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He Spent $99,000 on Her—But Wouldn't Give Me $3 for Bread
Novelix
Completed
"Three months pregnant, I sat slumped outside a bakery. My blood sugar had crashed. My hands were shaking. The bread in the window was almost past its sell-by date. Three dollars. I pulled out my phone and checked my balance. $1.80. I called my husband, Hunter. “You want money? Follow the rules. Write a thousand-word request and send it to Lila.” Lila. His assistant. “It’s only three dollars. Please, I’m pregnant. Can’t you make an exception just this once—” Click. He hung up. Across the river, the sky suddenly lit up. Fireworks exploded over half the night sky. At the same moment, Lila posted an Instagram story. I casually mentioned wanting to see fireworks, and Hunter spent $99,000 arranging a private fireworks show along the entire river just for me. I had to beg for three dollars’ worth of bread. She only had to ask for $99,000 in fireworks. The fireworks burned out. After three years, it was time to end this marriage, too."
Chapters (3)
第1章
Three months pregnant, I sat slumped outside a bakery.
My blood sugar had crashed. My hands were shaking.
The bread in the window was almost past its sell-by date. Three dollars.
I pulled out my phone and checked my balance.
$1.80.
I called my husband, Hunter.
“You want money? Follow the rules. Write a thousand-word request and send it to Lila.”
Lila. His assistant.
“It’s only three dollars. Please, I’m pregnant. Can’t you make an exception just this once—”
Click.
He hung up.
Across the river, the sky suddenly lit up. Fireworks exploded over half the night sky.
At the same moment, Lila posted an Instagram story.
I casually mentioned wanting to see fireworks, and Hunter spent $99,000 arranging a private fireworks show along the entire river just for me.
I had to beg for three dollars’ worth of bread.
She only had to ask for $99,000 in fireworks.
The fireworks burned out.
After three years, it was time to end this marriage, too.
……
The last sparks faded, and the other side of the river went dark and silent again.
Hunter called.
“Why haven’t you sent the request?”
His voice was sharp with impatience.
“Lila said you barely put any effort into yesterday’s. Make another mistake today, and you’re not getting a cent.”
Barely put any effort into it?
Yesterday afternoon, my morning sickness had been so bad I could barely lift my head.
I’d had $2.80 left.
I spent two dollars taking the bus to the hospital. The medication the doctor prescribed for my nausea cost eight dollars.
I followed the rules and sent Lila a thousand-word request.
She rejected it almost immediately.
“Sienna, you used a comma where there should’ve been a period. Denied.”
People streamed past me in the hospital as I crouched in front of the payment window, checking every word.
I sent it again.
She rejected it again.
“Sienna, you need to spell out the amount in English. Still denied.”
Then she made me revise it five times because the font was wrong or the line spacing didn’t match.
By the time the pharmacy closed and a nurse told me I had to leave, she still hadn’t approved the eight dollars.
“Hunter.”
My voice was painfully hoarse.
“What?”
“I want a divorce.”
He went silent for two seconds.
Then he gave a short, irritated laugh.
“You want to divorce me over three dollars’ worth of bread?”
“Stop it. Go home before it gets too cold.”
He hung up before I could answer.
It took me a long time to recover enough to start walking home, one slow step at a time.
Hunter was already there when I arrived.
He came over and reached for my hand. I turned away.
“Still sulking?”
“Enough. I talked to Lila about the money.”
“You’re pregnant. Obviously, you need proper nutrition.”
“So she agreed to raise your monthly allowance from two hundred dollars to two hundred fifty.”
Two hundred fifty dollars.
I looked at him without a word.
Lila’s salary was eight thousand a month.
On top of that, Hunter found all kinds of reasons to give her bonuses.
Sometimes ten thousand dollars. Sometimes twenty thousand.
“But,” he added, changing his tone, “once it goes up to two fifty, you’ll have to get Lila’s approval before every purchase and submit the receipt afterward.”
I gave a bitter smile.
For three years, I’d stretched those two hundred dollars as carefully as I could.
Every time I went over, Lila made me pay for it.
Hunter always said the company and the household had to follow the same rules. Otherwise, how could he expect his employees to respect them?
I’d believed in his rules.
Until tonight.
That $99,000 fireworks display had finally opened my eyes.
Hunter took my silence as agreement.
He tugged off his tie and headed into the bathroom.
“Tomorrow’s our third wedding anniversary. I’ll take you out to celebrate.”
“And stop throwing around the word divorce.”
第2章
The next afternoon, Hunter took me to the most expensive members-only restaurant downtown.
The moment we entered the private dining room, I saw Lila.
She stood by the door, smiling sweetly.
“Mr. Cross. Sienna. You’re here.”
Hunter offered an explanation as if there were nothing strange about it.
“Lila works hard. I invited her to join us for our anniversary lunch. The more, the merrier.”
I said nothing.
I just stared at the food covering the table.
An oyster tower. Spicy crab bisque. Cajun crawfish. Lobster pasta.
Since getting pregnant, I couldn’t stand the smell of seafood or spicy food.
Besides, I had a severe seafood allergy.
Three years of marriage, and he’d never bothered to remember.
Hunter speared a shrimp coated in hot sauce and set it on my plate.
“Lila orders all three of our meals every day. She puts a lot of thought into it.”
“She picked everything today, too. Try it.”
But the meals Lila ordered were always greasy, spicy, or full of seafood.
I’d told Hunter countless times that she deliberately chose things I couldn’t eat.
He always accused me of picking on her and making trouble.
When I didn’t touch my fork, the rims of Lila’s eyes reddened.
“Sienna, I spent so long picking these dishes. I didn’t realize I’d still manage to upset you.”
The second her tears started, Hunter’s expression darkened.
He picked up the shrimp and thrust it toward my mouth.
“Take a bite. Don’t upset Lila.”
I turned my face away.
“Hunter, I’m allergic to seafood.”
“Stop making excuses! You just want to throw her kindness back in her face.”
“I’m not eating it!” I shouted, furious.
Hunter gave a cold laugh, took out his phone, and dialed a number.
He put it on speaker.
“Mr. Vale, how have you been feeling?”
My father’s voice came through, painfully deferential.
“Hunter. I’m doing all right. My out-of-pocket costs went up a little. I bought fifteen dollars’ worth of nutritional supplements…”
“Tell Sienna not to worry about me.”
Hunter cut him off.
“Just focus on getting better. If you need more money, I’ll cover it.”
Then he looked straight at me.
I knew exactly what he was threatening.
If I didn’t eat the shrimp, Lila wouldn’t approve my father’s medical expenses next month.
Trembling, I finally closed my mouth around it and swallowed it whole.
The hot sauce burned through my mouth.
I clapped a hand over my lips and started dry-heaving.
Then I couldn’t breathe.
Satisfied that I’d swallowed, Hunter smiled.
“There. Was that so hard? We could’ve just enjoyed a nice meal, but you had to throw a tantrum.”
He’d barely finished when Lila clutched her throat.
She coughed.
“Hunter… I think I have a fish bone stuck in my throat.”
Tears clung to the corners of her eyes. She looked utterly helpless.
Hunter panicked and shot to his feet.
“Don’t be scared. I’m taking you to the hospital right now.”
He scooped her into his arms and strode toward the door.
My airway was already closing.
I fell out of my chair and hit the floor, struggling to reach after him.
“Hunter… help me…”
The dining room door slammed shut.
From the hallway came his impatient scoff.
“Leave her. She’s just putting on a show.”
第3章
I started drifting out of consciousness.
Somewhere far away, I heard a server screaming for help.
Then everything went black.
By the time I woke up, the emergency treatment was over.
A doctor stood beside my bed.
“Mrs. Cross, you were in shock and deprived of oxygen for too long. The baby… we can’t save it.”
I listened to the steady beep of the heart monitor.
My hand settled gently over my flat stomach.
Hunter and I had wanted this baby for so long.
When I first found out I was pregnant, he’d held me in his arms, overjoyed, and promised to give us the best life.
Then he’d kept giving me two hundred dollars a month.
Not a cent more.
“Then schedule the procedure,” I said quietly.
I was letting the baby go.
And Hunter, too.
On the third day, I signed the surgical consent form.
Cold instruments scraped inside me, stripping away the last of my attachment to our three-year marriage.
Afterward, I received the hospital bill.
$3,800.
I was weak and starving.
The cheapest sandwich in the vending machine cost six dollars.
Out of options, I left the hospital and went into a jewelry store at the mall.
In three years of marriage, Hunter had given me jewelry only twice.
The bracelet was from two years ago, when I got pregnant for the first time.
I’d eaten undercooked oysters Lila ordered, gotten food poisoning, and miscarried.
I spent the next two months depressed.
Hunter gave me the bracelet to comfort me.
He said it was his way of making it up to me and told me not to blame Lila.
The necklace came after my father urgently needed dialysis and I submitted a request for five hundred dollars.
Lila didn’t approve it for three full days.
My father’s condition worsened. He spent a month in a coma.
Hunter gave me the necklace as an apology.
He said he and Lila had been too busy on their business trip to check their phones.
But I’d seen Lila’s Instagram story.
After finishing work, they’d gone to Disney World.
I laid the bracelet and necklace on the glass counter.
“Could you tell me how much I could sell these for?”
The salesclerk picked them up, glanced at them, and sneered.
“Ma’am, are you wasting my time with two pieces of plastic?”
“They sell this stuff three to a pack at the dollar store. These are worth two bucks, tops.”
I froze.
My mind went blank.
Hunter’s compensation for my lost baby and my father’s ruined health.
Two dollars’ worth of plastic.
A mocking laugh sounded behind me.
“Sienna, are you really that desperate for money?”
I turned.
Hunter stood in the doorway.
“If you need money, write a request like you’re supposed to. Why are you selling your jewelry? Trying to pour more money into that bottomless pit you call a father?”
A bottomless pit.
How could he say that about my dad?
Five years ago, Hunter had just graduated from college. He wanted to start a business and didn’t have a dollar to his name.
My father sold the only house we owned and gave him every cent.
“Hunter, you’re a good kid,” he’d said. “I don’t ask for much. Just take good care of Sienna.”
Now Hunter was worth tens of millions.
And when my father became seriously ill, he couldn’t afford treatment.
Every month, I had to swallow my pride and write requests to Hunter’s assistant.
Lila stepped up behind him, looking smug.
“Hunter, good thing I picked up all Sienna’s gifts from some cheap street vendor.”
“Otherwise, she would’ve cashed them in ages ago.”
Instead of questioning her decision, Hunter nodded approvingly.
“You really do think of everything.”
I’d just had surgery. I didn’t even have the strength to confront him.
Numbly, I picked up the two pieces of plastic and headed for the door.
As I passed them, Hunter led Lila to the most expensive display case.
“Is the custom diamond bracelet I ordered last week ready?”
“My assistant’s been working hard lately. I promised her a reward.”
The salesclerk respectfully handed him an elegant velvet box.
Lila squealed with delight and threw her arms around him.
The moment I stepped outside, the sky opened up.
I stood in the freezing rain and heard the card reader chime inside.
Payment approved.
$100,000.
A hundred thousand dollars in diamonds.
Two dollars in plastic.
So that was what she was worth to him.
And what I was worth.
