3
In the middle of the night, I walked the empty streets with all my belongings. There was no place for me in this vast city, and no reason for me to stay. My mother was gone. My love was gone. Every second I stayed was just another second of pain.
With nowhere else to go, I spent the night in a nearby hospital lobby.
The first thing I did the next morning was quit my job.
The
My supervisor was shocked when she received my resignation letter. “You’re quitting? Did Mr. Thorne approve this?”
She added, “By the way, if you leave now, you won’t get much of a bonus this month. We’ll just deposit the rest of your salary into one card.”
I frowned, the information overload making my head spin. What did she mean, one card? And what bonus? Most importantly, who was Mr. Thorne?
Seeing my confusion, my supervisor looked just as baffled. “Aren’t you and Mr. Thorne dating? He specifically told finance to split your salary. Your base pay goes to you, and your bonuses and raises go to a separate card. He said you were saving money. I have to say, it’s rare to see someone so frugal, especially when you’re dating someone like Mr. Thome.”
So, all these years, I had only been receiving my starting salary. My repeated requests for a raise… it wasn’t because I wasn’t working hard enough. It was because Damian had been diverting my earnings into another account.
When I went to finance for my pay stubs, I saw the bonus column. Two thousand dollars. The exact amount I had been short a few days ago. The day I had lost, trying to scrape together that final two thousand, was the day my mother died, waiting for a surgery she never got.
The most laughable part? The total sum of the bonuses Damian had withheld from me over the past seven years was more than enough to cover my mother’s med-
ical bills.
I was such a fool.
So focused on working hard, terrified of being fired and losing my only source of income So completely and utterly fooled by Damian Thorne.
To prove to him I wasn’t a gold digger, not only had I never spent his money, but I had let him steal my own hard–earned wages.
And I had stayed in this relationship, full of lies and insults, for seven years.
Just as I was about to confront Damian with the pay stubs, he sauntered in as if he owned the place.
“Sophia, we have a little argument and you run away from home and quit your job? Your temper is getting worse and worse.”
Chloe trailed behind him, a look of smug satisfaction on her face. She walked over, her voice dripping with false sympathy, “Sophia, you’re so ungrateful. You’re living off Damian’s money, in a house he pays for, Without him, could you even survive in this city?”
Shameless people really can tell the most blatant lies without batting an eye. I was so angry I almost laughed. Before I could retort, Damian cut me off.
“Chloe’s right. If it weren’t for me these past seven years, you would have starved to death. Let’s just say you were having a moment today. I’ll grant you a day off. I won’t even dock your pay for it.”
