Rise To Power: Death To My Billionaire Husband

"Then come hungry," she said.

And she hung up.

The call ended, but the chill in her car lingered like frost on glass. Her fingers returned to drumming the wheel. Not in boredom, no, but in tempo. She was schooling herself to be patient.

...

"You’re going to her?" Linda asked in shock, pulling herself to a sitting position, her dress falling over her shoulder as she pulled it back on. Her voice cracked at the edges, too soft to be a scream, too sharp to be a whisper.

They had something planned. He was supposed to take her to the apartment he said he’d gotten for her –after the lunch with his mother.

But after what happened at the restaurant, with his mother lashing out at both of them and hinting that Anita might be suspecting him of cheating with Linda, saying her hunch as a woman was rarely wrong, David grew cold.

But Linda wanted it to escalate. She didn’t want him to resolve the ’misunderstanding’ with his wife, so she seduced David in the car, knowing he always came undone whenever she touched him. However, just as she thought he’d been seduced, he got off her and called his wife, saying it wouldn’t take a minute.

And now?

"You said you’d stay," she whispered, as if saying it again would glue the moment back together.

David buttoned up his shirt, each click louder than it should’ve been. "After the mess you created, someone needs to clean it up."

"But why do you care what she thinks?" she leaned into him, rubbing her youthful breast against him, while her hands roamed every sensitive part of his body. "You said she doesn’t have power to threaten us anymore. You’re also a billionaire now, My Love. So, why are you still scared of her?"

"I’m not scared of her," he growled, zipping up his pants like that somehow proved his control.

Linda froze, her arms halfway around him, her lips a breath away from his neck.

He pushed her off, not roughly, but firmly. Like someone who had indulged too long and finally remembered the fire he was playing with wasn’t just dangerous but deadly.

"It doesn’t look like it," she scoffed and that slapped the insecure man squarely in the face.

He whipped his head around, hand shooting out to grab her neck, pinning her head against the car’s interior.

Linda gasped, eyes widening in shock, but the man sitting in front of her didn’t look like the sweet, cheerful man she knew anymore. Something about him had snapped and his grip was so strong that even as she tried to pry his hand off with both of hers, it wouldn’t burge.

He was choking the life out of her!

"You have no right to utter those words," David snarled, his voice low, guttural, something primal and unrecognizable from the polished man Linda thought she knew. "You think I’m weak? That I’m afraid? You think this is about her?"

His grip didn’t loosen.

Linda scratched at his wrist, kicking at the floorboard, desperate to breathe, but his rage only darkened.

"You have no idea what kind of monster you’ve provoked. And I’m not talking about me," he seethed. "You think she’s just a bitter wife? She’s the reason her enemies haven’t slept well in years. She’s the reason they breathe in fear."

His eyes darkened.

Then, finally, his fingers loosened.

Linda gasped violently, coughing and curling away from him, hands to her throat, heart pounding.

David stared at her, at what he’d done, then looked away. Not in shame. Not in regret. Not in dread.

"I told you to be patient, and I freaking warmed you not to appear in front of her anymore after you barged into her matrimonial home," he said, voice low, simmering fresh wave of anger. "You should’ve kept your damn mouth shut and continued being the good girl you were." He hissed, "What was the need to approach her at the restaurant and make things worse?"

Linda continued to rub her neck in silence until she heard his last words. Her eyes flashed with defiance. "Worse? You were never going to leave her anyway. Were you?"

David looked at her then, really looked at her, and something in his eyes turned cold. Dismissive. "Don’t make this more pathetic than it already is."

This girl was too normal. Too stupid. And for once, he preferred she had a little bit of sense to think without needing anyone to spell everything out for her.

Linda blinked up at him, lips parted like she wanted to say something smart but all that came out was, "So... what do I do while you’re gone?"

David stared at her for a beat, his anger subsiding. "Don’t text me," he said flatly, grabbing his keys. "Don’t call. Don’t go to her house. And whatever you do, don’t post anything online. No songs, no cryptic captions, no ’accidental’ selfies in my car. Got it?"

She pouted, pulling her dress tighter around her. "You make me sound like a problem."

David gave a humorless laugh. "You are a problem, Linda. And you better be worth taking a bullet for." With that, he kissed the bruises on her neck.

That shut her up.

....

Eleanor Blackwood had stormed out of the restaurant earlier and now she was heading to her salon, annoyed.

David and that girl had humiliated her.

Why would they be so careless and act unbridled with Anita who has a nose as sharp as a dog’s?

Every woman knew the sick twist in her stomach when her husband brought another woman home, let alone when the other woman was introduced as a muse.

There was absolutely no reason for Linda to have gone to Anita’s house, except they wanted to make her suspicious and that was suicide.

And now, Mrs. Blackwood was caught in the cross fire. She couldn’t forget the look Anita gave her when she was spewing lies back there. Had she known that Anita and Linda already met at her home, she would have avoided Sapphire Bistro, knowing it was the only restaurant Anita went.

Her phone suddenly vibrated in her purse, pulling her attention back to the present. She snatched it up, already expecting a call from her son. Hopefully with a better plan for damage control.

But to her dismay, it wasn’t David.

It was an email from Sapphire Bistro Restaurant.