force gripping her bouquet. Damon, across from her, exuded measured grace. Perfect black tuxedo, hands held casually, his face devoid of feeling.

The voice of the officiant boomed throughout the great hall uttering vows that ought to have significance. But the words fell hollow, a simple deal closing before the elite of the city.

"I do," Lillian answered with even, steady voice.

The turn of Damon. Stop. Then, like the words bored him, "I do."

The air seemed heavy and oppressive.

The officiant said, "Seal the vowels with a kiss."

Lillian's breath paused.

Not in tenderness, not possession, but in cold necessity, Damon leaned in and his lips brushed hers.

Breathing ghostly on her cheek, he said, "Don't expect a fairy tale."

Lillian Ashford stood at the brink of the bed, her silk bridal gown gathering about her feet. The weight of the diamond ring on her finger seemed more than it had hours ago. She had spent the past hour believing herself Damon would come by listening to the subdued buzz of the metropolis outside the glass.

right now, any moment.

He would come through the door, untie his tie, and make some offhand comments on the ridiculousness of the event. Maybe he would let himself smile, one just for her. Maybe he would see her waiting, expectant, and something in him softened.

Still, the door closed never opened.

The expectation turned from curdled into uncomfortable.

Silence was broken by a knock.

Her pulse became faster. She proceeded towards the entrance, swallowed down the anxieties, and polished the lace on her gown. When she opened it, though, Damon was not standing there.

a housekeeper. Young, restless, eyes downcast.

She held out a well-folded note, her words just audible above a whisper. "From Mr. Blackwood."

Before Lillian opened the paper, her fingers clenched around it. The handwriting was exact, crisp, totally emotion-free.

Something arrived. Avoid waiting for me.

Her heart came to halt.

The maid stopped, as though she sensed the change in the air. Would you like me to do?

"No." Though her fingers shook against the clean paper, Lillian's voice was shockingly calm. You can go.

This evening she had envisioned differently.

Not in a naive, romantic sense, but with the naive expectation Damon may at least admit her presence. That he would view her as anything more than a transaction.

He had left her with silence instead.

She stretched for the champagne bottle, twisted the cellophane, but her fingers slipped. She laughed, bitter and silent, then stopped. She had never especially enjoyed champagne.

She glanced at a flutter of light. Diminished but alive, the television screen showed breaking news from The Avalon, the most elite club in the city.

Her breath became stopped.

The broadcast focused on a familiar person slumped back in a leather booth, a whisky glass in hand, radiating simple arrogance. Blackwood Damon.

Not only Damon but also others.

Beside him, Seraphina Langley wore a crimson dress that hung to every curve and tilted her head to whisper something to his ear.

Lillian turned over in her stomach.

Before Seraphina leaned in, the camera caught her lips twisting into a smile; her words were clear despite the subdued volume.

"Poor Lillian," she said, fingers tracing Damon's sleeve. She assumed he would have come to her, really.

Lillian pushed her expression to appear calm even as her breath stopped. She told herself; you knew this was your place. a wife named merely in title.

Before she went another step, the whispering began.

See her here. hopeless.

She is still fixated on Mrs. Ashford, as though that defines something.

"His mistress practically drapes herself over him," says one.

With her nails rubbing across the delicate stem, Lillian tightened her hold on her champagne glass. Her mother had instructed her when she was small, never let them know your suffering, Lillian; a calm inhale stabilised her. Never forget to wear your crown.

Calling every last bit of control, she raised her chin and marched farther within. A waiter approached, and she grabbed a fresh glass of champagne, sipping deliberately as though the conversation around her went under her awareness.

At last Damon spun.

Their glances crossed the room; his were dark as a midnight storm, inscrutable. Something glowed in their depths for a brief moment. Respect? cautioned? Excitement? Whatever it was, it disappeared before her eyes could catch it. He turned back to Seraphina silently, spoke something in her ear that made the woman smile.

Around Lillian, a fresh wave of whispering smashed.

The humiliation stalks her pride like a nasty flame. She wanted to go, prove she wasn't some weak, miserable wife waiting for bits of affection. Still another, though, the desperate, stubborn portion stayed firmly anchored to the earth.

This was her fight. Her battlefield.

She made herself grin, slow and graceful, the way a queen would respond to treachery. Underneath the porcelain front, nevertheless, her hold on the champagne glass tightened, so much that, absent caution, it might break.

She rooted herself by curling her fingers around the wrought iron railing. You are more powerful than this.

"lillian."

At the familiar voice, she stiffened. A moment later Vanessa Caldwell walked behind her, a flute of champagne in hand and a knowing glance in her emerald eyes.

Vanessa was the only friend she had left in this life; the one person she had not abandoned upon her marriage to Damon. She wore a silver gown that glistened beneath the warm glow of the balcony lights and radiated simple grace. But tonight her typical keen assurance was tempered with anxiety.

Lillian, you do not have to stay and suffer. Her voice was subdued, but there was steel.

Lillian managed a smile. "I'm not clear what you mean."

Vanessa laughed, slanted on the railing. "Don't engage in that. Don't pass off yourself as not hearing them whisper or as not seeing what he is doing. She moved her head to look at Lillian. "This isn't marriage, Lillian. It's brutal.

Lillian swallowed, maintaining a blank look. Should my response be different, I lose. Should I break, they will win.

She said instead, voice steady: "I made vows."

Vanessa shook her head as she breathed. And he broke every single one of them the instant he laid hands on Seraphina.

The words came down like a punch. Lillian turned sideways, fingers gripping the fence. She need not have the reminder. All night, she had seen the evidence walk before her.

Vanessa stretched forward, her hold on Lillian's arm strong. "Listen to me here." You identify as Lillian Davenport Ashford. You have no need for him. You go.

Lillian thought twice. Perhaps she could? Could she leave the life she had created, the future she had always imagined?

She felt the idea shake her. Still to come. She was not ready to give up or acknowledge loss.

She faked still another grin, softer this time, and covered Vanessa's hand with hers. "I know what I am doing, Vanessa; I appreciate you worrying about me."

Vanessa's mouth tightened. "Do you?"?

A change in the air caused Lillian's pulse to speed before she could respond. She sensed him before she saw him, not sure how.

Damon?

Standing at the balcony's entrance, he had his tall figure shaded by the ballroom's glow. His presence drew eyeballs without effort, acting as a nonverbal directive. He had not turned to Vanessa. He saw Lillian.

His look was dark and fierce, incomprehensible.

Lillian matched his stare and refused to be the first to turn away.

Langley, Sophia.

"She's nothing but a name on paper," Seraphina snarled, delight tingling every letter. "Damon could have choose any woman, but he settled for the most miserable one."

Then there were high-pitched, poisonous chuckles.

Another woman said, her tone full of condescension: "She doesn't even fight back." She simply stands on a shelf, resembling a porcelain doll someone overlooked.

Seraphina let out a dramatic sigh. "I almost feel bad for her.". Stop. Then lower, crueller, "almost."

There was laughter in the room.

Lillian stood still, heat climbing up her spine and stranding around her ribs. Take a breath. Ignore it. Give them nothing to satisfy them.

She straightened and forced the strain from her shoulders. Born with affluence and composure, the old Lillian Davenport would have marched in, chin high, and quiet them with a single frigid gaze. Damon's wife, Lillian, was unique though.

This Lillian had discovered that pride might be a lethal emotion.

She inhaled steadily then turned on her heel and left.

Not since she was frail.

But she insisted on not letting them see the tears blazing behind her eyelids.

Still, something inside her changed as she entered the ballroom once more.

a spark. a calm, smouldering rage.

She seemed to them to be nothing. a shadow. a vanished name.

Let people believe that.

He did not say straight away. His eye swept over her, evaluating, scrutinising. Not with respect but with cold computation.

You ought to have turned away with dignity.

With each sentence cutting deeper than the next, the words swung out like a whip.

Lillian's fingers grounded her when they curled around the stem of her champagne glass. It was chilly. She had practiced for this, but nothing could protect her from his pure apathy.

She raised her chin, hiding the agony gnarling at her chest. "Dignity"? Her voice was underceptively calm, silky. "You're teaching me about dignity while you parade around with your mistress?"

Annoyance? A flutter of something, entertainment? crossed his face then disappeared under his customary detached mask.

"This isn't about Seraphina," he continued, his voice sharp. It's about your understanding your place.

Though there was no comedy about it, Lillian laughed quietly. And where in particular is that, Damon? The one in which I should grin as the entire city laughs at me? To be the ideal, disciplined wife while you show your deviations?

He stiffened his jaw. You're overdone.

She moved forward just enough to catch the flutter of irritation in his black eyes. No; I am at last seeing things clearly.

They stood there for a minute, the strain between them electric, stifling. Then Damon exhaled sharply, as though bored with the current discussion, just as fast as he had appeared. Reaching for a fresh drink from a passing waiter, he turned his body to ignore her.

He said, "I won't tolerate another spectacle like tonight," then sipped his bourbon.

Lillian fixed him, a slow, sour smile curling her lips. "Oh, don't worry, sweetheart," she murmured, her voice full of false delicacy. "Next time, I'll see to it it's a spectacle worth remembering."

Nice. She had nothing to say to him regardless.

City lights flickering beyond the covered windows created brief shadows across his sharp face. He seemed very calm, like a man who had spent the evening at a laid-back corporate conference instead of embarrassing his wife before the whole elite.

She made herself turn aside, her eye lowering to her left hand. Under the low illumination, her wedding band sparkled like a beautiful piece of jewellery with no meaning beyond its cost. With her thumb, she followed the band; her mouth tasted bitterness.

Was it ever really important to him?

Unspoken words abound in the air, each second dragging agonising length. She inhaled gently, guiding herself to remain calm. Not in front of him, she would not break.

Damon turned, his fingers changing the cuffs on his shirt. "If you expect an apology, don't hold your breath," he whispered, his voice as smooth as silk yet harsh enough to cut.

Lillian turned her head only to catch his eye. "I long ago stopped expecting anything from you."

His lips rounded at the margins, but there was no warmth behind them. "Good. That will help to simplify things.

Her hands closed, nails biting into her palm. How quickly he discounted everything, how little she meant to him in his life. She might have broken once from that. It now simply stoked the calm heat raging inside her.

As they approached their estate, the automobile slowed; the tall gates opened without sound.

Damon's phone buzzed just as they crossed the threshold. The sharp sound broke the quiet like a gunshot. Pulling it from his pocket, he glanced at the screen.