The CEO's Unspoken Love

Eleanor POV

I've always known our marriage had an expiration date.

Three years ago, when Derek knelt before me at his grandmother Margaret's hospital bedside and proposed to me, we both knew clearly this was merely a three-year performance.

I accepted because I had loved him for too long, willing to take whatever scraps of time he offered. But during these three years, he's been in London almost constantly, making our marriage nothing but an empty title.

Now, with our three-year contract nearing its end, I've begun steeling myself for the inevitable.

Derek must be relieved that he can finally end this charade. Yet deep down, a foolish part of me still nurtures an impossible hope, like tending to a winter bloom that has no business surviving the frost.

The man I love has only ever seen me as that thirteen-year-old orphan who invaded his perfect world—a charity case, never a wife, certainly never a lover.

My fingers still stung slightly from rose thorns as I examined the wedding arrangement I'd just completed for a wedding at Trinity Church.

The cascade of white roses and delicate baby's breath filled the shop with their intoxicating fragrance, each petal a silent witness to promises I knew were often as fragile as they were.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the bay windows of Four Seasons Florals, casting golden patterns across the polished hardwood floors that had once represented my single triumph outside the Wells family shadow.

Just as I stepped back to assess my work, my phone rang.

"Eleanor Wells," I answered, injecting professionalism into my voice despite the exhaustion seeping into my bones.

"So you're alive after all!" Olivia's voice boomed through the speaker, vibrant and unapologetic as always. "I've texted you three times! Let me guess—you're busy playing the dutiful wife because your husband is back in town?"

My heart didn't just skip a beat. "What are you talking about?"

"Seriously? Derek. He landed at Logan this morning. You didn't know?" The surprise in Olivia's voice quickly crystallized into righteous fury.

I gripped the counter edge until my knuckles turned white, the smooth marble cool against my palm—a stark contrast to the heat rising within me.

"He never does," I said quietly, my pulse thundering beneath the calm surface.

"This is exactly why you need to be prepared when he hands you those divorce papers," Olivia continued, her words sharp as the shears I'd used on the roses.

"The man spends half a year with you after the wedding, then jets off to London for two and a half years, coming back once or twice a year like he's granting an audience to a commoner. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal can't stop composing sonnets about the financial prodigy Derek Wells, who's revolutionizing investment strategies at twenty-eight."

The next second, my phone pinged with an incoming message from Olivia: a candid photo of Derek at Logan Airport. Even in the grainy image, his sharp jawline, piercing eyes, and that permanently furrowed brow were unmistakable.

"Setting aside the fact that there's basically no emotional foundation to your marriage," Olivia added, "your husband has a face that's criminally handsome. It should be illegal to look that good while being such an eloquent phantom in your life."

I stared at his profile, feeling the familiar ache bloom in my chest, unfurling like one of my hothouse peonies—beautiful and doomed to wilt. "I should go," I managed, suddenly aware of how the air around me had thinned.

After hanging up, I gazed at the wedding arrangement in my shop window, momentarily transported back to my own wedding three years ago at the historic Old South Church.

The memory crystallized with the bitter clarity of winter air—Derek's glacial eyes as he slipped the ring onto my finger, the polite smile that never disturbed the frost, Catherine Wells watching with the calculated disapproval, and Margaret Wells beaming from her wheelchair, the only one genuinely celebrating the elaborate theatrical production staged for her benefit.

I quickly closed the shop, ignoring the light-headedness that spiraled through me from having skipped lunch. Outside, Newbury Street pulsed with the evening crowd—students with carefree laughter, tourists mapping generations of wealth through architecture, locals parading dogs groomed more meticulously than some children. None of them could see the invisible countdown clock hanging over my head.

During the cab ride to Beacon Hill, I mentally inventoried our kitchen, planning a dinner Derek might appreciate. The townhouse's brick facade emerged between the historic homes, its windows reflecting the setting sun like indifferent eyes. Last week, I'd dismissed the housekeeper he'd hired—what was the point when I lived alone most of the year?

Inside, the house was silent and pristine as I examined the refrigerator's contents and decided on the salmon with dill sauce Derek had once mentioned liking at L'Espalier before it closed. I spent two hours preparing the meal, arranging the plate as meticulously as one of my floral designs, pairing it with the Chablis his brother Alexander had gifted us last Christmas.

One hour passed. Then two. Derek didn't appear.

My calls went straight to voicemail. My texts remained unread. "Just like always," I whispered to myself, the words dissolving in the empty dining room like sugar in rain.

While absently scrolling through social media, a post caught my eye. Thomas Stone, one of Derek's friends, had shared a photo captioned "Welcome home!" There was Derek at the Somerset Club, surrounded by friends, a glass of whiskey in hand and his collar casually open—the universal sign he was relaxed and enjoying himself.

I ate my cold dinner alone, fighting the tears that threatened to fall into my plate. The salmon that had taken me hours to perfect now tasted like the ashes of my expectations.

After meticulously cleaning the kitchen—a ritual that always calmed me—I took a long shower, letting the hot water wash away my disappointment. I thought about the pattern of Derek's returns: the anticipation, the preparation, the inevitable letdown.

Wrapped in my silk nightgown, I settled into our king-sized bed, my fingers instinctively finding the silver star pendant at my throat—the only gift Derek had ever given me. He'd bought it hastily the day before our wedding, when someone pointed out he hadn't given me an engagement present. I cherished it anyway.

Unable to sleep, I recalled the day I first arrived at the Wells home. I was thirteen, newly orphaned after my parents' deaths in that financial fraud scandal that no one in the Wells family ever discussed. I was terrified, clutching my small suitcase. Fifteen-year-old Derek had barely acknowledged me, too busy with his lacrosse gear to notice the scared girl in his foyer. How strange that over ten years, we'd gone from strangers to family, only to become strangers again after marriage.

The sound of the bedroom door opening startled me from my thoughts. I sat up quickly, pulse racing, the silk sheets whispering against my skin like secrets being exchanged.

Footsteps crossed the threshold—deliberate, measured, achingly familiar. I couldn't see clearly in the dim amber glow of my bedside lamp, but I could sense his presence, electric and unavoidable as a gathering storm. The faint scent of expensive cologne and whiskey drifted across the room, wrapping around me like invisible tendrils.

Then I heard it—my name, spoken in a voice both intimately familiar and strangely foreign, as if the three years of absence had altered its very texture.

"Eleanor."