THE SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND BECAME HIS WIFE'S BOSS

CHAPTER 6

Chapter 6

Santiago Vega lingered in the hallway, sneering after Diego Herrera. “Fraud. Let’s see how long Father believes this little show.” He shifted, ready to keep grumbling—but then his breath caught. Something was happening. Heat, thick and alive, pulsed through his groin—a wild, throbbing energy he’d thought was gone forever.

His eyes snapped wide. Santiago shoved a hand down to confirm, mouth falling open as a surge of arousal hit him full force. “No way. No—this is real!” He glanced down, hands shaking in disbelief, then started laughing—a sharp, filthy sound.

“Oh, hell yes!” Santiago’s entire face lit up with greedy triumph. “It works. I can finally fuck again!”

He spun on his heel, practically leaping down the corridor. “Out of my way!” he barked at a passing maid, shoving past her as he headed for the nearest exit. “I need a woman. Right now!”

Santiago was gone in a blur, lust burning in his veins, eager to test out his restored manhood as quickly and as often as he could. For the first time in years, he felt truly alive.

The chamber door sealed behind him with a whisper of frigid air. Diego’s breath misted before his face, the cold a sharp, shocking contrast to the oppressive wave of heat that rolled over him from the room’s center. His eyes adjusted to the dim, blue-tinged light, finding the source.

Esperanza lay on a slab of pure, translucent ice, her body shimmering with a thin sheen of perspiration. Her skin was flushed a deep, feverish crimson, her chest rising and falling in ragged, shallow breaths. Her eyes, heavy-lidded and glazed with pain, cracked open as he approached. A flicker of alarm cut through her agony.

“Who... who are you?” she rasped, her voice a raw, strained thing. She tried to curl in on herself, a weak attempt at modesty, but the movement seemed to cost her unbearable pain. “Get out.”

Diego’s expression remained impassive, a mask of professional calm as he assessed her condition. He didn’t answer, instead swiftly producing a set of long, silver needles from his jacket.

“What are you doing? Don’t you dare touch me!” Her voice gained a desperate strength, laced with fear and a lifetime of accustomed authority that her current state couldn’t diminish.

He moved with a speed that belied the grace of his actions. The needles found their marks in a blur—at her wrists, the base of her throat, her temples. Her protests died in her throat, replaced by a sharp, startled gasp. The pins-and-needles sensation that followed the initial pricks was a bizarre relief against the internal inferno.

“The needles are to anchor your energy. To keep you from burning out,” he explained, his voice low and steady, a calm anchor in the storm of her suffering. He then pressed his palm flat against her lower abdomen.

The contact was electric.

Her skin was scorching, a furnace contained within silk. She flinched violently at the touch, a shudder wracking her entire frame.

“Take your hand off me,” she demanded, her voice trembling with a mixture of fury and humiliation.

“If you want to live through this, you need to be still,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “The clothing… it acts as a barrier. It has to be direct contact.”

Her eyes widened, fresh panic rising, but the debilitating heat smothered her ability to fight. She bit down hard on her lower lip, drawing a bead of blood, and squeezed her eyes shut. Just endure it, she told herself. Just endure.

His palm began to move, rotating in a slow, counterclockwise motion against her stomach. A strange sensation bloomed beneath his touch—a cooling thread piercing the overwhelming heat. It was a tiny respite, a sip of water in a desert. Her tense muscles relaxed a fraction.

But the relief was localized. The true source of the fire raged higher up, concentrated in her core. Diego’s brow furrowed in concentration. His hand stilled.

“The blockage is not here,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

His fingertips began a slow, deliberate ascent up her torso, tracing the meridian lines. They glided over the tense plane of her stomach, up the delicate curve of her rib cage. Esperanza’s breath hitched. This was different. This was…

His fingers brushed the underside of her breast, and a jolt, entirely separate from the illness, shot through her. Her eyes flew open.

“What are you— Stop that!” she cried, attempting to swat his hand away, but her arm felt heavy, useless.