After My CEO Husband Shared a Bed, I Went Wild

At the new entrepreneurs' panel, Fergus Simmons gave the press three chances to ask their questions.

Mr. Simmons, who's the most important person on your road to success?

The reporter regretted it the moment the words were out.

The question felt like a wasted chance.

Because that person had to be me. Deidre James, only daughter of the chairman of the Overseas Merchants' Guild.

Down in the audience, I let the corners of my mouth curve up.

Waiting for him to say it.

Instead, Fergus stunned the room.

"The most important person to me is my old roommate."

"Ten years ago, when I first came to New York to make it, I shared a single bed with someone. We rented a three-hundred-dollar basement together."

"Only beside her could I fall asleep in peace."

"Without her, there'd be no me today."

The reporter sighed, moved.

"You're a loyal man, Mr. Simmons. A brotherhood from your struggling days, and you still hold it close."

"No. Not a brother."

He looked straight into the camera.

"The roommate who shared that bed with me was a girl."

The room went off like a shot, and every head turned toward me.

Three seconds later, I lifted my hand and gave the order.

"Find that girl."

"Then take back everything Fergus has."

"Who is she?"

I stopped Fergus backstage.

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"They haven't found her yet."

"Impossible."

I let my mouth curve slightly and looked him over.

"Three years ago, your company took off."

"First thing you did, you bought your parents a new house."

"Second thing, you got your buddies luxury cars."

"Your relatives, your classmates, your teachers even the security guard at your old complex, you slid every one of them into Simmons Corp."

"A man that sentimental, and you'd forget the roommate who mattered most to you, the one you shared a bed with?"

I bit down hard on those last few words.

Just as I expected, Fergus's face changed.

"I won't tell you."

"Don't underestimate what I can do."

I toyed with the knot of his tie, tugging it up.

His body went rigid.

Then the tables turned.

He gripped my shoulders and pinned me against the wall.

A staffer passing by flushed red and hurried off.

Fergus's eyes were dark.

"Dee, she matters to me. All those nights I couldn't get through, she was the one beside me, telling me to keep going."

"That kind of encouragement stayed with me. That's why I said she was the most important person on my road."

"But rest easy. We only slept in the same bed. There was a blanket between us. Nothing ever crossed the line."

He paused.

"I'll only marry you and have children with you."

He rarely said this much.

Something in me softened.

I'd just begun to think about calling off the order when I caught the flash of silver at his knuckle.

The newest wedding band from that designer house, a limited edition, only one pair made in the whole world.

One of them was on his hand.

So where was the other one?

Not with me.

I lowered my lashes and nodded.

"I lost face today. You owe me for that."

Fergus let out a faint breath.

Then slid on a gentle smile.

"Fine. Whatever you want, my lady."

Fergus took me to an exclusive private-dining restaurant to make it up to me.

The setting was lovely.

My attention stayed on my phone the whole time.

My people worked fast. In less than half a day they'd already pinned down the identity of Fergus's bedmate roommate. An employee at his own company, Maya Matthews.

I narrowed my eyes. A name I'd never heard.

Not a secretary. Not a department head.

Just an ordinary rank-and-file employee.

And a veteran one, at that, with the company since the day Simmons Corp was founded.

It took me one second to understand what Fergus was doing.

He was afraid that if he gave her a high position, I'd notice.

The further down I scrolled through the file, the colder my heart went.

All these years, every business trip Fergus took, he'd bring only one person. Maya.

I remembered watching a foreign film with Fergus a long time ago, when he'd said:

"I have a friend who loves to travel, but we were both too poor. I promised her that once I could afford it, I'd take her around the whole world."

So they went to Switzerland, to North America, to Japan, to Australia

It looked like business travel. In truth, he was showing the woman he loved the whole world.

And to think I'd once assumed that so-called friend was one of his buddies.

I'd wired him plenty of money so he and his friend could travel.

A cold smile pulled at my lips.

Suddenly Fergus took my phone from my hand and set it face-down on the table.

With refined ease, he rolled up the sleeve of his black shirt, picked up a piece of fish, and held it out to feed me.

I opened my mouth without thinking.

Watching me chew, the corner of his mouth lifted.

"My lady, eat properly. Stop looking at your phone."

Then I froze.

The heat of ginger spread across my tongue and flushed through me, but my face went bloodless.

I spat it out at once.

"What is it?"

Fergus frowned and quickly patted my back, calling for someone.

I shook off his hand.

"Fergus, you know I'm allergic to ginger."

The head chef came in just as I said it and immediately bent into an apology.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Simmons. You didn't leave a special note this time, so we made it the way you usually like it, extra ginger. This one's on the house."

Fergus stiffened, meeting my searching look.

"I'm allergic to ginger. You don't eat ginger."

"So who is it that loves ginger?"

He didn't even need to answer. Maya's file spelled it out plainly on my phone.

"Maya loves it. Mr. Simmons has taken her to every high-end restaurant in the city. Here are the spending records."

"She's especially fond of the fish at Cedar Grove, the heavy-ginger version. This year alone Mr. Simmons has brought her here nearly a hundred times."

Fergus recovered his expression fast.

"A client ordered it."

The chef tasted the wrongness in that and nodded along, again and again.

I pressed my phone dark.

"This fish is good. I'm buying it out. Five million. From now on it's only ever made for me, and never for anyone else."

A fortune from the sky, and the chef grinned so wide he couldn't close his mouth.

Beside me, Fergus dropped his eyes, the veins standing out on the hand he clenched into a fist.

Early the next morning, I went to Simmons Corp.

As a board director of the company, I had my own office, of course.

I just didn't come in often, so the staff barely recognized me.

"Who's that?"

"That's one of the owners of the company. She's the president's wife!"

"So pretty. I heard the president only made it this far because of her."

Somewhere in the murmuring crowd, one woman gave a quiet little sneer.

I picked her face out of the group at once.

"Maya Matthews."

Called out by name, Maya couldn't hide her panic.

She turned her head away on reflex.

I didn't give her the chance to dodge.

"Come to my office."

She bit down and, unwilling as she was, followed me in.

Maya stood in front of the desk, not daring to look me in the eye.

"Take it off."

"Take what off?"

I lifted my chin.

"The ring. Take it off."

Maya's hand went straight to the ring, covering it.

It was the other one from the pair on Fergus's hand.

She stiffened her neck.

"Ms. James, you may run everything under the sun, but you don't get to run what jewelry an employee wears."

I leaned back in the chair and looked at her coldly.

"That ring is a limited edition, only one pair made in the whole world. Fergus bought it with my account. So how did it end up on your hand?"

"Unless you stole it?"

Maya flushed red.

"No I didn't."

"Then how did you get it?"

"Mr. Simmons gave it to me."

"Oh?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"You're no relation to him, and you're not exactly an important employee. He gave you a wedding ring worth a million dollars?"

"Face it, you stole it. An amount like that could put you away for decades."

"I did not!"

Maya's voice shot up, and she decided to stop pretending altogether.

She stared at me in open defiance.

"That's right, Ms. James. I'm the roommate he shared a bed with, the one he confessed to in public. Fergus gave me this ring. Happy now?"

Then she kept going.

"Fergus and I slept in the same bed for a whole year. We fell asleep in each other's arms night after night. He said my arms were the warmest place in the world."

"And we kissed by accident plenty of times. I was his first woman. So he thinks about me, he misses me, he gives me a ring. So what? What's the problem?"

I nodded.

"The ring stays. You can get out."

"What?"

I stood, folded my arms, and let my voice go cool and clear.

"That ring is marital property between me and my husband. You want to keep it? Fine. Pay me back five hundred thousand."

"Also, you're fired."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like the look of you."

I waved a hand, and my people came in.

"The subpoena for the five hundred thousand will reach you soon. Don't bother packing. Leave now. The severance won't be short."

As I finished, my secretary came in and handed Maya a cardboard box.

"Ms. Matthews, all your things are here. You can go."

"No, I'm not going!"

But it wasn't up to her.

She was hauled out and thrown from the building, and when she tried to crawl back in, her face-scan access had already been cut.

The staff pointed and whispered, unable to understand why I'd come all this way just to fire one low-level employee.

I brushed off my hands and was about to leave when I saw Maya, disheveled, walk back into the company.

Her face glowed with triumph, but her voice came out wounded.

"Mr. Simmons, it was Ms. James. She fired me."

A long stride, and Fergus came out from behind her.

His face was full of fury.

"Maya has done nothing wrong. She works hard and does her job well. Cancel the dismissal. Get back to your desk."

"Yes, sir!"

Maya answered brightly and skipped past me, knocking her shoulder into mine on the way.

"No. Fire her."

"Keep her."

"Fire her."

"Keep her."

The whole staff went silent, not daring to breathe in the standoff between us.

"And if I say she has to go today?"

I held Fergus's eyes, hard.

The next instant, a slap cracked through the air.

A brutal force knocked me to the floor.

Fergus's voice was ice.

"That's my answer."

"Ah!"

Maya's startled cry came from behind me.

Fergus rushed straight over.

"I twisted my ankle. It hurts so much."

Maya's wounded voice rose up.

Without a word, Fergus scooped her up in his arms.

His long legs carried him past me, and without looking back once, he walked out of the building holding Maya.

Around me, the staff broke into chatter.

Just then my phone buzzed with a text.

An unknown number.

I knew at a glance it was Maya.

"Ms. James probably still has no idea. Mr. Simmons has slept in the same bed as me all these years."

"He says he can only fall asleep next to me."

"Every single night he spent in a bed with you, he lay awake tossing and turning."

I held my cheek and slowly got to my feet.

My cheek was burning.

But my voice was cold.

"Simmons Corp. You really don't want it anymore."

Fergus came home late.

When the lights came on and he saw me sitting on the couch, he froze for a moment.

Then he went and found an ice pack and pressed it to my swollen cheek.

His lips pressed together.

"You shouldn't have treated my Simmons Corp employee that way."

I let out a cold laugh.

"Employee? Or the woman you share a bed with?"

His pupils shrank.

"You know."

"Yes. I also know you kiss that cheap woman, that you sleep with her. It's filthy. It makes me sick."

Fergus's eyes went slowly cold.

"We've never done anything. You can think the worst of me all you like, but you don't get to smear Maya with lies."

"You threw her out in front of all those people. Did you ever once think about how she felt?"

His chest heaved.

Everything in the way he looked at me was blame and reproach.

Something twisted hard in my chest.

"And me?"

"What?"

"You hit me in front of all those people. Did you ever once think about how I felt?"

"Do you even remember what you once promised me?"

Fergus pressed his lips together.

Clearly, he remembered too. After we made it official, he had made a vow in front of my parents:

"Sir, ma'am, for the first half of Dee's life, you never let her suffer a moment's grievance. For the rest of her life, I won't let her suffer a moment's grievance either."

I gave a bitter little laugh.

"I'm the only daughter of the chairman of the Overseas Merchants' Guild. You know how proud I am."

"But in front of all those people, you shattered my dignity and my pride."

Fergus was silent for a long while before he said, low:

"I'm sorry."

"But please, don't go after Maya again."

Fergus grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To stay at the company."

I couldn't help the cold laugh.

We rarely slept in the same bed.

Fergus said he slept badly, that he wasn't used to having someone beside him, that he was more comfortable sleeping alone in his office at the company.

I had always believed that.

Until Maya's text tore it all open.

"Not going to sleep with Maya, then?"

I said it flatly.

His steps stopped, and his voice jumped high.

"No! There's nothing between us!"

I couldn't be bothered to argue and changed the subject.

"Come to the hospital with me tomorrow. To see Grandpa."

"I have a business trip tomorrow."

I looked at Fergus, long and hard.

"You have to go."

"Grandpa wants to see you."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, said nothing, and turned and walked out.

I stared at his back and slowly closed my eyes.

According to what I'd found, Maya's birthday was tomorrow.

Fergus had already booked an entire cruise ship for her.

He'd even reserved a fireworks crew for the banks of the Hudson River.

Business trip. It was all an excuse.

Grandpa was nearly spent, the flame guttering. He'd been in a care facility all this time and only now was well enough to see people.

His greatest wish was to lay eyes on his grandson-in-law, just once.

But the next day, I had the flowers and the gift ready, and Fergus never came.

I gritted my teeth and decided to go on my own.

When I stepped into the ward, Grandpa's eyes lit up.

He looked past me.

"Sweetheart, where's Fergus?"

"He'll be here soon."

I sent Fergus a message.

"Come see him, just once. That's all I ask."

"I promise I won't go after Maya again."

The reply came back: "Fine. I'll be there in half an hour."

Half an hour later, Fergus arrived.

Except behind him, Maya was there too.

Grandfather and I froze at the same moment.

Swallowing my fury, I asked Fergus under my breath,

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He looked at Maya in her princess dress.

"Maya's got a kind heart. She wanted to come see Grandfather too."

I bit out each word.

"Fergus, you'd better keep her in line."

Grandfather asked him,

"Who's this girl? Your secretary?"

Fergus opened his mouth to answer, but Maya stepped forward first.

"I'm Fergus's friend. Grandfather, how's your health? How much longer do you have to live?"

"Maya."

There was a warning buried in my voice.

Maya stuck out her tongue.

"Oops, listen to me, running my mouth like that."

"Grandfather, take a look at this."

She suddenly pulled a sheet of paper from inside her dress and handed it to him.

I moved to stop her, but it was already too late.

As Grandfather read, his breathing turned ragged, his face flushed dark, his chest heaving.

With everything he had left, he slapped Maya, the one closest to him.

"You, you..."

He coughed violently and suddenly brought up a mouthful of blood.

"Grandfather!"

The scream tore out of me.

"Someone, help! Someone, come quick!"

But Fergus shut the door tight.

He patted Maya's shoulder to comfort her as she covered her face and cried.

Then he turned to Grandfather, his eyes glazed with frost.

"Grandfather, Maya came here out of kindness. Elder or not, you hit her, so you owe her an apology."

"Fergus!"

My eyes went red as I stared him down, teeth clenched.

Hearing him, Grandfather's breathing came faster.

Then all at once he pitched forward onto the bed.

Fergus went still.

Outside, doctors and nurses pounded frantically on the door.

I lunged and grabbed his collar, fists locked in the fabric.

"Open the door, let the doctors in, Grandfather needs help now!"

Fergus lowered his eyes.

"Apologize to Maya on Grandfather's behalf."

"She's a sensitive girl. Who knows how many nights that slap will cost her sleep."

My eyes went wide.

"What did you just say!"

"Apologize."

"Never."

Maya nestled against Fergus's leg and arched a brow at me.

She'd done this on purpose.

"Then I'll never open the door."

As the words left his mouth, the heart monitor erupted into a shrill, screaming alarm.

The line on the screen had already gone flat.

My heart seized.

"...I'll apologize, I'll apologize, is that enough? Maya, I'm sorry."

"Fergus, save him now!"

Maya smiled, all giggles.

"Ms. James, I accept your apology."

Only then did Fergus open the door.

A crowd of medical staff poured in and worked to save him.

One minute later.

Grandfather's attending physician spoke, powerless.

"Ms. James, Mr. James suffered too great a shock. His heart stopped on the spot."

"There was nothing we could do."

Something detonated inside my head.

My mind went blank.

Mechanically I laid my hand over Grandfather's, cold and stiff.

That was when I noticed he was still clutching the paper Maya had given him.

I pried it loose.

It was a pregnancy report.

Five months along.

Mother: Maya Matthews.

And the father: Fergus Simmons.

"Heh..."

A bitter curve pulled at the corner of my mouth. I couldn't tell if I was laughing or crying.

I shut my eyes hard.

Then snapped them open.

"Someone, tie Maya up for me."

"As for Fergus... autumn's here. It's about time the Simmonss' sky turned cold too."