Too Late, Madam: Your Husband Quit
For two years, I was the perfect trophy husband for Hillary Mitchell, the ice queen of Manhattan. I held her crystal-encrusted clutches at galas, took public insults with a submissive smile, and played the role of a spineless parasite who married for a trust fund. It was all a calculation-a strictly professional contract designed to make her look like a goddess while I remained her velvet cushion.
The second the clock struck midnight on the day my contract expired, I dropped my platinum wedding ring into a glass of dregs and walked out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art without looking back. I thought I was finally free to reclaim my real identity.
But freedom was a trap. Hillary froze my five-million-dollar payout, leaving me with exactly $412 and a second secret job protecting a spoiled heiress named Brielle Harris. To survive, I had to endure Hillary dragging me back to her mansion while playing a bullied "simp" for Brielle on campus. I was a man living in two different cages, praying neither woman would discover the other.
The situation turned lethal when Hillary spotted me with Brielle and assumed I was cheating. She didn't just want me back; she wanted to own me. She dug into my sealed juvenile records, uncovering the foster home violence and the suicide attempt I had tried to forget. She used my trauma as a leash, thinking my broken past made me easy to control.
"You're safe now, Christopher," she whispered, her eyes wet with a hungry kind of possession. "No more running. You belong to this family forever."
I looked at the two women screaming over me like I was a piece of property, and something inside me finally snapped. I realized I was just a role to them, a toy to be bought and sold. I ripped both contracts to shreds, threw the pieces in their faces, and decided that if I was going to be a monster, I'd be the one they never saw coming.