He Gave Me a Pull-Tab Ring and Bought His Ex a Yacht

Chapter 2

At noon, I took the tax documents David had left by the front door the day before and went to the financial firm where he worked.

They were supplementary documents for the asset audit letter.

I wanted him to discover the existence of the audit letter sooner.

David was a senior analyst at the firm.

As soon as I stepped out of the elevator, I heard several of his coworkers talking loudly in the break room.

"David bought another asset in his ex-wife's name? I heard it was a villa on Silverpine Mountain this time."

"That mansion must be worth at least ten million dollars."

"He rides that beat-up bicycle to work every day and never stops talking about low-carbon living, yet he secretly spends all his money on Elena."

"I feel sorry for his fiancée, Chloe. Even the collar of her dress is frayed, but David won't so much as buy her a five-dollar cup of coffee."

I slowed my pace.

For five years, David had refused to buy me a single birthday present in the name of low-carbon living.

I was an illustrator, but whenever I bought a new set of watercolor paints, he would harshly criticize me for being influenced by consumerism.

Because I loved him, I had endured that life of extreme frugality all this time.

Yet David had spent all the wealth he had accumulated on his ex-wife.

When I reached the conference room, I found the door slightly ajar.

David had his back to the door.

He was holding an exquisite red velvet jewelry box.

Elena was seated at the head of the conference table.

She wore a couture suit from Maison Bellamy's latest collection and a Vacheron & Blythe watch worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on her wrist.

David gently lifted a Bellmont ruby necklace from the jewelry box.

He bent down and carefully fastened it around Elena's neck.

His fingertips accidentally brushed against her fair collarbone.

"This necklace took six months to be handcrafted in Bellemont. It finally arrived in time for your birthday."

David's voice was full of affection.

Elena examined herself with the front-facing camera on her phone.

"This ruby isn't clear enough, and the color is too dark. David, those socialites will laugh at me if I wear it in public."

David immediately made her a promise.

"I'll take you to Harrington's Auction House tomorrow and bid on that five-carat pink diamond. I promise you'll be the most dazzling woman at the gala."

David had once pointed to a diamond ring in a*****e window and spoken to me sternly.

He claimed that those diamonds came from the exploitation of laborers on the Southern Continent and that wearing diamonds meant supporting capitalists.

But now, to make Elena happy, he was willing to buy the largest diamond available.

I stood outside the door.

I felt sick. The whole thing was both heartbreaking and absurd.

I left the tax documents at the reception desk.

I did not go inside and disturb the so-called soulmates.

I returned to our drafty secondhand apartment.

I pulled a battered cardboard box out from under the bed.

Then I began packing my few clothes and art supplies into it.

We had lived together for five years.

Yet everything I owned could not even fill a single cardboard box.

That evening, David came home right on time.

"Get changed. I'm taking you to an environmental charity gala tonight."

He casually tossed me an old, pilled dress.

He had bought it for me at the Flea Bazaar two years earlier for three dollars.

Half an hour later, David's beat-up secondhand Sterling Motors car stopped in front of a luxurious villa.

It was Elena's villa.

The gala was being held in the villa's garden.

The garden was filled with guests dressed in couture gowns and suits.

I followed David inside.

Elena approached us with a purebred Khoran hound on a leash.

My gaze fell on the dog's neck.

Hanging from its collar was a custom-made sterling silver pendant shaped like a soda-can tab.

David followed my gaze.

He smiled smugly.

"That was Elena's idea. She thought the way I proposed with a soda-can tab was very artistic, so she had Bellmont Jewelers make a sterling silver replica and hung it around her dog's neck."

David proudly explained the pendant to me.

He had proposed to me with a soda-can tab because he had not wanted to spend money on a ring.

Yet now, he had paid a small fortune to have a sterling silver replica custom-made.

And he had hung it around Elena's dog's neck.

The moment I saw that sterling silver tab, every last trace of love I had for him vanished.

Soon afterward, the gala began.

David pushed a plate of someone else's leftovers in front of me.

"Don't waste food. Eat this. It shows respect for the earth's resources."

His tone was commanding.

David turned and walked to the other end of the long table.

He put on a pair of disposable gloves and skillfully cracked open an Atlantic blue lobster that had been flown in from Montelune.

He dipped the most tender piece of lobster meat in sauce and thoughtfully fed it to Elena.

"Eat slowly. This batch of lobsters arrived early this morning. They're perfectly fresh."

He completely ignored the massive carbon emissions generated by transporting food over such a long distance by air.

I watched the scene with cold indifference.

I pushed the plate of leftovers aside without touching a single bite.