He Called Me A Housewife While I Gave Him Everything Chapter 01

He Called Me A Housewife While I Gave Him Everything Chapter 01

The day I discovered Damian Cross had drained my father’s life savings and handed it to a college girl for a down payment on a condo, I jumped off the roof.

I didn’t die. But Damian lost his mind.

After that, it was every single day. He’d bring me the leash himself. He’d make me chain him to the balcony railing so he could kneel out there in the freezing wind and recite that stupid “Good Husband Pledge.”

Damian, the man whose pride was once untouchable, knelt there with red-rimmed eyes, swallowing his humiliation. His voice trembled as he begged me not to wreck my health over him, pleaded with me to just smile at him once. He swore he would never betray me again.

But today, money vanished from the account again. Exactly the amount my father’s surgery was going to cost and it was scheduled for tomorrow.

I saw the smear of lipstick on his collar, that garish red stain, and something inside me snapped. I yanked the leash around his neck and pulled it tight.

“I don’t care if you screw around. I don’t care who warms your bed. But you went after my father’s surgery money. Again. For her. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Still on his knees, Damian slapped himself a dozen times. When he saw I wasn’t backing down, something in him broke. He tore the leash apart and slammed me onto the floor, pinning me beneath him.

“Are you done yet? I had one emotional affair, one! That’s it!”

“You’re a housewife. You live off my money. What gives you the right to question how I spend it?”

“You want to call the shots? Go earn your own damn paycheck. A college dropout with some shady thing with a professor, what exactly are you qualified for besides whoring yourself out?”

The broken leash snapped across my face. Blood beaded on the carpet.

I looked up at Damian, and for the first time in five years, I smiled. The love in his eyes was gone. Completely gone. 　　“Fine. Let me go.”

***

The impatience in Damian’s eyes collapsed into sheer panic.

He scrambled toward me, clamped his arms around my legs, his voice shredded to nothing. “I’m sorry. Nora, I wasn’t thinking. I was out of my head. Don’t go. Please, don’t go.”

I lay there on the cold floor, staring up at the crystal chandelier we’d picked out together.

When I didn’t speak, his panic deepened. The excuses spilled out in a frantic, tangled rush. “The $400,000, it was for the company. A project went sideways and I needed emergency cash.”

The story was sickeningly familiar.

Five years ago, he’d said the same thing. Cash flow problems. The business needed money. I believed him. I stopped my father’s targeted therapy and handed over every cent of our savings.

Later, I tracked the bank charge to an address across town, a luxury apartment.

The door swung open, and there she was. A young college student, wearing nothing but an apron draped loose over her body. She came out of the kitchen with a plate, laughing as she lifted a bite of food to Damian’s lips.

That was the moment the light in my world went out.

Still I didn’t react, and Damian started slapping himself again. The sharp, wet cracks echoed through the empty living room.

“Nora. Hit me. Scream at me. Do something, anything. Just don’t shut me out.”

He cupped my face in his hands with a terrible gentleness. He took a cotton swab from the first-aid kit and wiped the blood from my cheek, stroke by careful stroke, as if I were something priceless.

Minutes ago, those same hands had pinned me to the floor.

He changed me into clean clothes, then hauled me to the company without asking, without giving me a choice.

The office tower blazed with light at that hour. Everyone moved fast, tension humming down every hallway. When they saw Damian walk in with me, the whole floor paused.

One of the senior execs stepped forward. “Mr. Cross, you’re back? We thought you went home, you said your wife wasn’t feeling well.”

Envious glances landed on me from every direction. 　　“Seriously, you’re so lucky.”

“Even with the deadline crushing us, Mr. Cross clocks out at five every day. Says he has to get home to you.”

I listened with a blank face as Damian half-carried me into his office. The room was immaculate, no trace of women’s belongings anywhere. But my photos were everywhere. On the desk. Crowding the bookshelves. Every version of me, across every year.

He settled me onto the couch, and his voice dropped to something so tender it could’ve been liquid. “Nora, trust me. Once this deal closes, I’ll bring in the best surgeons in the country. Whatever it takes, your dad’s getting that surgery.”

He reached for the phone. “I’m having my assistant pull the security footage right now. That lipstick, it was from a meeting this morning. Some woman bumped into me. That’s it. That’s all it was.”

I lifted my hand and pressed the receiver down.

“Don’t bother.”

Damian’s whole body sagged with relief.

I stood and walked toward the private rest room attached to his office. “You shouldn’t leave either. Stay. Be with your team. They need their leader during a critical phase like this.”

Damian’s face lit up. He nodded, over and over.

I lay down on the bed in the rest room. Through the door, muffled, I heard his assistant murmur, “Mr. Cross, I think she’s settled down now.”

Calmed down?

I closed my eyes.

No. I just stopped caring.

I lay on that bed the whole night. I didn’t sleep.