The Three Mrs. Greys

Genres: Domestic Thrillers

Synopsis

One wealthy businessman, a trio of unsuspecting wives, and an explosive turn of events. In this scandalous, twist-filled new series from Shelly Ellis, will too many secrets and one devastating bond unite three women—or destroy them?
Noelle. Diamond. Vanessa. Each woman believes she is Cyrus Grey’s only wife—until he’s nearly shot to death. Now, as he lies in a coma, the deceptions keep coming, unraveling everything they thought they knew …
Gorgeous model Noelle’s marriage to Cyrus anchored her—though she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t have a baby with her. They certainly had the money. But she’s learning fast just how Cyrus became so rich—thanks to his fatally
attractive business partner …
For Diamond, marrying Cyrus saved her from the streets—and being a pimp’s punching bag. But her past makes her the police’s prime suspect in Cyrus’s shooting. She’s determined to get to the truth—if she can survive long enough to
tell it …
Even with her beautiful house, three kids, and elegant lifestyle, Vanessa sensed something was wrong in her marriage. But she never expected this—or that taking a lover for comfort would change the game completely.
With danger closing in, Cyrus’s life hanging in the balance, and collateral damage threatening to take them all down, how far will each woman go to be the real Mrs. Grey?

Release date: March 30, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Vanessa Grey pushed herself up to her elbows and squinted in the dark of her bedroom as her cell phone continued to buzz like a persistent bee that refused to fly away. She reached out and turned on her night table desk lamp. She grabbed her cell and checked the screen. When she saw the message and who it was from, she grumbled.

BILAL: Gotta see you today. Won’t take no for an answer

She wished Bilal would stop texting her. She’d already told him the last time they saw each other that enough was enough. She couldn’t do this anymore.

VANESSA: NO!!!

She pressed send and was about to press the button to delete the entire message string, erasing all traces of it and Bilal from her phone and, hopefully, her life, when she saw another message appear within seconds.

BILAL: PLEASE! Won’t take long. Got something to tell you

She huffed and glanced at the closed bathroom door.

It was just after dawn, and her husband Cyrus was getting ready for work in there, making more noise in their bathroom than any of the passing garbage trucks. But whenever he woke up, he always walked around like some Jolly Green Giant who was trying to scare off villagers—stomping his feet, snorting to clear his nose, and generally, making a lot of racket.

Cy was running water now. He was probably brushing his teeth, which meant he would come out of the bathroom soon. He’d ask her who she was texting this early and she’d have to make up some excuse. Vanessa was getting so tired of excuses. She wished Bilal would just go away.

VANESSA: Why do you need to see me? Say whatever you’ve gotta say now!

She saw the three little blinking dots appear that showed he was typing back a message.

BILAL: FINE! I love you. I want you. Leave him!

“Good God,” Vanessa murmured before she grimaced.

If she’d known two months ago that a tryst with her eldest son’s new soccer coach would mushroom into this, she never would’ve done it.

It had seemed innocent at first. Well, meeting up with a twenty-four-year-old to hook up two to three times a week wasn’t innocent, per se, but Vanessa hadn’t planned for the affair to ever get back to Cy or to impact their marriage. She definitely would never consider leaving her husband for Bilal.

Bilal was just meant to be a temporary side piece—a short-lived fling.

He was the sexy, charming younger man of her late-night fantasies—a milk chocolate delight who wore tight white Under Armour shirts and blue basketball shorts that showed off his ass and that he never skipped leg day. More than half the moms who showed up for practices and sat in the stands while the boys played soccer had whispered about how fine Bilal was.

Vanessa never partook in those whispers, keeping her lustful thoughts to herself. But she’d noticed how Bilal had looked at her when she asked him questions about the game schedule and uniforms. She’d wondered if it was her imagination when he’d held her hand a lot longer than necessary whenever he shook it.

Years ago, before Vanessa had married Cy and had kids, men had flirted with her all the time. She’d had her pick of boyfriends, getting whatever she wanted out of them—money, clothes, cars, and getaway vacations. But those days were over. Vanessa had tried to keep herself up with her workout routines and monthly facials, but her breasts were admittedly not as buoyant now that they’d nursed three babies. Her thighs and butt had a lot more dimples. And she could spot more gray hairs on her head and down there than she could a decade ago, but Bilal didn’t seem to mind any of that. He’d told her the first time they were alone, while they stood under the shade of her SUV’s hatchback, away from the kids and the prying eyes of other parents, that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Are you joking?” she’d asked him with a laugh, pausing from unloading the fruit snacks and Gatorade from her car, caught off guard by his admission.

“No,” he’d said with a slow shake of the head, “I wouldn’t joke about somethin’ like that.”

The flirting had only escalated from there.

When he asked her if she’d like to meet up for lunch one day at a Tex-Mex restaurant in a neighboring county, she didn’t tell him no, or that his invitation was inappropriate because she was a married woman. She liked his compliments and his handsome smile.

It’s just lunch, she’d convinced herself after saying yes. Nothing wrong with that!

Vanessa could blame the two margaritas at their lunch for being so tipsy that she hadn’t felt comfortable driving, and instead climbed into Bilal’s car for a ride back home when he offered. But she couldn’t blame the drinks alone on how she’d ended up having sex with him in the backseat of said car at a nearby public park soon after. The truth was, Bilal made her feel sexy and special, like the tummy tuck and breast lift she’d been considering weren’t necessary. And he fulfilled her basic sexual needs. Was it her fault that she felt a sharp increase in her libido just when her husband seemed to lose almost all sexual interest in her? It was like she’d been set up to start cheating.

But that first hookup in his car had bloomed into about two dozen more, and now it was getting out of hand. The sex was good—damn good, but obviously Bilal was getting confused about their little arrangement. Vanessa had to set him straight. She began typing again.

VANESSA: I’m not leaving him but I would like you to leave me the hell alone. Stop texting. Stop calling here!

He’d called the house only yesterday. Luckily, Cy Jr. had answered the phone, not his father.

“Coach said he needs to speak with you, Mom,” Cy Jr. had lisped through his braces, holding out the cordless phone in their kitchen to her.

“Tell him I’m busy and I’ll call him back later,” she’d said.

Cy Jr. had nodded and relayed the message. But Vanessa hadn’t called Bilal back like she’d promised, which was probably why he was texting her with this nonsense.

BILAL: Well, maybe your husband will leave you if I tell him what’s been going on

Reading those words, her stomach dropped.

Bilal wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t tell Cy about their affair. He wouldn’t ruin their family so recklessly. He wasn’t that stupid. Cy would kill him if he found out.

BILAL: Think I won’t? I will! TRY ME. If you want me to keep my mouth shut, meet me today

Vanessa took a panicked glance at the bathroom door. Cy was no longer running water. He was about to come back into their bedroom. She was sure of it. She could imagine her husband strolling into the room, glancing over her shoulder, and seeing the string of texts. She couldn’t let that happen. Her fingers flew over the screen.

VANESSA: Where? WHEN?

BILAL: My place. 12:30

She hated going to his place. It was too risky. She worried about nosy neighbors or if anyone around there would spot her walking into his apartment in the middle of the day and recognize her, but it didn’t sound like she had much of a choice now that Cy was opening the bathroom door. She didn’t have time to argue. Instead, she deleted the message string, set down her phone, sat upright, and pretended to stretch.

“Good morning, baby,” she said with a grin to her husband, who strolled into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Cyrus Grey was a big man. His muscles weren’t as defined and carefully sculpted as Bilal’s, but Cy was still tall and solid. He could be a model for the folk hero John Henry with his wide shoulders, big arms, imposing height, thick beard, and bald head. When she’d seen him in the club more than a decade ago, she could remember thinking as she looked him up and down at the bar, “Now that is a dude nobody’s gonna fuck with.” He was a man who could lend protection and security, and that was exactly what he’d done for the past eleven years.

Cy worked hard as a financial consultant, putting in long hours and lots of business travel for his job, but he made sure he brought all that money home to his family. He took care of them by setting them up with a four-thousand-square-foot colonial in the picturesque Maryland suburbs with a pool, a basketball court, and a three-car garage. He drove a silver BMW while Vanessa zipped around town in a black Mercedes SUV with personalized plates that said “MOM4EVA”. The kids all went to a private academy where all the children wore blazers with the school’s insignia on the breast pocket and toted violin cases, tennis rackets, and lacrosse sticks along with their backpacks. The tuition cost the same as some colleges.

Cy was a loving, if sometimes absent, husband and a doting father. And how had she repaid him for all of this?

By cheating on him, she thought guiltily, kicking herself for agreeing to meet up with Bilal later.

“Mornin’, baby,” Cy rumbled in his heavy baritone as he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

She rose from their California king and reached for her silk robe as he dropped his towel to the floor, opened one of his dresser drawers, and began to dress. The morning light piercing the blinds played on his back and legs, creating gold bands on skin as dark as coffee, sans milk.

“When do you have to leave today?” she asked, shoving her arms into the robe’s sleeves. “Got enough time for breakfast?”

He chuckled as he stepped into his boxer briefs. “You’re really gonna cook me breakfast?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” She laughed too. “I cook you breakfast all the time!”

“Not lately.”

“Well, I am today!” She walked across the bedroom, stood on the balls of her feet, wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a lip-smacking kiss. “I know how to take care of my man. You want your eggs over easy or scrambled?”

“Scrambled. Thanks, baby,” he said, before giving her a pat on the bottom. He then resumed dressing while she walked into the hall to wake up their kids for the school day and start cooking that bacon and scrambled eggs.

More than four hours later, Vanessa lowered dark shades over her eyes before climbing out of her SUV. She looped the strap of her designer handbag over her arm and took a surreptitious glance around her before slamming the car door shut and walking swiftly along the curb and past the gate to Bilal’s garden apartment on the first floor of the complex.

She wore her hair in a ponytail under an old baseball cap and had zippered her black Versace hoodie all the way up to the collar even though it was a particularly humid day in May, and almost eighty degrees outside. She felt like a secret agent, trying so hard not to be noticed, hoping no one recognized her. But it looked like her efforts weren’t necessary. The block was mostly empty save for a mailman unloading his truck, a jogger, and one old man walking his dog—a nervous, pint-sized terrier who kept tugging at his zip leash and yipping frantically.

She walked the short distance to Bilal’s front door and knocked. Within seconds, the door opened, and Bilal stood in the doorway in a tank top and pair of sweats.

“What’s up?” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t ‘what’s up’ me,” she snapped, shoving her way past him into his apartment. As he closed the door behind her, she yanked off her sunglasses and glared around her.

Bilal’s apartment was what you would expect of a twenty-something bachelor. The only adornment on the bare white walls was his mounted flat screen TV. Next to his sofa was a weight bench along with a series of weights on the floor and a video game console and stack of game cartridges. She knew from past experience that his bedroom was just as bare and underwhelming—a mattress with a box spring and no headboard, surrounded by a series of tennis shoes and discarded dirty socks and T-shirts.

She turned her withering gaze back to him.

Vanessa couldn’t believe this little boy actually thought she would leave Cy and their life together for this.

He must be crazy, she thought, sucking her teeth.

Bilal’s smirk disappeared. “You really gonna come in here with attitude?”

“What did you expect? You threatened to tell my husband what we’ve been doing! You thought I was gonna bring you flowers?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“You didn’t have to bring me flowers, bae.” He reached out and roughly dragged her against him so that she landed hard against his chest. The gesture caught her off guard. “Just bringing your fine ass over here was enough.”

He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her mouth away. She tried to ease out of his embrace but wasn’t as successful. “Bilal, I told you that I’m done with this shit.”

“No, you’re not. I don’t know why you keep saying that lie like somebody’s gonna believe it.”

Instead of trying to kiss her mouth again, he went for her neck—her weak spot. He dipped his head and licked the skin behind her ear then nibbled her ear lobe, making her close her eyes, despite herself.

“Don’t fight it,” he whispered as he reached up and lowered the zipper of her jacket, revealing the lace bra underneath. He then began to fondle her breast through the bra.

She should’ve pushed his hand away, but she didn’t. Instead she fell under the spell she always did when she was with Bilal. Her brain was no longer in control; her vagina gave all he orders. She let him ease her back against the living room wall, tug the down her bra cup, and rub his thumb over the nipple until it hardened against the palm of his hand and she moaned. The entire time he left a trail of kisses along her neck, collar bone, and chin.

“Don’t keep denying it,” he panted. “You know you want this. You know what we’ve got . . . that we belong together.”

That was a badly needed bucket of cold water on the moment.

Vanessa’s eyes flashed open and she shoved his hand away. She stepped away from the wall and lifted her bra back into place. “What we’ve got? What we’ve got is a few weeks of screwin’! Why do you keep trying to make this more than what it is?”

“Are you really gonna stand there and act like you aren’t in love with me?”

“I’m not in love with you!” she shouted as she raised the zipper of her jacket. “I just want you to leave me the hell alone! I came here to tell you that. I want you to get it through your head! I have a life, Bilal. Don’t you get that? A life that’s important to me. I’ve got a husband and—”

“And that’s the problem,” Bilal finished for her. “Your goddamn husband! You don’t wanna be with him, Nessa. You don’t love that dude. You’re just with him for the shit he can buy you. I know what’s up! But if you divorce him, you can still keep the money, bae. You and me can share it!”

She was certain of it now—Bilal was delusional.

“I’m not getting a divorce. But if you keep harassing me, I am going to get a restraining order against your ass.”

He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, try explaining that to your man.”

She knew Bilal probably wouldn’t believe her when she said that, but she had to try. She had to say something to finally convince him it was over. Rather than back off the lie, she decided to double down.

“I will do it if I have to! If you call me again, I swear to God I’m going right to the Sheriff’s Office and I’m filing that restraining order! You just try me,” she said icily, echoing his own words from his earlier text back to him.

Vanessa put back on her sunglasses and walked toward the front door, but stopped in her tracks when Bilal grabbed her forearm. She tried to yank her arm away, but his vice-like grip only tightened.

“Get your hands off of me! Are you crazy?”

She glowered up at him, but the glower disappeared when she saw his face had changed. That cynical, cocky air he usually had had disappeared. Pure fury replaced it. For a few seconds, she wondered if he really had gone crazy. Her throat went dry and for the first time she was frightened, not angry.

“You walk out of that door right now, Nessa, and you’re gonna regret this. I promise you. I’ll make sure of that shit.”

Vanessa tugged her arm again. This time she got free of him. Instead of walking, she almost ran to the door and outside of the apartment. She didn’t look back. She bee-lined to her Mercedes and pulled off, driving so fast through the parking lot that her tires squealed.

As she drove and mile after mile was put between her and Bilal, she began to calm down. It was easier than she thought it would be to push him out of her mind; Bilal didn’t text or call her again all day. Perhaps her message had finally sunken in this time, despite his threat. She could go back to the way things were before this whole fiasco. She could return to being a boring but harried, stay-at-home mom.

Vanessa did her errands for the day, going to the grocery store, picking up the dry cleaning, and getting her daughter, Zoe’s, inhaler from the drug store.

Her cell phone rang and she rolled her eyes, certain it was Bilal.

But it was a hospital.

Cyrus had been shot.

It was a miracle that Noelle had made it to the hospital in one piece. Her nerves had been frayed thinner than cheap charmeuse during the drive from her store, Azure, in Northern Virginia, to the hospital fifty-five miles away in Maryland. But for the entire hour and half, she had chanted out loud and in her head, “I hope he’s okay. I hope he’s okay. Dear God, let him be okay!”

It was like a mantra. It had helped her focus and kept her from driving through stoplights or veering off the road even as her heart raced, her hands shook, and she was blinded by her tears.

Noelle still didn’t know why the hospital hadn’t called her to tell her that he’d been shot. She was his wife for God’s sake. Thankfully, a nurse in the ER used to be a regular customer and had recognized Noelle’s husband when they’d wheeled him in on a stretcher. “Noelle, you need to get down here right away,” she’d whispered into her cell phone. “Your husband’s been shot. They’ve called in the trauma team.”

“He’s been shot?” Noelle had exclaimed while she’d sat in the back office. Through the office door, she could hear two of her salesgirls talking and laughing over the music playing in the boutique. “What? When? Who would . . . who would—”

“I don’t know the details. I just know it’s bad. Really bad! Just get here! Get here as fast as you can,” the nurse said.

So now Noelle was racing across the hospital parking lot to the ER entrance, trying not to fall in her snakeskin pumps. She usually switched to flats when she was out of the boutique, but she’d forgotten to do it this time around. Her husband’s welfare was more important to her than comfortable footwear.

As she approached the automatic doors, they slid open with a soft hush. It was hot outside but all the perspiration on her body was quickly wicked away when she stepped into the freezing waiting room where people sat in the more than forty plastic chairs assembled in rows in the center of the room and along the walls. One woman nearest to the door groaned as she squirmed in her seat, like she was trying her best to get comfortable, but was not succeeding. A baby let out strangled wails on the other side of the waiting room. His round face was flushed bright red and covered with spots that looked like chicken pox. An elderly man stood near one of the bathroom doors, yelling for the person inside to come out. Noelle went straight to the information desk, where a nurse sat, flipping casually through paperwork, either ignoring or just blissfully unaware of all the chaos around her.

“Hi. Uh, hi,” Noelle said to the nurse’s bowed head, barely able to articulate words. She adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “I wanted to . . . check on the status of m-m-my husband.” She stuttered between gulping breaths as the nurse looked up at her. “He was sh-shot. I was . . . I was told he was t-t-taken to the ER about an hour ago.”

The nurse nodded. “Can I have a name, please?”

“Cyrus . . . Cyrus Grey.”

The nurse nodded again and typed his name into a nearby desk computer.

While Noelle waited, she anxiously glanced around her. “Please let him be okay,” she whispered yet again. “Please let him be okay.”

The nurse squinted at the computer screen.

“What?” Noelle asked, panic tightening her throat as her eyes shifted from the nurse’s brown face to the computer screen and back again. “What’s wrong?”

“Your husband is no longer in the ER. He’s now in surgery, ma’am.”

“Umm, OK, where is that?”

“Upstairs. Seventh floor. You can wait up there. The doctor can give you more information on the patient.”

Noelle stepped off the steel elevator a few minutes later and looked around her. She quickly spotted yet another waiting room, though it was filled with a lot less people and the atmosphere was certainly much calmer than the ER waiting room seven floors below. This one looked more like a dentist’s office with its upholstered armchairs, end tables, and a flat screen TV where a segment on how to live with diabetes now showed. She noticed an elderly woman in one chair near a large fichus plant staring off into space. Across the waiting area, three people sat—an older man and two younger women. In the far-off corner was a woman in a black track suit, loudly talking on her cell phone.

“No, Mama, I haven’t gotten any updates yet,” the light-skinned woman said, tossing her long dark ponytail over her shoulder. “I spoke to some cops earlier, but I’m still waiting for the doctor to come out . . . Did you pick up the kids like I asked?”

Noelle took the seat on the other side of the waiting room, facing the woman. When she sat down, she dropped her purse onto her lap and loudly exhaled. She adjusted the front of her silk wrap dress, realizing belatedly that her bra was showing.

Noelle felt like she had run around a stadium track about a half dozen times. The adrenaline spurred on by fear from earlier had finally worn off, and now she just felt exhausted and worried. She had no idea who would want to harm her husband. Was it a robbery gone wrong? Did the person shoot him on purpose? What the hell was he even doing in Baltimore? She thought he was on a business trip in Los Angeles.

And worse than the questions of why the shooting had happened, was what the aftermath of all this would be. What if Cyrus didn’t make it through his surgery? What if he died?

Tears welled in Noelle’s eyes again at the thought. She sniffed, wishing desperately that she had brought some tissues with her.

She regretted that her last words to Cy ha. . .