The One He Never Put First

The One He Never Put First

DineoNeonkie

4.9
Comment(s)
23.1K
View
39
Chapters

Following his wife's heartbreaking tragedy. Billionaire philanthropist, Aaron Miller, is forced to look at how badly he's treated her over the years as he hopes and prays desperately for her recovery. Things quickly take a turn when it is revealed his wife's accident, which put her in a coma was planned by the people closest to him.

Chapter 1 Good 'ol days.

On our wedding day, he had to rush to take his ex-wife to the emergency room because she was going to give birth.

I'm not a terrible person, of course I understood - she was having a baby. I just wish he would've called. Or come to our wedding at all that day.

A text would've been better than nothing.

It wasn't always like this, for a while it was great. For a while, it was the best thing I'd ever had. I'd even go so far to say it was like that for him too.

We were never perfect but I think that was what made it work, that was what made us work.

He put in the effort and I did too.

He cared.

So much that he would've given anything and everything to see a smile on my face.

He used to leave me little notes about how much he loved me on random days. Sometimes it would be cute little sentences about how much I mean to him and how I was his saving grace.

Sometimes he would leave me words like 'beyond' in the morning, he would then come back from work later that day to explain to me that it meant he loves me beyond comprehension.

The one time he left a note inside my jean pocket that ended up in the washing machine without my knowledge. I'd been so mad because all the clothes I'd been washing ended up messy from all the wet paper that got on my clothes because he was trying to be cute.

"Your jeans can always be replaced, but my love for you won't." He'd whispered to me and we'd made love the whole night that evening.

He used to insist on picking me up after work every day, he'd always said a queen like me should never bother herself with mundane activities like that, of course I'd rolled my eyes.

I knew it was because he'd always thought my colleagues had a thing for me so he wanted to make it very clear that I was taken.

To him, everyone had a thing for me, even our security guards. I think all is partly to do with the insecurities he'd accumulated through the years.

He used to be my biggest rock no matter what I was going through. Talking to him was my calm, my serenity.

We were each other's cheerleaders.

But now?

He hasn't been home in a week. I wish I could say that's something odd but it's not. It started off happening every now and then, he would miss dinners because of 'work'. And then there were never-ending business trips. Now he just disappears without saying a word.

But see, I know for a fact that he's not cheating on me. That's not the person that he is, at all. Especially having been through the things he has with his exes.

He's got a lot going on, which is something I understand.

Aaron Miller is the busiest, most successful man in the country right now. He's also my husband of a little over three years.

We met when he'd given up on love. He'd gotten a divorce from wife number four and had officially decided that was it for him, relax - he married young and the marriages didn't last very long. He'd decided that love was something that was simply not for him until I showed up... at least that's what he said.

He said that I was a light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.

See, Aaron is a lover. He's the kind of man that gives himself wholeheartedly to someone that he loves. But when you keep giving yourself away like that, you end up depleted.

When you marry an older guy, you've got to be prepared to face the demons he'd accumulated through the many years. In my case specifically, the demons he'd carried from his other marriages.

It gets worse...

Aaron still keeps in contact with his ex-wives, for various reasons ranging from the fact that he's got three kids in total with three of them to the 'simple' fact that these were people who meant the world to him at one point, so he wasn't going to just throw them in the dirt once he was done with them.

I'd been 'ok' with this explanation, enough to not lose my mind. But also, it couldn't have been that bad, could it? Yes, they were his ex-wives but I was the one that he was with now. I needed to focus on that, and I did.

But when they started calling in the middle of the night as we laid in bed, and when they would show up at our home unannounced, it became a problem.

He used to say that one of the things he loved about me was the fact that I was understanding, I'd always felt like that was a trap. Because he'd said that about me, I was forced to then be 'understanding' all the time, even when I really didn't understand, and that happened to be all the time. I'd conformed over and over until it became too much. One could only keep it in for so long.

So I'd finally confronted him about it, it was something that messed my mind up for a while until I'd decided I wasn't going to do that to myself anymore. If he loved me he would understand, right?

Wrong.

This is still something we fight about three years later.

I don't like to bring it up anymore because it's something that I know will never change. So when they call, I put a smile on my face so he doesn't walk out on me because I'm 'starting again'.

When they show up to our home unannounced, I make them a nice meal because that's what a good wife does right?

And when his adoptive kids who are older than me disrespect me, I 'try to understand', because this is 'something new to them'.

But when we're all alone, when his ex-wives aren't calling and showing up, when his kids don't come around, we're great. More than just great, we're the happiest.

He sings me lullabies because I struggle to sleep most nights. He spoils me rotten. He loves me, a lot.

But is that enough?

Is it enough that I have to suffer through the misery of always being put last and being disregarded?

Is it enough to be the one he never puts first?

I guess so because this baby is not going to raise itself.

I coincidentally hold my slowly protruding belly at the thought then swerve a little to allow the aggressive driver behind me passage.

"Hi Siri, please call my husband."

I'm sure Siri is tired of that request because I am too.

But I need him to come back home. I don't care about the stupid fight we had before he left, I just need him to be here with me. I crave his proximity, I crave his love.

The deep love he used to have for me. The incredible passion that we shared. I miss it all.

But I guess he doesn't because,

"You have reached the voicemail box of ..."

I let my disappointment come out in a form of tears.

If he wants me to never utter a word about his ex-wives again, I won't. If he wants me to be his pretty little wife who doesn't voice any concerns, I will be.

All I need is for him to answer his phone and tell me that he's ok and he'll be coming home to me soon.

I let my tears stream down my face, so much that I don't notice the aggressive driver has stopped in the middle of the road.

I try to stop the car with all my might but I'm too late because not too long after our cars collide and everything goes dark.

.... for a while.

Until my eyes pop open. I ignore my seemingly disfigured body and the shattered glasses all around me.

I feel water dripping down from my head and I almost wipe it off until I realize it's too thick to be water and it's dripping out so much that I wouldn't manage to clean it all off if I tried.

I then focus on my mission to find my bag then internally smile when I reach it without having to stretch too much because I'm not sure if I would've been able to do that.

I don't have any other family, not anymore. Something about being married to a man who's old enough to be my father didn't sit right with them.

But I was in love. I AM in love.

So much so that even though he hasn't answered my last 200 calls, I still believe in him.

I believe that he will show up for me, just like he'd promised he'd always do.

But when the voicemail message sounds again, I feel my heart getting shattered into a million pieces.

But I still say,

"I'm sorry. About everything. I'm sorry I never appreciated the love that you gave me and I brought up problems. I'm sorry I was a horrible wife to you. And I'm sorry that I don't have any family so you're going to have to deal with the inconvenience that is burying me." I say slowly feeling my flesh leave my body.

"I love you so much Aaron. Never forget that."

I say ending my voice message then I feel my eyes slowly shutting.

I collapse not long after.

Continue Reading

Other books by DineoNeonkie

More

You'll also like

The Surgeon's Vow: Healing My Billionaire Husband

The Surgeon's Vow: Healing My Billionaire Husband

Qing Shui
4.5

I sat in the gray, airless room of the New York State Department of Corrections, my knuckles white as the Warden delivered the news. "Parole denied." My father, Howard Sterling, had forged new evidence of financial crimes to keep me behind bars. He walked into the room, smelling of expensive cologne, and tossed a black folder onto the steel table. It was a marriage contract for Lucas Kensington, a billionaire currently lying in a vegetative state in the ICU. "Sign it. You walk out today." I laughed at the idea of being sold to a "corpse" until Howard slid a grainy photo toward me. It showed a toddler with a crescent-moon birthmark—the son Howard told me had died in an incubator five years ago. He smiled and told me the boy's safety depended entirely on my cooperation. I was thrust into the Kensington estate, where the family treated me like a "drowned rat." They dressed me in mothball-scented rags and mocked my status, unaware that I was monitoring their every move. I watched the cousin, Julian, openly waiting for Lucas to die to inherit the empire, while the doctors prepared to sign the death certificate. I didn't understand why my father would lie about my son’s death for years, or what kind of monsters would use a child as a bargaining chip. The injustice of it burned in my chest as I realized I was just a pawn in a game of old money and blood. As the monitors began to flatline and the family started to celebrate their inheritance, I locked the door and reached into the hem of my dress. I pulled out the sharpened silver wires I’d fashioned in the prison workshop. They thought they bought a submissive convict, but they actually invited "The Saint"—the world’s most dangerous underground surgeon—into their home. "Wake up, Lucas. You owe me a life." I wasn't there to be a bride; I was there to wake the dead and burn their empire to the ground.

Revealing My Secret Identities! My Bros Are Speechless!

Revealing My Secret Identities! My Bros Are Speechless!

Zhen Xiang
5.0

For seventeen years, I was the crown jewel of the Kensington empire, the perfect daughter groomed for a royal future. Then, a cream-colored envelope landed in my lap, bearing a gold crest and a truth that turned my world into ice. The DNA test result was a cold, hard zero percent-I wasn't a Kensington. Before the ink could even dry, my parents invited my replacement, a girl named Alleen, into the drawing room and treated me like a trespasser in my own home. My mother, who once hosted galas in my honor, wouldn't even look me in the eye as she stroked Alleen's arm, whispering that she was finally "safe." My father handed me a one-million-dollar check-a mere tip for a billionaire-and told me to leave immediately to avoid tanking the company's stock price. "You're a thief! You lived my life, you spent my money, and you don't get to keep the loot!" Alleen shrieked, trying to claw the designer jacket off my shoulders while my "parents" watched with clinical detachment. I was dumped on a gritty sidewalk in Queens with nothing but three trunks and the address of a struggling laborer I was now supposed to call "Dad." I traded a marble mansion for a crumbling walk-up where the air smelled of exhaust and my new bedroom was a literal storage closet. My biological family thought I was a broken princess, and the Kensingtons thought they had successfully erased me with a payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. They had no idea that while I was hauling trunks up four flights of stairs, my secret media empire was already preparing to move against them. As I sat on a thin mattress in the dark, I opened my encrypted laptop and sent a single command that would cost my former father ten million dollars by breakfast. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves, but they forgot one thing: I'm the one who leads the pack.

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

Sutton Horsley
5.0

My stepmother sold me like a piece of inventory to a man known for breaking people just to plug the financial crater my father left behind. I was delivered to the Morton estate in the middle of a freezing storm, stripped of my phone, and told that if I didn't make myself useful, my senile grandfather would be evicted from his care facility by noon. The master of the house, Adonis Morton IV, was a monster living in a silent mausoleum, driven to the brink of madness by a sensory condition that turned every sound into a physical assault. When I was forced into his suite to serve him, he didn't see a human being; he saw a source of agony. In a fit of animalistic rage, he pinned me to the wall and nearly strangled me to death just for the sound of a shattering teacup. I only survived by using my grandfather’s secret herbal blends and pressure-point therapy to force his overactive nervous system into a drugged sleep. But saving him was my greatest mistake. Instead of letting me go, Adonis moved me into a guest suite connected to his own bedroom by a hidden door. He didn't just want me as a servant; he needed me as a human white-noise machine to drown out the demons in his head. The nightmare deepened when he took the promissory note that defined my freedom and tore it into confetti. By destroying the debt, he destroyed my exit strategy. He replaced my maid’s uniform with a silver silk dress that clung to my skin but did nothing to hide the dark, ugly bruises his fingers had left on my neck. He branded me as his "primary care associate," a title that was nothing more than a gilded cage. I felt a sickening sense of injustice as he forced me to sign a contract that banned me from contacting other men and required me to sleep wherever he slept. He looked at me with a possessive heat, calling me his "medication" rather than a woman. My family had sold my body, but Adonis Morton was intent on owning my very presence, using my grandfather’s medical bills as a leash to keep me within twenty feet of him at all times. Standing in a neglected greenhouse with mud staining my expensive silk, I realized I was no longer a victim waiting for rescue. If I was going to be his medication, I would learn how to be his cure—or his undoing. I began clearing the weeds with a cold, calculated frenzy, determined to turn this prison into my laboratory. He thinks he has trapped a helpless girl, but I am going to pry open the cracks in his stone walls until his entire world comes crashing down.

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda
4.5

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book