His $5.2, I Quit As His Wife

At the company's annual gala, Stacy Hayes, President Miller's personal secretary, walked away with 500,000 dollars as her year-end bonus. Murmurs rippled through the crowd around me as the news spread. "She never brings in any actual results. There's gotta be some under-the-table deal going on, right?" "Well, she's his personal secretary, isn't she? A couple of nights with President Miller and she's earned it, easy." I spoke up then, trying to defend Sebastian Miller, who, unknown to everybody else, was my husband. "They're just regular boss and subordinate, there's no way there's any foul play," I said. The employees all turned to stare at me like I was an i***t. "Didn't you see the ring on her finger? It's worth over five million, a gift from President Miller!" "Calling her a secretary is a joke. She's practically the boss' wife already!" I turned my head slowly. My heart dropped straight through my stomach. There stood Sebastian on stage, arm wrapped snug around Stacy's waist, his features soft with a tenderness I hadn't seen in years. The cracked, frost-bitten cuts on my hands throbbed sharply, and suddenly, the whole thing felt hilarious. Let's rewind what happened for the past two hours. Sebastian had told me he needed to keep a low profile to avoid suspicion, so I had to find my own way to the venue. I didn't have any cash on me, so I rode a shared bike for ten whole kilometers. I took multiple tumbles on the ice-slick pavement. Even when I got there, he stuck me in the most invisible corner of the entire venue. Not a single person recognized that I was his wife. Then my phone buzzed. It was a message from him. Sebastian: Can't send too big an amount, got to avoid suspicion. I stared at the dollar transfer he'd sent me and the tears came pouring out before I could stop them. If being your wife means we have to hide me just to avoid suspicion, then I'd rather just be an irrelevant outsider instead. I swiped the tears off my face and turned to leave, but a loud chorus of whoops and cheers erupted from the stage all of a sudden. Sebastian was still holding Stacy close, the pair standing dead center of the stage, grinning for the cameras. "I want in on the family photo too!" My own son shoved his way through the crowd and launched himself straight into Stacy's arms. Three people beamed at the camera up there, looking every bit like the perfect, happy little family. And me? I stood alone in the crowd at the bottom of the stage, my fingers clenched so tight around the pilled hem of my sweater that my knuckles turned white. I didn't belong there. I didn't belong anywhere in this picture. My mind drifted back a few years, to when my son brought home a kindergarten assignment: draw a picture of your family. I'd bought him the most expensive watercolor set money could buy, my chest full of sweet hope that I'd have a spot in his little drawing, right there with the two people he loved most. But when he finished, there were only two people in that whole picture. One was him, the other was Sebastian, his father. "Mommy's ugly," he'd said. "I don't want the teacher to know about you or see you. They'll make fun of me if they do!" And now, here we were. The same boy who'd turned up his nose at me time and time again stood obediently right beside Stacy, a sweet, innocent smile spreading across his face. Tears streamed down my face in hot, heavy waves, blurring everything in my vision. "Ms. Johnson is here! Why don't we ask her to take another photo for us?" the employee suggested. Before I could even register what was happening, I was shoved awkwardly into the center of the crowd. I got jolted when someone slammed into my shoulder, and the camera slipped right out of my hands, clattering hard to the ground. Stacy immediately piped up, her voice thick with hurt. "If you didn't want to take our photo, Ms. Johnson, you could have just said so. Why would you intentionally break it like this?" Sebastian's brow pulled into a deep frown. I didn't even get a single chance to explain before I was roughly pushed off to the side. Once the photo was done, the crowd dispersed. As my son brushed past me, he suddenly spoke up, "Mom, can you please stop being so embarrassing?" I turned my head in shock, only to meet his disgusted, sneering expression. "Dad said you had a hemorrhage when you gave birth to me. Why didn't you just die back then?" he cruelly added. "If you'd died, Ms. Stacy would've been my mom a long time ago." My heart seized with a sudden, crippling pain out of nowhere. My lips trembled uncontrollably, but he'd already turned and walked away. When I reached the car, a hand shot out to block me. I lifted my eyes, and met Sebastian's blazing, angry gaze. "Who told you to come over here? I told you we need to avoid suspicion. You just can't resist showing off, can you?" he snarled. "Throwing a fit over a lousy money transfer? I really have spoiled you far too much." Meanwhile, Stacy rolled down the car window, my son cuddled tight in her arms, and stared back at me, gloating plain as day. "We have another event to get to. Looking like that, you'd better sit this one out." The engine roared to life, and thick exhaust fumes choked me until I couldn't stop coughing. I wandered down the street, my tears just wouldn't stop flowing. Everyone envied me for catching Sebastian, a real diamond in the rough. I'd stood by him through it all, from a dirt-poor kid to the wealthy tycoon he is today. But no one knew how much heartache I'd gone through. Now that he was on top, he was always going on about avoiding suspicion. We had to keep our distance when we went out. We had to avoid any public displays of affection to avoid suspicion. And I no longer even used his surname, instead using my maiden name to keep out of anyone's radar. Every single cent I spent had to go through strict approval, just so no one would accuse him of embezzling company funds or abusing his power for personal gain. I’d convinced myself Sebastian was just so obsessed with the fame and fortune he’d scratched and clawed for that he couldn’t stop being so paranoid and clingy to what he had. But then my mom got deathly ill. I begged him through my sobs for him to pay for her emergency surgery, but he wouldn’t even hear me out. Instead, he stared at me with a cold look in his eyes and spat out, "We have to avoid suspicion. No special exceptions. You have to go through the official company approval process." And yet, there was Stacy, draped in the high-end luxury jewelry my husband gifted her, perched high above me, staring down her nose at me. "I’m sorry, Ms. Johnson. Your mother’s medical bills are classified as unrelated personal expenditures. It can’t get approved." In the end, I had to sell every last piece of jewelry I owned just to scrape the money together. All these old memories pierced through me like sharp, jagged thorns, making my very soul tremble with pain. By the time I stumbled through my front door, my legs had already lost all feeling. Our son had already been driven home by the driver, and he was dead to the world in his bedroom. I pulled out my phone and opened my chat thread with Sebastian. Somewhere along the line, the whole conversation had turned into nothing but one-sided messages from me. The last reply he’d sent me was still there, stuck from a whole week earlier. Even then, I’d lied to myself that he was just swamped with end-of-year work, that he didn’t have a spare second to text me back. On a whim, I clicked open i********:, and there was Stacy’s latest post. She was straddling Sebastian’s hips, her neckline hanging open, their intimate areas pressed tightly against each other. The caption read: Since we’re pre-celebrating me locking down this finance project… I’ve gotta put in some real hard work, don’t I? I stared at that scandalous photo, a bitter, self-mocking laugh huffed out of me, and went back to my message thread with Sebastian and typed out one line. Me: Let’s get a divorce. I don’t want the kid, and I don’t want you.