Chapter 7
She was bluffing.
Of course, she was.
Cassandra always had a flair for the dramatic. This had to be one of her games–something tc get his attention. The baby, the message, the marriage certificate… She was mad, maybe ever jealous, but she’d never leave him. Not really.
Not Cassandra.
As his car sped through the city streets, Johansen leaned back in his seat, forcing himself to breathe. It was all just a twisted misunderstanding. She was probably still at home, curled up on the couch, waiting for him to come and apologize. Maybe angry. Maybe crying.
But still there.
She had to be.
His hand tightened on the steering wheel as his mind drifted. A memory tugged at him–college. The days when it was just him and Cassandra against the world. She was brilliant, beautiful, bold. Everyone said they were relationship goals. The campus golden couple. He used to wait for her outside her design classes, surprising her with coffee and tulips, watching her eyes light up like it was the first time every time.
He remembered how she used to laugh when he got competitive during debates, how her voice would turn soft when she talked about their future. The plans they made–living in a little loft above her fashion studio, him building his company while she created gowns the world would envy. They’d built dreams with their bare hands.
But then she left.
Study abroad. Paris. Fashion capital of the world.
‘Are you sure about this?” he had asked her that night, standing beneath the oak tree outside
their dorm.
She smiled, her eyes shimmering with excitement and sadness. “It’s Paris, Jo. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
‘I know, I just…” He looked down, jaw tightening. “I’m scared.”
She cupped his cheek. “Of what?”
‘Of losing us.”
She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. “You won’t. I love you. I’ll come back. You just have to wait for me.”
‘I’ll wait forever if I have to,” he whispered, voice raw. “Just promise you’ll still be mine when you come back.”
‘Always,” she said, and kissed him like it was the last time.
And it should have been enough.
He had meant it–until Maureen came.
Maureen was comforting. Familiar. When nights turned cold and Cassandra’s texts became less
My Husband Faked Our Marriage.
3:57 pm
frequent, Maureen was there, smiling, laughing, filling in the void. It had started with friendship. Then comfort. Then possession. She knew how to wrap around his loneliness like a blanket, whispering that he deserved to be loved here, now, not just by a woman oceans away chasing dreams.
At first, he felt guilt. He remembered lying awake the first night it happened, Maureen asleep beside him, and his phone lighting up with a message from Cassandra: “Had my first collection reviewed today. I wish you were here.”
He wanted to scream. He wanted to call her, confess everything, beg forgiveness–but fear kept him frozen. Fear that Cassandra would never look at him the same. Fear that he’d already ruined
too much.
And then Maureen found out about the Paris messages.
“If
you
don’t tell her,” she said coldly one night, standing in the shadows of his apartment, “I will.”
That was the tipping point. Cornered, desperate, he made the one decision that sealed everything: he agreed to marry Maureen.
He told himself it was temporary. That it was just a piece of paper to keep her quiet. That when Cassandra came back, he would fix it all–end it with Maureen, beg for Cassandra’s forgiveness, and go back to the life they planned.
But Maureen didn’t leave. And neither did the lie.
By the time Cassandra returned, his life was already built on shifting sand–and he convinced himself he could keep them both.
He was wrong.
He pulled up to their house and slammed the car door shut.
Still bluffing, he thought. She’d yell at him, maybe throw something, but she’d still be there.
But the moment he walked through the front door, the air shifted.
t was… hollow.
The scent of her perfume was gone. No shoes by the door. No coats on the rack. No trace of her
at all. He walked into their room–his chest tightening with every step.
Empty. Barren. As if she had never existed.
Drawers pulled out. Cabinets cleaned. The bed made like a hotel. Sterile. Foreign.
‘Cassandra?” he called, voice hoarse.
No answer.
He yanked open the closet. Nothing.
He stormed through the house, growing more frantic–every corner echoing the same truth: She was gone.
‘No, no-” he muttered, his voice cracking. “This isn’t real. She wouldn’t–she couldn’t.”
His chest tightened, and before he could think, he grabbed the nearest vase and hurled it across the room. It shattered, spraying shards against the wall. He roared and swept the books from the shelves. Tore down the curtains. Kicked a chair until it cracked.
She left. She actually left.
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3:57 pm M MME.
His phone buzzed, and he snatched it up.
His butler’s voice came through. “Sir. We’ve checked every contact. Her mother isn’t answering None of her friends are willing to speak. No one knows where she is.
“What do you mean no one knows?” Johansen growled. “She’s my wife! I deserve to know!”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then: “No, sir… she’s not.”
“What?”
“She was never legally your wife, sir. The marriage was… a fabrication. I’m afraid you don’t have any standing. Not in the law, and clearly… not in her life anymore.”
Johansen staggered back, like the words had physically struck him. His mind reeled. Rage flared in his veins and without thinking, he slammed his fist into the wall. Bone cracked, pain explode -but it wasn’t enough to drown out what he felt.
His knuckles bled freely.
And then-
“What the hell is happening here?” came a voice from behind.
Maureen stood in the doorway, hand on her swollen belly, eyes wide. Her gaze swept over the wreckage, the broken glass, the blood on his hand.
“Johansen?” she asked again, her voice rising. “Why is everything trashed? What is going on?” His lips parted yet couldn’t admit that Cassandra left him.
3:57 pm
