The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband – Episode 40
Natalie reached room 808 with cold air still trapped in her lungs. The door stood unlocked, an invitation designed to look like carelessness. She entered quietly and found Sebastian on the bed, motionless except for shallow breathing.
Cassie emerged from the bathroom wearing his shirt. “You came faster than I expected.”
The image was brutal in its simplicity: scattered clothes, two glasses, and the husband who had left Natalie with a lie. Pain arrived, but disbelief remained stronger. Sebastian protected her reputation even when their marriage was only an arrangement, and he had rejected Cassie without hesitation at the wedding. Careless betrayal did not fit the man she knew. The room looked less like passion than an exhibit assembled for a jury.
“What did you give him?” Natalie asked.
Cassie’s smile faltered. “He doesn’t need drugs to regret marrying you.”
Natalie crossed to the bed and checked Sebastian’s pulse. His skin was warm, his responses delayed, and his pupils reacted sluggishly to the bedside light. A chemical smell clung to the cloth beside his injured hand. One glass remained untouched while the other had been deliberately spilled. Evidence of staging appeared everywhere once she looked beyond humiliation.
“Call an ambulance,” she ordered.
Cassie blocked her phone. “He invited me. I told him I knew his true identity, and he came running.”
“What identity?” Natalie’s question escaped before she could conceal interest.
Cassie realized she had moved too early. Lauren’s plan required doubt, not disclosure. She changed direction and claimed Sebastian still wanted the woman originally promised to him.
Sebastian stirred at the sound of Natalie’s voice. He tried to rise, failed, and whispered her name with unmistakable relief. “She drugged me.”
Natalie believed him. She photographed the room, the glasses, and the cloth before calling hotel security. Cassie lunged for the phone, but Natalie stepped aside and warned that assaulting her would add another charge.
Security entered in response to Sebastian’s watch alert. Cassie insisted the meeting was consensual, yet cameras would show she arrived with supplies and prevented him from leaving. The emergency signal had recorded his elevated pulse and attempted call for help. Her confidence fractured as technology preserved the resistance she hoped the drug would erase.
Paramedics examined Sebastian. The sedative dose was dangerous but not fatal, and they recommended hospital monitoring. He refused to leave Natalie without explaining.
“Not here,” she said. Trust had survived the staged affair, but too many other lies remained. “We will talk when you can stand without help.”
Lauren arrived during the commotion and pretended horror. She accused Sebastian of seducing both daughters, but Natalie turned the accusation back on Cassie. “Your daughter sent the photograph before I reached the hotel. She wanted me to find them.”
Cassie shouted that Natalie would lose him anyway once she discovered why he married into the Quinn family. Sebastian ordered Lauren and Cassie away, his voice regaining enough authority that even security responded instinctively.
Natalie heard the command and remembered Daniel’s nervousness, the executive office, the hospital payment, and the penthouse ownership she had never checked. She also remembered how Nick’s men had reacted to Sebastian’s name and how easily he understood B.M.’s strategy. Cassie’s phrase—true identity—connected doubts Natalie had kept separate.
At the hospital, Sebastian slept while doctors monitored him. Natalie used the time to search property records on her phone. The penthouse was not owned by a traveling trust-fund friend. Its holding company traced directly to Sebastian Klein.
She then searched B.M. filings, Daniel’s business relationships, and every article about Bash Myers. The founder appeared shortly after Sebastian vanished from public life, and Daniel’s rise matched the years Sebastian was supposedly drifting between jobs and prison. None provided a photograph, but dates, initials, and Sebastian’s unexplained knowledge aligned too perfectly to dismiss.
Sebastian woke near dawn and found Natalie beside the window, still wearing the blue dress she had chosen for his company event. “I can explain the hotel,” he said.
“I know Cassie set you up.” Natalie turned, her calm more frightening than anger. She displayed the property record, Daniel’s payment trace, and the B.M. corporate page. “What I need you to explain is everything else. Is Sebastian Klein even your real life—or have I been married to Bash Myers this entire time?”