Billionaire Husband Regretted Faking Bankruptcy

The cat kept slipping out of the apartment, so Selene clipped a small camera to its collar. That night, she pulled the footage onto her laptop. One glance, and she froze.

Jonathan, her husband, supposedly broke for three years, was standing in the middle of the city's most expensive rooftop plaza in a custom-tailored suit, setting off fireworks for another woman.

Huge bursts of color bloomed across the night sky.

"I heard Jonathan spent over thirty million on this surprise for Vivienne!"

"Of course he did. She's carrying his baby. How could he not go all out?"

The fireworks lit up the sky, and they lit up the side of Jonathan's face. He was smiling. Really smiling, in a way Selene hadn't seen in years.

Vivienne Ashford. The woman whose mansion Selene had been scrubbing toilets in for the past year.

Selene stared at the screen. The cold spread through her chest until her hands went numb.

Three years ago, Jonathan's empire had collapsed. Billions, gone overnight. After that, the two of them scraped by together. They lived in a basement studio so cramped you couldn't turn around without bumping into a wall.

Watching Jonathan, who'd once been heir to a fortune, come home every night with grease under his fingernails, working overtime, scraping together a paycheck that barely covered rent, Selene had felt her heart break a thousand times.

She'd taken the job at the mansion to help. Swallowed her pride. Scrubbed toilets, cleaned the pool, hauled out garbage.

A month ago, she'd found out she was pregnant. She didn't tell Vivienne. She couldn't afford to lose the job. She figured if she was careful, nothing would happen. Then Vivienne made her clean the pool. Her foot slipped on the wet tile, and she went straight into the freezing water.

The pain came in waves. The water turned red. That had been their first child. Gone, just like that.

Afterward, Jonathan emptied his entire bonus on supplements for her. He held her hand and told her, "Selene, please don't be too sad. The baby will come back to us. He was a good kid. He knew his mom and dad were struggling. He knew we couldn't take care of him yet. He'll come back when we're ready."

He threw himself back into work within days. Selene couldn't. Something stayed at the bottom of that pool.

She started making mistakes at the mansion. Vivienne started treating her like a punching bag, yelling, throwing things, sometimes worse. Selene swallowed it all. She needed the job.

But now, looking at the screen, she finally got it. The man who came home every night looking exhausted and broke wasn't broke at all.

He'd been faking it.

The realization hit like a punch to the gut. She couldn't move.

Her phone buzzed.

Jonathan: [Working late again, babe. Don't wait up. Love you.]

A cold feeling crawled up her spine. She grabbed her coat and went out.

By the time she got to the plaza, the show was wrapping up. The crowd was loud, half of them filming. On the giant screen overhead, Jonathan had pulled Vivienne against his chest and was kissing the corner of her mouth.

"To celebrate our first baby, I have one more surprise for you."

A spotlight. A small velvet box on a silver tray. Jonathan opened it. A pigeon-blood ruby bracelet set in diamonds.

"Do you like it?"

His voice was tender in a way Selene hadn't heard from him in years.

"I flew to Paris just to bid on it. The color suits you."

Vivienne burst into tears. Jonathan pulled her in, and they kissed while the crowd cheered around them.

Selene didn't move.

A week ago, Jonathan had told her he had a business trip overseas. Somewhere with bad reception. He might be out of contact for a few days. For three days, she'd heard nothing. The news had been full of unrest in the region he claimed to be in. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept.

He hadn't been on a business trip. He'd been shopping for another woman. All her worry, all her sleepless nights, all of it—a joke.

The cheering crowd, the smell of gunpowder in the air, every bit of it felt like a slap, snapping her awake from a dream she should never have been in.

The crowd started to thin. Selene stumbled forward, suddenly blacked out, fell to the ground and lost consciousness.