Chapter 4

My lips quivered with barely suppressed rage. I wanted to scream at him.

But this wasn't the Joseph from my marriage. He was rich now, and powerful.

I swallowed my anger and replied curtly, "Joseph, please don't joke with me like this. I have work to do."

"It's the same offer you gave to Will. Why not leave it open to me?" Joseph said quietly, his voice cold.

I frowned. "That was hardly an offer. He was never going to accept it."

"You told him that if he gave you 1,000,000 dollars, you'd spend the night with him. Well, I have a million dollars, so why won't you spend the night with me?"

I couldn't help but drop my smile.

I had only given Will that "offer" because I knew he didn't have a million dollars to give me. Did Joseph really think I was being serious?

He was still smoking his cigarette as he walked over to me. He puffed out a mouthful of smoke and said, "Your family is in dire straits. All you need to do is spend one night with me and 1,000,000 dollars could be yours."

My hands tightened with fury.

I understood exactly why he was doing this. To humiliate me.

I did my best to control the emotion in my voice as I smiled at him coldly. "So, now you have money you think you're suddenly above me? It's true, my family is broke, but I'm not about to stoop so low as to sell my body!"

Having said all I needed to, I turned around and hurried away. My eyes were already wet with tears.

A tide of complex emotions swelled up inside me.

With my brothers' old friends, it didn't matter how much they insulted me, I couldn't care less.

But with Joseph, it was different. His humiliation filled me with pain and sadness.

I hurried to the club's entrance hall where I was shocked to find my brother. He was dressed in his delivery driver's uniform and was surrounded by his old "friends".

For the sake of a couple of notes, he was kneeling on the floor before them.

At that moment, my remaining pride and self-respect crumbled to nothing.

I bit my lip, tears streaming from my eyes.

To make a little money, my brother was willing to reduce himself to this, while I was too proud to face up to Joseph's insult and make our family a million dollars.

I turned around and ran up the stairs I had just come down, praying that Joseph was still there.

I sprinted back to his table to find him still sitting there.

It was almost as if he knew I would come crawling back. There was a smile plastered on his face.

I tried to compose myself as I approached him. "You must really hate me for how I treated you before."

Without waiting for him to respond, I went on, "Fine. As long as you help my family pay off their debts, you can humiliate me any way you want, for as long as you please."

Joseph lowered his gaze to his glass. He smiled even wider. "You'd be willing to be my mistress?"

I took a deep breath. "Yes."

He'd got rid of me as his wife, to replace me with his sweetheart, but he still wanted to keep me as his mistress.

The shame was almost too much to bear.

The next day, my father returned home visibly excited. He told us that our debts had all been repaid.

My mother cried tears of joy as she asked my father how this had happened.

He told her that Joseph had come to his senses and stepped in to help us. He had even bought us a home to live in.

Suddenly, Joseph had become an angel in my mother's eyes. How he must love me to help us so much.

All I could do was force a smile and bite my tongue.

That afternoon, Joseph sent his driver to pick me up.

My parents had no reason to be suspicious; as far as they knew, I was still his wife. To them, I was on my way to spend a happy evening with my husband, not to be used as a toy for his carnal gratification.

Joseph was now living in the villa that had once belonged to my family. Not much had changed; our old servants and staff were now his.

Servants are expected to follow their master, and ours had joined in more than a few times with our humiliation of Joseph.

The fact that he had kept them on after taking ownership of the villa showed how magnanimous he could be.

I just wondered if that magnanimity would extend to his treatment of me.

Thinking back to his demeanor at the nightclub, I somehow doubted it.

Our former servants and I were two different cases. At worst, they'd merely been unkind to him in passing.

But I had berated him, hit him, thrown things at him, and humiliated him in front of others.

Recalling my past treatment of Joseph left me feeling uncomfortable.

If I'd have known that one day our roles would be reversed, I'd have been a lot nicer to him from the start.

Poppy, our old maid, led me to his door. "Master Joseph asked you to wait for him here. Also ... "

She paused, as though uncomfortable with what she had been asked to say. "He asked that you wash yourself before his return."

My heart sank.

Clearly, both of us could see what he wanted from me.

But what other choice did I have?

I'd already agreed to be his mistress. I was well aware that I was giving up my dignity.

Joseph's room was the very same bedroom we had shared while we were married. Yet now, it felt very different.

Before, there had been a mat on the floor by the side of the bed. That was where Joseph had slept while I looked down on him from my bed on high, making sure to remind him of his place.

That mat was no longer here. Neither was my high and mighty feeling of superiority.

Another thing that was missing was my husband's meek and obedient facade.

The past is the past, I reminded myself, as I entered the bathroom with a heavy heart and turned on the shower.

After getting clean, I laid down on the bed to await Joseph's return.

I'd signed on to be his mistress, so I might as well play the part.

Things had certainly changed since the last time I was here, but lying on that bed, I thought to myself that it could have been a lot worse.

My family's debts, at the very least, had been paid off. My parents could rest easy. My brother would no longer have to work himself to the bone or prostrate himself at the feet of false friends.

All of these things came as a comfort to me.

I had no idea when Joseph would return.

Tired out from the last few days of working and worrying, I soon fell asleep.

When I awoke, there seemed to be a great weight pressing down on me.

As my senses gradually returned, I realized that Joseph was on top of me.

What's more, his hands were moving underneath my clothes.

"How ... How dare you!"

Without thinking, I raised my hands to push him off.

But before I knew it, he had grabbed hold of my wrists and forced them down.

"Even now, your pampered temper's still intact." He jeered at me.

I gazed around at the familiar room and then at the familiar man before me.

It took me a while to fully remember where I was.

This bedroom we were in was now his, and I was nothing more than his mistress.

My arms went limp, I meekly let out a soft apology, "I'm sorry".

He laughed, standing up and heading towards the bathroom.

As he cleaned himself, I wrung my hands nervously.

Before all this, once I had begun to have feelings for him, the thought of his touch on my body had not been an unpleasant one.

But this was different. There was nothing mutual or respectful about our current situation. This was simply possession and revenge.

In such circumstances, the thought of what was to come was horrifying, but I had nowhere to run.

After what seemed like an age, he finally emerged from the bathroom.

The sound of the door opening once more was almost more than my frayed nerves could take.