My Surreal Marriage: Life with a Billionaire

Chapter 9

Returning to the living room, I sat down on the sofa but could no longer recapture the mood I had been in while reading. Shakespeare's verses blurred before my eyes. I leaned back against the sofa, closed my eyes, and felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. Just then...

“Meow!”

A sharp, clearly displeased, and slightly panicked meow suddenly came from the direction of the guest bedroom! It was Keats!

My heart leaped into my throat. Oh no! Did I leave the door open when I went out? Or did Keats sneak in on his own?

I sprang up from the sofa like a spring and rushed toward the guest bedroom, flinging the door open.

The scene before me made me gasp in shock.

In the guest bedroom, Lucas was facing the screen, clearly in the middle of an important video conference. The screen was split into several small windows, each showing people of different skin tones dressed in formal attire. Lucas's expression was the worst I'd ever seen—a mix of shock, disbelief, and raging anger. His lips were tightly pursed, and his jaw was clenched like steel.

And the source of all this chaos, my precious, the cow cat Keats, was lying on its back in an extremely unseemly position on Lucas's expensive, sleek custom-made office chair! It had clearly been startled by the sudden appearance of strangers on the screen, or perhaps it simply saw the chair as its new territory and was frantically struggling to flip itself over.

In its futile thrashing, its sharp claws ruthlessly scratched several long, glaring white marks into the chair's smooth, luxurious deep gray fabric! Worse still, in its struggle, it knocked over a metal water cup that Lucas had placed at the corner of the desk. The cup clattered to the floor, and a small dark stain quickly spread across the carpet.

The participants on the screen had various expressions. Some were holding back laughter, some had wide eyes, and others looked embarrassed and at a loss. In the background of the meeting, there were a few suppressed coughs and gasps.

“Keats!” I exclaimed, feeling both embarrassed and anxious. I rushed over and, ignoring Keats' protests, picked it up from the “crime scene” chair. The little creature trembled in my arms, meowing innocently, completely unaware of the trouble it had caused.

Lucas suddenly stood up from his chair, his movement so forceful that the swivel chair slid backward a few feet. He didn't even glance at the participants on the screen (the meeting had clearly been interrupted). His gray-blue eyes, burning with anger, fixed on me—or rather, on Keats in my arms—like two sharp swords. His chest rose and fell slightly, as if he were struggling to suppress an erupting volcano.

He walked around the desk to the chair that had been savagely torn apart, his long fingers running over the ugly white scratches with a force bordering on brutality. The expensive fabric had been completely ruined, revealing the white base underneath, ugly and shocking to behold. Then his gaze slowly lifted to my face, his voice low and terrifying, each word like ice shards forced through clenched teeth: “Claire, tell me, this ‘thing’—” He pointed at the chair, then at the cat in my arms. “Is its sole purpose to constantly create chaos and destruction? And—” He glanced at the spreading water stain on the floor, “to test the limits of my patience?”

“It's just a cat, Lucas!” I clutched the still-trembling Keats tightly, trying to defend it, my heart pounding in my chest, "It doesn't understand what custom furniture is, or what an international video conference is! It’s just… just curious! Or scared! It’s its nature! It has no ill intent!”

“Nature?” Lucas repeated, his lips curling into an extremely cold, mocking smile, “So, destroying expensive items is its ‘nature’? Interfering with important work is its ‘nature’? Very well.” He nodded, his movement carrying a chilling cruelty, “Then, to accommodate its ‘nature,’ should I immediately have someone remove everything in this room worth over a hundred dollars? Or, better yet, turn the entire apartment into a feline-themed amusement park?”

His sarcasm lashed out like a whip. I could feel Keats in my arms sensing the terrifying low pressure, curling up even tighter.

“It scratched the chair, I'm sorry!” I faced his icy anger, my voice slightly raised with emotion, “I'll compensate you! No matter the cost, I'll find a way...”

“Compensate?” Lucas interrupted me, as if he'd heard an utterly absurd joke. He picked up the suit jacket that had been scratched—Keats's “masterpiece”—which had been casually draped over the chairback. Now the cuffs had a few water stains, and there was a faint scratch mark (probably from Keats struggling and accidentally dragging it). He held the jacket up, the expensive fabric looking especially fragile in his hands. “A custom-made Brioni suit, an ergonomically designed office chair that takes three months to custom-make… Claire, tell me, how many installments do you plan to use your meager teacher’s salary to ‘compensate’ for this?” He stared at me, his gaze sharp as a knife, “Or do you think your ‘apology’ is more valuable than cold, hard cash?”

His words were like a witch’s sharp blade, piercing through the last shred of dignity I was trying to maintain. Compensation? In his eyes, I couldn’t afford it. My apology, in his world measured by money and efficiency, was indeed worthless.

A overwhelming sense of helplessness and anger at being completely humiliated made me shiver, and even the strength to argue back seemed to have been drained from me. I clung tightly to Keats, as if it were the only lifeline in that moment.

“I don't need your compensation.” Lucas looked at my suddenly pale face and the uncontrollable humiliation in my eyes, his tone seeming to soften slightly. But that softening was more like the brief calm before a storm, carrying an even deeper chill. He casually tossed his suit jacket back onto the chair, his movements carrying a deliberate air of contempt. “Article 3, Clause 4 of the agreement explicitly states that necessary living expenses during cohabitation are my responsibility. Theoretically, this chair, this suit, and even the cat food and litter consumed by this… ‘naturally free’ cat fall under the category of ‘necessary living expenses.’”

He used the cold language of the agreement to casually categorize Keats’ destructive behavior and the losses he was forced to bear as “contractual obligations.” This was more hurtful than direct accusations. It completely negated the meaning of my attempt to take responsibility, distorting everything into cold, contractual obligations. Keats, my family, my emotional anchor, had become, in his words, an “expense” item on par with cat food and litter.

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the water stain on the floor and the disheveled chair, finally settling on my hands, which were clutching the cat tightly, my knuckles white. The burning anger in his eyes seemed to be replaced by a deeper, more enigmatic weariness and... detachment.

“You can continue to indulge its ‘natural instincts,’” his voice returned to its usual cold tone, yet it was more chilling than the anger from before, “but please make sure to ‘properly discipline’ your pet. At the very least, let it understand that under this roof, there are boundaries that must not be crossed.”