He Secretly Used Our Down Payment to Buy Her a Luxury Bag Chapter 03

He Secretly Used Our Down Payment to Buy Her a Luxury Bag Chapter 03

When Elliot got home from work, I was filling out the application.

He glanced at it but caught only the word Application at the top. His brows drew together. “What are you applying for?”

I slid the form beneath a folder. “Nothing.”

Elliot was about to press me when his phone buzzed.

After checking it, he said it was time to head out for his DoorDash shift, then left.

I opened the iPad.

Sure enough, a new message from the woman was waiting.

The woman: [Elliot, it’s raining. Will you come pick me up?]

Elliot replied: [On my way.]

My fingers tightened around the edge of the iPad. In the end, I got up and followed him.

After leaving our building, Elliot did not head out of the complex. Instead, he turned into the parking garage beneath the building across from ours.

Minutes later, a black Mercedes pulled out.

With the window down, Elliot flicked ash from a cigarette. The braided leather bracelet I’d given him for luck was still wrapped around his wrist.

My gaze dropped to the custom vanity plate. It was distinctive enough that I recognized the car immediately.

My fingers clenched around the hem of my shirt.

I had seen that car about a week earlier, when I rode my e-bike home through a torrential downpour.

I had spotted it as I entered the apartment complex.

I was soaked to the skin, shivering with cold, and looked utterly miserable.

I had stared at the Mercedes with genuine envy. I wished I had a car of my own. It did not have to be a Mercedes. I only wanted something that could keep the wind and rain off me.

When Elliot came home, I mentioned it in passing.

His expression shifted in a way I could not read. “You want a Mercedes too?”

I rubbed my wet hair with a towel and joked, “Of course. Who wouldn’t want a Mercedes?”

Elliot said nothing more and went into the kitchen to make dinner.

I noticed something was wrong and asked him about it, but he only said he was tired from work.

Later that night, I developed a high fever from being caught in the rain. Elliot got out of bed to take care of me.

While I drifted in and out of sleep, he suddenly asked, “Stella, do you want a Mercedes?”

The question brought me fully awake.

The man Elliot had presented himself as was an orphan who had lost both parents, fiercely independent and careful with money, though he had always been generous with me.

I assumed my joke had made him feel pressured, so I immediately took his hand and said earnestly, “More than a Mercedes, I want a boyfriend who would get out of bed without hesitation to take care of me when I’m sick in the middle of the night.”

Emotion flickered in Elliot’s eyes.

He kissed my forehead. “You’ll have both, Stella—the Mercedes and the boyfriend.”

I had not taken his words seriously. I thought he was only trying to comfort me.

Now I understood that he had meant every word.

He had always been able to afford it. He had simply chosen never to show me.

Maybe that day, while I was soaked to the skin and shivering in the rain, Elliot had been sitting inside that car, watching me struggle.

Yet when I brought it up, he had responded with perfect innocence. Within a few sentences, he had convinced me that I had put pressure on him and even made me feel guilty.

I wanted to ask what he had been thinking at the time.

Had he been thinking I was an idiot, or congratulating himself on such a convincing performance?

I had thought I could remain calm in the face of Elliot’s lies and betrayal.

But the pain of my nails digging into my palm told me I had overestimated myself.

The address the woman had sent Elliot was still in Messages, but I no longer had the strength to keep following him.

I turned around, went home, and finished the application.

It was already ten thirty that night when Elliot returned.

He held out a takeout box of buffalo wings. “The customer canceled after I picked them up, and the restaurant couldn’t take them back. It seemed stupid to throw them away, so I brought them home for us.”

I thought of her Instagram Story from that night.

Elliot had taken her to a $200 dinner at an upscale Japanese restaurant, then come home and tried to fob me off with a box of wings.

Any appetite I had vanished.

I said I was not hungry, walked past him, and went into the bedroom.

Elliot came in a little while later and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“Stella, what’s been going on with you lately?” he asked quietly. “If I did something that upset you, tell me. I’ll fix it.”

I said nothing.

A faint rose scent clung to him.

I suddenly remembered the private videos saved in the iPad’s Photos app. In one of them, Elliot had rubbed rose-scented oil all over the woman’s body.

My stomach lurched.

I pulled free of his arms, moved to the far side of the bed, and wrapped the blanket tightly around myself.

Elliot sat up.

I could feel his angry stare boring into my back, but in the end, he only drew a deep breath.

“Stella, are you hiding something from me?”

I turned the question back on him. “What about you? Are you hiding something from me?”

Elliot fell silent.

After a moment, he said, “No.”

I closed my eyes as tears slipped down my cheeks. I had never felt more disappointed.

“Neither am I.”

The next day, I turned in the application.

My manager read it and sighed. “Since you’ve made your decision, give it everything you have. I’m looking forward to seeing what you accomplish.”

I nodded.

When I returned home, Elliot was sitting on the couch, smoking.

The moment he saw me, he stood. “Stella, I think we need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said coldly.

His expression darkened. For the first time, I saw a dangerous, intimidating side of him.

“Stella, have I spoiled you so much that you’ve started believing I don’t have a temper? That I’ll never get angry?” he demanded. “Look at what you’ve done lately. You spent $100,000—the down payment we saved for three years—on a handbag. What man other than me would tolerate that from his girlfriend?”

I looked at him. “Is a $100,000 handbag really that expensive?”

Elliot stared at me, momentarily speechless.

“No one asked you to spoil me,” I continued. “If you can’t afford to keep me, then don’t.”

His face went livid.

After a long silence, he scoffed. “Stella, I never realized you were this vain—or this much of a gold digger.”

Then he kicked the coffee table over and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

I stood in the living room, staring at the mess scattered across the floor.

A vain gold digger?

So that was what he had thought of me all along.

Was that why he had pretended to be poor? Because he was afraid I only wanted his money?

It was absurd.