The Blindside of The billionaire

CHAPTER 2

"Just one more stop, Osa. I promise. The floor manager just texted me they got the new seasonal collection straight from Milan, and they only held three pieces."

Eliz beamed, her hand resting lightly on my forearm as we walked through the VIP lounge of New Bond Street.

Her fingers were manicured to absolute perfection, her skin glowing under the warm, carefully curated boutique lighting. Over the past few months, this has become our mandatory weekend ritual.

Shopping with Eliz wasn't just a casual activity; it was a high-production event.

I stood back, leaning against a velvet-backed chair, watching her float effortlessly between the racks of haute couture.

Her eyes scanned the premium fabrics with the cold, clinical precision of a jeweler inspecting raw diamonds.

The sales associates didn’t just serve her; they genuinely feared her taste, but more than that, they coveted her access.

She knew exactly how to wield my name in those rooms. “Put it on Mr. Osa’s account,” she would say casually to the boutique director, dropping my black titanium card onto the silver velvet tray without a single second thought, never even glancing at the price tags.

To me, the monetary amount was entirely irrelevant. I made more money in the span of our two-hour shopping sprees through investments and automated freight tracking than she could physically spend in a year of continuous consumption.

What mattered to me or what I convinced myself mattered was the radiant smile on her face when she stepped out of the dressing room in a five-thousand-dollar silk gown, turning for me like a young girl at a prom.

"Do you love it on me?" she’d ask, biting her lower lip in a way she knew drove me crazy.

"If you like it, it's yours," I’d always reply, pulling her against my chest, burying my face in her hair, and breathing in her scent. I thought I was being a supportive, generous partner. I thought I was building a life of shared luxury.

But looking back with the clarity I have now, the micro-fractures were already showing; I just actively chose to paint over them because the truth was too uncomfortable to face.

I vividly remember a Saturday afternoon when my phone blew up with an absolute emergency: a major supply chain blockage at a terminal in Singapore that actively threatened a twenty-million-dollar shipping contract.

My pulse was racing, sweat breaking on my brow as I paced the floor of a high-end shoe boutique, barking orders into my Bluetooth earpiece, desperately trying to redirect a massive cargo ship before the fines accumulated.

When I finally hung up, exhausted and visibly stressed, Eliz didn’t ask if I was okay. She didn’t look at my tight expression or offer a single word of comfort.

She simply held up a diamond-encrusted watch, her eyes wide with a superficial sparkle, and said, "Do you think this matches the coat we bought earlier, or is the gold too loud?"

For a split second, a cold, heavy drop of reality hit the pit of my stomach.

It wasn’t about the price of the watch; it was the total, jarring absence of weight or empathy for what I was actively going through to provide the life she was enjoying.

But as she noticed my hesitation, she quickly leaned in, pressing her soft lips against my jawline and whispering how proud she was of her "powerful, unstoppable man." The cold feeling evaporated instantly. I smiled, handed the cashier the card, and told myself I was just being paranoid. Love makes you an expert at lying to yourself, and I was becoming a master.