Page 1 of Falling for the Wife

? Story One

THE GUARDIAN

When one is denied something for so long, sometimes the best way to acquire it is through drastic measures…

Like oil mixing with water, one cannot drown the other. In the end, no one ever wins.

There’s a delicate line between obsession and desperation. And Gisele has been lodged in this sweet purgatory for as long as she can remember.

While girls her age lost their virginity before they reached eighteen, Gisele wholeheartedly reserved hers, plotting the perfect moment to give it away to Jared St. James. So, she waited until she was of legal age, hoping he'd see her in a different light, not as the besotted little girl who used to follow him around. She is insanely beautiful, witty, and vivaciously full of life, and the only thing she wishes for is one night in his arms.

Tech billionaire Jared St. James is a renowned whiz in his field. By the age of nineteen, he’s been revered all over the world and already working at one of Silicon Valley’s top companies, working and thriving under the guidance of his mentor, Peter Weber—Gisele’s father.

Jared works incessant hours and doesn’t have the time to be in a relationship. The relationships he’s had—well, they lingered on, the women hoping he'd commit to them. But eventually, he’d move on to his next trophy girlfriend. Gisele Weber fits the bill, but Jared scarcely pays any attention to her.

However, the moment she secures his attention, it is all for the wrong reasons. Gisele finds herself in a revolving wheel of madness, chasing after a man who doesn’t want to be caught.

They do say be careful what you wish for…

“We are all fools in love.”

- Pride & Prejudice

CHAPTER1

Gisele

“Areyou sure you want to wear a wig?” Vivienne Wolf skeptically asked as she glanced at me with her usually serene face now contorted with disapproval. She certainly had not liked my loony idea the moment it had hatched from my less than lucid mind.

“Yes, it’s necessary.” My heart raced as I studied my calm reflection in the brightly lit cosmetic mirror. Stripped of any artifice, my face flushed with a beautiful glow after the timely back to back facials I’d had for the past few days, making sure I was at my prime best for tonight. Nether region waxed bare, eyebrows groomed and tweaked, shaved and polished on every inch of my body.

Yes, everything was as it should be.

The plan for how to seduce the man I’d had designs on since the beginning of time had materialized when I had been two bottles deep into Dom Perignon. While Vivienne and Blair busied themselves with swaying from one crush to the other, I remained resolute, beholden to one man—the unsmiling, all-serious Jared St. James.

We were in Blair’s bedroom in an adjacent vanity area specifically for hair and makeup alone. It was lavishly decorated in pink, black, and gold, the very portrayal of her personality—the bitchy princess. She wasn’t royal, but she was every ounce the pampered princess—regal, snobbish, and anyone she deemed stupid would get a serious whiplash from her scathing remarks. She was the only daughter of the infamous mogul Hank Rinaldi, who was recently outed by the media as having a bastard hidden in the background.

“That’s the whole point. Shehasto look different, or he’d immediately recognize her!” Blair Rinaldi irately remarked back at our friend.

She’d been short-tempered lately after breaking up with the twenty-three-year-old João Roberto, the hottest Brazilian man we had ever seen. She had stated she was too young to fall in love and at her blossoming stage. There was too much to experience in life to be caught up in a whirlwind romance and skew her fresh perspective of the future. Although her parents were still married, they lived in separate bedrooms, and her father wasn’t particularly discreet with his mistresses. Her mother had drilled it into her head that no man was to be trusted. And I supposed her mother’s wisdom was reflected in how she treated the opposite sex, as if they were simply disposable. And yet here was Blair a week after breaking that man’s heart, short fused and desperately scouring for a rebound.

Best friends since the age of five, we were thick as thieves, sisters not by blood but a stronger bond that went over and beyond the normal call of friendship. Vivienne and Blair had their fair share of going boy crazy, and through it all, I had been there standing guard, making sure their parents hadn’t had a clue of the kind of mischief they were up to. Both women had their fun, and this time, it was my turn. Little did they know what I had in mind.

Oh, I could be naughty, too. It just had to be with the right person. After years of being teased for being a good girl because I didn’t want to date anyone else, the always designated, straight A student and certified sober bore was about to wander into the naughty world. One night was all I dreamt of, one night with him. Then I’d fully let go of this grand delusion of loving a man from afar.

“I honestly don’t get why you have to put yourself through all this, Gisele. I’m sure you already know, but there’s a sea of guys who’d die to have you in their life. Why can’t you drop this idea of Jared? Aussie men are hot—I get the obsession—but there’s so many of them out there, babe! You can get one who’s chill and less intimidating. Besides, Jared’s a little too old for you, anyway,” Vivienne remarked.

Vivienne would never understand it. Though she wasn’t prudish, she didn’t like the idea of pursuing men. In her mind, it should be the other way around. We all loved to be chased. I mean, who wouldn’t? But my circumstances were different than theirs. While they reveled in young men’s attention, as did I once in awhile if they were cute and engaging enough, my attention had been held by one man and one man alone for as long as I could remember.

Jared was the only male I had met who wasn’t fascinated by my beauty. And since the man was worth billions, my father’s riches didn’t impress him either. My father, Peter Weber, was the world’s top richest man. And Jared trailed closely behind him. The two were like father and son, but Jared never spared me a glance. He was always so reserved and only spoke when I politely addressed him, but he never went out of his way to converse with me. I suppose with the nine-year age gap, in his mind there wasn’t much to discuss with me.

I was more like my mother: Edna Weber had once been Miss Universe, a beauty queen from Brazil, and had caught my father’s eye when he had been about to reach the pinnacle of his success. Though many would argue that she sought him for his riches, their relationship was built on love. I grew up knowing and feeling the love from both of my parents. Well, up until three years ago when my mother died from a throat surgery. My father had never been the same. The loss of my mother had taken a toll on him in every facet of his life. The once vibrant man now had his brightness dimmed with profound sorrow severely etched around his gaunt face. Before mom died, he had weekends off, but those days were long gone. These days, he spent every waking moment at his company, diligently going through new inventions and ensuring vast development progression in the evolving world of technology today.

As much as I was in awe of my father, I wished he’d spare me some attention. It wasn’t only him who had a gaping hole in his life, a massive void that couldn’t be replaced. I lost her, too. All at once, I lost my mother, my best friend, and my number one cheerleader. And there wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t mourn the loss of her. But she was gone, and there was nothing we could do about it. The only way we could remember her was to celebrate her kindness and cherish the beautiful memories she left behind.

My father mourned in his own way. I wished that he’d seek me out so we could grieve her together. But Peter Weber wasn’t the touchy-feely type. He wasn’t severe, though he gave off that detached, hard-hearted kind of feeling. He loved me in his own way, the only way he knew how—by ensuring that I would want for nothing.

Without his guidance and steady strength to help me through the toughest time of my life, I sought solace and comfort in my friends. Blair and Vivienne helped me manage the loss of such a beautiful light in my world.

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