Call Me a Spender? I Stop Hiding, I'm the Richest Heiress!

"As a lawyer, I recommend we call the police immediately and have Selina arrested!" Amy's voice, like a sharp knife, instantly sliced through the air of the law firm's all-partners meeting. I leaned back in my chair, observing this junior lawyer who had gotten her license barely a month ago. She stood at the head of the conference table, tightly gripping a presentation clicker, her youthful face displaying undisguised smugness and cruelty. Over thirty pairs of eyes in the conference room were fixed intensely on me. "Amy, what nonsense are you talking about?" I set down my black coffee and looked at her coldly. She pressed the clicker hard. The large screen flashed. My attendance records and entertainment expense reimbursement forms were slapped directly into everyone's faces. "Everyone, look at this hard evidence." Amy's voice trembled with excitement. "Over the past month, Selina has been absent for a full fifteen days! Not only has she not written a single basic legal brief, she hasn't even stepped foot through the firm's doors!" Another click. Photos of me at various high-end venues popped up on the big screen. Luxurious private kitchens. Premium Cuban cigar bars. Even a private golf estate. "This is the record of her embezzling the firm's public funds!" Amy grabbed a thick stack of bills and slammed them hard onto the long conference table, making a dull thud. "West District penthouse private kitchen, six thousand dollars for a single dinner. Premium cigar bar, four thousand per visit. And these expensive Lafite wines... In just one month, it totals three hundred thousand dollars!" The conference room was dead silent. Ridiculous. She had no idea that my so-called "absences" were spent sitting in smoke-filled cigar bars, forcibly securing annual legal counsel contracts with fifty mid-sized enterprises for this firm. Behind those sky-high bills of so-called "squandered public funds" were the glasses of dry red wine I downed one after another in private kitchens, helping Jack maintain relationships with the state's snobbish political and business elites. The senior partners present knew this perfectly well. But as I swept my gaze across the room, those senior lawyers—who had once borrowed money from me to ease their cash flow, and who relied on my client resources to get commissions from big cases—had now all turned deaf and blind. Some were picking at their fingernails. Others were studying the patterns on their dress shoes. Even the few assistants who usually affectionately called me "Sister Selina" now cast looks of condemnation and disdain my way. My gaze finally landed on Jack. My state university alumnus, my boyfriend, and the founder of this "Jack & Partners Law Firm." Three years ago, he came to me full of ambition with an empty-shell law firm on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only did I pay for all the firm's initial expenses out of my own pocket, but I also rented this entire floor of Grade A office space in the city center to him at a dirt-cheap price of fifty thousand a month, just to protect his pitiful ego. He knew the truth. He knew better than anyone the value of my every trip to those private kitchens. He knew even better that the three hundred thousand in entertainment expenses was the crucial stepping stone I laid down to help him secure a tens-of-millions exclusive legal counsel agreement with Ms. Margaret, the richest woman in the state. But right now, Jack sat at the head of the table, slowly raising his head. There was not a shred of guilt in his eyes, nor any intention of defending me. Instead, there was a carefully calculated sense of authority and a condescending judgment. "Selina." Jack tapped the table, speaking in a highly bureaucratic tone. "The firm's rules are the rules. Regarding Amy's accusations of your chronic absenteeism and the embezzlement of three hundred thousand in public funds, you need to give everyone an explanation." Amy immediately straightened her back, looking at me provocatively like a vicious dog emboldened by its master: "Exactly! The firm can never tolerate a parasite who lines her own pockets! You must be fired and then handed over to the police!" An explanation? I looked at Jack's hypocritical face, and a scene suddenly flashed through my mind—last night in the parking garage, seeing him and Amy entangled half-naked in the back seat of a car. My stomach violently churned, bringing up a strong, physical wave of nausea. I didn't slam the table or shout. In this room full of ungrateful backstabbers, explaining was the cheapest kind of nonsense. I looked at Jack quietly and let out a soft chuckle. "You want an explanation, right?" I unzipped my Hermes Birkin bag beside my hand. Under the watchful eyes of over thirty people, I pulled out a document stamped with a gold-foil emblem. It was the very thing Jack had dreamed of after pulling three all-nighters—the tens-of-millions exclusive legal counsel letter of intent from Margaret Group, the state's richest enterprise. At the final signature line, it was only missing my last stroke. The moment Jack saw the letterhead of that document, he abruptly stood up from his leather chair, his breathing instantly growing heavy. "Selina, put that..." *Riiip—* Looking him dead in the eye, I pinched the edges of the document with both hands and, right in front of everyone, mercilessly tore the multi-million-dollar agreement in half. Then, into quarters. The sound of paper tearing was exceptionally piercing in the dead-silent conference room.