The House Husband is a Secret Tycoon

"Sorry, sir. Ms. Mercer and her gentleman are hosting a celebration upstairs. We're not taking walk-ins today."

What? Her gentleman?

Then what was Julian?

Three years of marriage kept secret from everyone and he'd never once set foot inside Mercer Industries. Now he stood at the security desk with a gift box in his hands, containing a limited edition Birkin, a perfect gift for their anniversary.

But the guard just said she was upstairs with ‘her gentleman’. That didn't make sense. Julian was her husband. If anyone should be up there with her, it was him.

His stomach twisted. Who was she with?

They'd met in college.

Back then, she didn’t just smile at him.

She waited for him after his late classes, even when it was cold.

She saved him a seat in crowded halls.

She brought him food when he forgot to eat, and sat beside him until he finished every bite.

She held his hand in front of people like she was proud of him.

She used to look at him like he was the most important person in her world.

And he believed her.

However, he'd been born into nobility so he was never supposed to marry Colette.

He concealed his identity, just so he could be with her. He even went as far as defying his mother and turning his back on his own family.

He cast aside his family heirloom in favor of a keepsake Colette gave him when they got engaged.

“It's a symbol of our love,” She'd said in her syrupy, intoxicating voice.

He loved her. He was certain of it. And he was just as certain she loved him back.

That certainty was why he'd done everything she asked.

When she said her father was sick and needed someone steady in the house, he moved in without hesitation. When she said her family would make things difficult if they knew too much about his background, he kept things simple.

When she said her colleagues weren't ready to understand their relationship, he stayed out of her professional world entirely.

And when she asked him to distance himself from his mother, he'd done that too. It was the hardest thing she'd ever asked of him. His mother had warned him, had begged him to reconsider, but he chose Colette. He chose their marriage. Because he believed in what they had.

She'd proven him right, hadn't she? Every time her family used his position as live-in son-in-law to remind him of his place, Colette stepped in. She defended him. She always defended him.

That was the thing keeping his breathing steady as he rode the elevator up. There had to be an explanation.

"There's been a mistake," Julian said, keeping his voice steady even though his pulse was racing. "I'm her husband."

The guard looked at him and doubt replaced his professional expression almost immediately. "Ms. Mercer is with her business partner right now. There's no husband on record. Especially not someone who..."

Heat crawled up Julian's neck and into his face. The guard didn't finish the sentence but Julian heard it anyway. He pulled the gift box tighter against his chest

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jade pendant, with Colette's initials inscribed on it. He held it up so the guard could see it clearly.

"I think you'll recognize this," Julian said evenly. "Now let me through.”

The guard's eyes widened when he saw the jade. He stared at it like he'd seen a ghost.

He didn't know why this man had it. But the engraving, it was unmistakably Ms. Mercer's.

The guard's gaze flicked between Julian's face and the pendant, looking both confused and suspicious.

His mouth opened slightly, then closed again.

“P…pardon me, Sir. You can go ahead, “ He said, stepping aside so Julian could pass, "Twentieth floor."

Julian pressed the button and smiled to himself as the elevator climbed.

The thing with the guard was weird, sure but it was probably just a mix-up. He was probably a new worker.

Her guest.

He almost laughed. Of course she had guests. It was a work thing. A celebration. That's what the guard said, right?

His fingers traced the edge of the gift box. He couldn't wait to see her face when she opened it. He'd been planning this for weeks.

The elevator doors opened and music and laughter poured out.

Julian's smile widened. He could hear her voice somewhere in the mix. It was happy and bright.

He followed the sound down the hallway, the gift box tucked under his arm, his heart beating fast with excitement.

This was going to be perfect.

Through the open conference room doors, he could see people in expensive suits and dresses, champagne glasses glinting under the lights.

He stepped inside and stopped cold.

Colette stood in the center of the room, stunning in a red dress he'd never seen before. That wasn't what made him freeze.

It was the man next to her. Their hands were intertwined as they lifted matching cups in a lover's toast.

Everyone around them cheered and clapped as they drank.

Julian couldn't move.

He knew that face. Sebastian Kane. Colette's first love from university, the man she'd never quite stopped mentioning even after he left the country five years ago for business. The man who had come back to the city just one month ago.

One month.

Julian thought back over the past four weeks.

The late nights she'd come home smelling of expensive restaurants and someone else's cologne, explaining it away with words like crucial partnership and unavoidable dinner.

“You know how Sebastian is, Julian. I can't do anything about it,” She'd say.

He thought back to the weekends she'd been unreachable. The way she'd looked through him lately rather than at him, her mind clearly somewhere else entirely.

He hadn't questioned any of it, not once because he trusted her and he loved her, and he'd thought what they had was real.

"What about your husband?" someone in the crowd called out, laughing. "Won't he get jealous if he sees you like this?"

Laughter erupted from all parts of the room but he heard Colette's more.

Julian stood perfectly still in the doorway, his chest barely moving, waiting. Just waiting for her to say it.

Colette smiled and waved her hand like she was brushing away a fly. "He's just a live-in son-in-law," she said, taking a sip of her champagne. "He can't do anything for my career. Whatever I do for business has nothing to do with him. He’s basically useless."

The air left Julian's body.

Just a live-in son-in-law.

It was she who had asked him to move in. Her father was unwell, she'd said. She needed someone she could rely on. And he had done it without hesitation, because that's what you do for the person you love.

He had packed up his life and walked into her family's home and absorbed every cutting remark her relatives served him because she asked him to keep the peace.

"When are you planning to divorce him?"

another voice called. The laughter in the room softened slightly now, "He was just a placeholder anyway, wasn't he? Keeping the spot warm until Sebastian came back?"

Julian's grip on the gift box went completely slack.

Colette glanced at Sebastian beside her, something warm and private passing between them, before she turned back to the room. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth. "He did serve that purpose," she said simply.

Julian felt the words go through him like a blade through still water.

He had known her family saw him as beneath them. He had made his peace with that, or tried to. But Colette — he thought Colette was different. He thought when she looked at him she actually saw him. He thought he was the exception to everything.

"But he's so obedient and easy to manage," she added, and the room broke into laughter again. "So we'll see."

Obedient and easy to manage.

Julian stood there and let those words settle over him like ash after a fire.

Just five quiet words that rearranged everything he thought he knew about his own life.

He didn't remember deciding to leave. His body just turned and walked, because some part of him that was still functioning understood that if he stayed one more second he would do something he couldn't take back.

The gift box stayed on the floor where it had fallen.

He didn't pick it up. What was the point?

The elevator. The lobby. The revolving door. The street. He moved through all of it like a man walking through deep water, the world muffled and strange around him, his own heartbeat too loud in his ears.

His phone buzzed against his ribs again and again and he let it buzz because he already knew it wasn't her. And even if it was, what could she possibly say?

He walked. He didn't know where he was going but he just needed to move.

The evening air was cool on his face but he barely felt it. His chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a fist around his heart and was squeezing.

Three years.

He'd given her three years.

And she'd been lying the whole time.

The anger came then, hot and sudden. It burned through the numbness and made his hands shake.

She'd lied to him. Every smile, every touch, every word – they were all lies. While he'd been playing the devoted husband, she'd just been waiting for Sebastian to come back.

Julian thought about all the times he'd defended her to himself. All the excuses he'd made when her family treated him like dirt.

She's under pressure. She has to keep the peace. She loves me, she just can't show it right now.

Pathetic.

He'd cooked her meals every morning before she left for work.

He made sure her favorite tea was ready when she came home late.

He listened to her complain about her day and offered solutions she never used. He'd managed her father's medications, dealt with her mother's complaints, fixed things around the house that no one else wanted to deal with.

And for what?

So she could call him obedient and easy to manage in front of a room full of strangers?

The streetlights blinked one by one as he walked home.

Home. What a joke. It had never been his home, just a place where he existed.

A place where he made himself small and quiet and useful.

He stopped walking.

He was standing outside the house. He didn't remember arriving.

Julian looked up at it and felt nothing. No warmth. No belonging. Just emptiness.

This was his life. This pathetic, small, meaningless life he'd built on a lie.

No.

Not anymore.

He was done being this person.

He was done shrinking himself down to fit into someone else's world.

He was done waiting for scraps of affection from a woman who'd never loved him at all.

His hands were shaking when he pulled out his phone and dailed a number that he hadn't called in three years.

He pressed call.

It rang once. He pressed his fist against his mouth, jaw locked tight, trying to hold himself together for just a little longer.

It rang twice. His eyes burned. He tilted his head back and stared up at the dark sky.

"Hello?" His mom's voice came through immediately, as if she'd been expecting this call for a thousand years.

"Mom." He said, letting out a tragic, bitter laugh. "Mom, I was wrong. You were right about everything and I was wrong and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

He stopped and swallowed hard. The back of his throat ached with everything he was trying not to say all at once.

"I want to come home," he said finally. "Please. I just want to come home."