Chapter 4

"You're resigning? Has Ms. Seinfeld agreed to let you do so?" my superior asked.

"By the way, you won't get much of a bonus for this month if you resign now. I'll transfer the rest of your salary to your account."

I frowned. There was too much information, and it took me a while to process everything my superior said.

What did she mean by transferring it to my account? Since when did I receive bonuses?

More importantly, why had she mentioned Tessa?

When my superior saw how confused I looked, she looked equally puzzled.

"Aren't you dating Ms. Seinfeld? She was the one who gave the finance department special instructions to pay you your salary separately.

"You were given your basic salary, but any bonuses and salary increments were put in a different account. She said you needed to save money.

"I didn't expect you to still be so frugal with someone like Ms. Seinfeld as your girlfriend. That's rare to see."

That was why I had only received my starting salary for so many years.

I had requested again and again for an increase in my salary, to no avail. It turned out that it wasn't because I wasn't diligent enough at my job. It was because Tessa had transferred all of it to a different account.

When I went to the finance department to request my payroll records, I saw "two thousand dollars" written in bold letters in the box that indicated the amount of my expected bonus.

A few days ago, I had been one day late in paying the hospital because I had been scrambling to find the last two thousand dollars that I needed.

As a result, my mother passed away before she could get her operation.

What was even more laughable was that the total amount of the bonuses I should have received over the past seven years, which Tessa had withheld, would have been more than enough to treat my mother's condition.

I had been a complete fool.

I had been so foolish that all I had done was to work hard. I had been terrified of being fired and losing my means of making a living.

I had been such a fool that I had not realized Tessa's deception.

I had never spent her money so that she wouldn't think of me as a leech, but she had been the one who had transferred away all the fruits of my labor.

I had actually persisted for seven years in a relationship that was full of nothing but lies and humiliation.

I was on my way to find Tessa with my payroll records so that I could settle the score with her when she strutted up to me.

"Ethan, all we had was a minor argument, and you left home? You even resigned! I think you're becoming more and more hot-tempered."

Zeke was behind her, looking gleeful at my discomfiture.

He walked over and said insincerely, "Ethan, you really have no conscience at all. You spent Tess' money and lived in the place that she rented for you. Without her, could you even survive in Jetland?"

He was so thick-skinned that he could lie with a straight face.

I laughed out of sheer anger. I was about to defend myself when Tessa interrupted me.

"Zeke's right. If I hadn't been around for the past seven years, you'd have starved to death long ago. I'll just think of today as you throwing a tantrum, and you can have the day off. Come home with me. I won't dock your pay for not going to work today."

…

The more I saw Tessa's true colors, the more I wondered how blind I had been over the past seven years.

People around me began to point and mutter amongst themselves. Since Tessa did not stop them, their voices became louder.

"Ms. Seinfeld hid her identity because she didn't want Ethan to feel insecure. She also told us to keep it a secret, which shows just how much she cares about him."

"He lives off Ms. Seinfeld, and yet he's losing his temper with her?"

"If he wants to go from rags to riches, he should reflect on whether or not he's capable of doing so. He'd be nothing without Ms. Seinfeld."

The more the people around us speculated, the more triumphant Tessa was.

Zeke kept egging them on and heaped a pile of false accusations on me. "Ethan, didn't you lie because you wanted two thousand dollars from Tess? You even said that your mother was about to die and needed the money to survive."