The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband Episode 3

📖 The Story Continues

Natalie stood in a borrowed wedding dress beneath the soft lights of a ceremony she had never wanted. The fabric fit well enough from a distance, but every pin hidden along the seam reminded her that nothing about the day belonged to her. Not the gown, not the guests, and certainly not the groom who had failed to appear.

Rows of white chairs faced a flower-covered arch, yet the room felt more like a courtroom than a chapel. Conversations moved in whispers behind raised hands. Natalie could feel strangers measuring her humiliation, wondering why any Quinn daughter would wait at the altar for Sebastian Klein.

George approached with an uneasy smile. “Don’t worry, Natalie. I’m sure the groom will be here soon.” He sounded less like a reassuring father than a host anxious to prevent a public disaster. Natalie searched his face for regret and found only discomfort.

“Just to be sure,” she said quietly, “as long as I do this, you’ll give me the money, right?” She hated having to ask again, but trust had never survived long in this family. Her mother could not live on vague promises, and Natalie refused to leave the ceremony bound to a stranger while Lauren invented a reason not to pay.

George glanced toward his wife before answering. “Yes, Natalie. Just get the wedding over with and we’ll give you the money, okay?” The words reduced marriage to a task on a list, something unpleasant to finish before funds changed hands. Natalie clenched the stems of her bouquet. “You’d better keep your word.”

Nearby guests had made no effort to lower their voices. “I can’t believe they’re marrying their daughter off to Sebastian Klein,” one woman murmured. Her companion gave a knowing laugh. “The Klein family is powerful, but Sebastian’s a bastard and an outcast.” Natalie stared ahead, pretending the insults could not reach her.

Another voice joined in, eager to contribute fresh scandal. “I heard he hangs out with thugs all day, and he can’t keep a job.” Every rumor made the man she was about to marry sound less like a husband and more like a punishment. Natalie wondered whether Cassie and Lauren had chosen him because they believed he would make her miserable—or because they hoped he would do worse.

The ceremony time passed. The officiant checked his watch; guests shifted restlessly in their seats. Natalie felt each minute sharpen the embarrassment of standing alone. Perhaps Sebastian had refused the substitution. Perhaps he had learned that the Quinns were sending their unwanted daughter and decided even she was not worth arriving for.

Cassie drifted closer, radiant in a dress far more expensive than the bride’s. “Oh, he’s late for his own wedding,” she observed with false sympathy. “Excited? How does it feel to be marrying a bastard child?” Her eyes glittered with delight at Natalie’s silence.

Natalie forced her fingers to loosen around the bouquet before she snapped the stems. She had expected cruelty from Cassie, but today it felt particularly vicious. Her sister was celebrating an escape purchased with Natalie’s future, yet somehow that was not enough; she also needed Natalie to understand her place.

“Not even his own family showed up for his wedding,” Cassie continued, surveying the empty seats reserved for the Kleins. “Clearly, they don’t value him.” The observation landed more deeply than Cassie intended. Natalie knew what an absent family could say without speaking. She found herself wondering whether the unseen groom might be trapped in this arrangement too.

That moment of sympathy disappeared when Cassie leaned closer. “I also heard he’s ugly as hell.” Her laugh carried across the room. A few guests smiled, grateful for entertainment while they waited. Natalie could endure being mocked herself, but the casual public contempt for a man none of them knew made something inside her rebel.

“Can you be quiet?” Natalie snapped. Cassie’s smile faltered. “At least show some respect.” Sebastian might be reckless, lazy, or every other terrible thing people claimed, but he was not present to defend himself. Natalie would not join a room full of wealthy spectators who treated another person’s pain like gossip.

Silence gathered after her rebuke, thin and uncomfortable. George looked embarrassed by the disturbance, while Lauren’s expression warned that Natalie was forgetting who controlled the hospital payment. Natalie lifted her chin anyway. Agreeing to their bargain did not mean surrendering every scrap of decency she possessed.

Then the doors opened behind the last row. Heads turned as a man entered alone, one hand briefly adjusting the cuff of his dark suit. He did not hurry despite his lateness, and he did not shrink beneath the weight of the room’s attention. His composure made the ugly, unemployable thug of the rumors difficult to reconcile with the man walking toward the altar.

Cassie’s mouth fell open. The groom was tall, broad-shouldered, and striking enough to turn her taunts into instant regret. His face carried a trace of roguish amusement, but his eyes were alert, taking in the absent Klein family, the whispering guests, and the two Quinn daughters with a single measured glance.

Natalie’s breath caught before she could stop it. Appearance proved nothing about character, she reminded herself. A handsome criminal was still a criminal, and an attractive stranger could ruin her life as thoroughly as an ugly one. Yet Sebastian’s presence did not feel careless. It felt controlled.

As he approached, Sebastian noticed details the guests had ignored: the tension in Natalie’s shoulders, the bouquet held like a shield, and the quiet fury left over from defending him. This was not the polished, smiling woman in the Quinn family portrait. Something had changed, and the substitution was standing beneath the wedding arch waiting for him.

He stopped in front of Natalie. Up close, she saw that his relaxed expression concealed exhaustion and something harder beneath it, a watchfulness that did not belong to a useless playboy. He inclined his head, as if arriving late to his own arranged wedding required no greater apology than missing a dinner reservation.

“Excuse me,” he said, his gaze settling fully on hers. “I’m sorry I’m late. You must be the bride.” A faint smile curved his mouth as he offered his hand. “I’m your groom, Sebastian Klein.” Natalie placed her fingers in his, and the certainty that she understood the bargain vanished the instant his hand closed around hers.