Too Good For You

My CEO husband told me he had a last-minute job to handle. He said that because of it, he couldn't accompany me to retrieve the body. Then I went online and saw a photo my husband's secretary had posted as a birthday status update. [Thanks for the red velvet cake, Mr. Mitchell! Happy birthday to me!] I smiled and left a comment. [Happy birthday.] That single comment sparked a frenzy among my colleagues. They immediately began placing bets on how big of a scene I would make. Then he called. "Lucy is just celebrating her birthday, Brianna! Why do you have to ruin it by showing up in the comments?! Don't you know how sensitive she is? How is she supposed to feel comfortable at work now?! "She's only been here for two years. She doesn't even have any friends! What's wrong with me looking out for an employee and keeping her company on her birthday? A lucky girl who grew up in a wealthy family like you wouldn't understand! "If you want to talk about this, fine. Wait until I get back. But delete that comment right now! We can always wait another few days before retrieving his body. Where is your father going to go anyway? He's already dead!" I clenched my fist and replied, "That won't be necessary." By the time he returned, we would already be legally divorced. Chapter 1 Lance Mitchell hung up in a fit of rage. I stopped on my way to the hospital, adjusted the single white lily pinned to my chest, and walked inside. My phone vibrated. Lucinda Tanning had updated her status. It was a lengthy, faux-apologetic post about how she never meant to offend me and simply wanted to share the joy and celebration of her birthday. Just like her previous post, she made sure to tag me. In less than a minute, it had already attracted hundreds of likes. It was a crass, inelegant, and unmistakable act of provocation, yet Lance somehow couldn't see it. He was known for being a shrewd strategist, so I doubted he was truly blind to her intentions. He simply chose to play along with the charade. [Can't a girl even share something about her life? Does she have to apologize for being thin-skinned now?] [I know. It was just a normal birthday celebration. She got targeted over something so harmless. That's what narcissists do, I guess. They're also soooooo dramatic.] … The comment section was full of people defending Lucinda, and honestly, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. These colleagues were only there because she had gotten them hired. Hiring and firing employees weren't decisions a mere secretary could make. She could only do so because Lance abused his authority as CEO and backed her every step of the way. She quickly filled the workplace with loyalists while pushing out anyone who ever stood up for me. A while later, Lance added a comment of his own. Lance: [The company is like a family. Please treat it as one. I'm sure you're all aware of certain malicious intentions from an outside party, but I urge you not to pay them any mind.] He never identified the "outside party," but everyone knew who he meant. Lucinda even pinned his comment to the top. Their little performance bored me, so I closed the app. After I handed my identification documents to the hospital staff, they escorted me to the mortuary. My father lay inside the metallic drawer, his face ashen and bloodless. It was hard to believe this was the same man who had promised, just two days earlier, that he would come visit and stay with me for a while. Here, he looked utterly lifeless. I blinked back tears. When I first received the news, I called Lance immediately. He told me he needed to leave on a business trip. "The police won't release the body until they've completed their investigation, so just wait for me. Don't worry about it." Then, despite all my pleading, he left for his trip. Five hours later, he appeared in Lucinda's status update. So his business was Lucinda's birthday. His trip was to her place. "The weather has been quite warm lately, so it would be difficult to continue storing Mr. Carter's body here. We recommend proceeding with cremation as soon as possible," one of the staff members said as he handed me a document acknowledging the release of the body. Chapter 2 I signed the document, and the cremation proceeded. There was no need to inform my mother. My parents had already divorced, and my father never remarried. My grandparents were too old for news like this. During the process, a colleague sent me a screenshot of Lucinda's latest status. It showed two three-day passes to a famous theme park. I searched the social media site, only to discover that she had blocked me. A message popped up in the chat: [Brianna, do you know Mr. Mitchell's taking Lucinda on a trip?] I tightened my grip on my phone. The message wasn't sent out of concern for me. It was just another one of Lucinda's lackeys doing her dirty work. She had no shortage of toadies eager to provoke me and fish for a reaction. I turned off the screen and carried my father's urn with me to the courthouse. Our divorce agreement had already been prepared the month before. Lance had signed it without hesitation. Back then… Watching him approve it without even checking the contents prompted me to ask, "Are you sure you don't want to read what's written there?" He set down his pen and pushed the document back toward me. "Why? I trust you enough!" he said impatiently. The Lance I knew in the past would never have relied on trust alone. No matter how meticulous I was, he always reviewed my reports himself to ensure everything was up to standard. None of that applied to Lucinda. Every document she submitted passed without review. I had voiced my concerns before, but he was completely unfazed. "The document is complicated. I might end up requesting amendments that make things worse because I made mistakes while reviewing it." "If a complicated document could confuse you, why wouldn't it confuse Lucinda?" I argued. He chuckled. "She's my secretary. Of course I trust her." … At the time, I thought he had simply changed. Then I watched him draft three different project proposals for Lucinda as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and I realized it wasn't trust that had made him stop reviewing documents and reading the fine print. He simply had something more important to him. A month had passed since we submitted our divorce agreement. It was time to make it official. The clerk handed me a form and said, "We need Mr. Mitchell to be here and sign this personally before it can be finalized. Where is he?" I checked Lance's flight details. "He's taken his new girlfriend on a trip." The clerk paused and looked at me sympathetically. "I see. Still, we need at least a verbal confirmation from Mr. Mitchell to proceed if he cannot be here in person." I nodded and called him. It took three attempts before he finally answered at the end of the third call. "How dare you call me when you still haven't deleted that comment like I told you to?! She's still waiting for your apology! If you're not going to do those things, then we're never retrieving your father's body from the hospital!" he barked the moment he answered. It was his favorite tactic. Whenever I refused to do what he wanted, he resorted to threats. He was especially fond of using them whenever the issue involved Lucinda. If she felt upset, he would immediately assume that I was at fault and demand an apology, regardless of the truth. One time, I needed surgery after a serious injury, and a direct family member had to sign the consent form. He told me I had to apologize to Lucinda or he would refuse to sign it. If my condition worsened to the point that I had to lose a leg, all the better. It would be a lesson I would never forget, he had said. After that, he hung up. I tried calling again, but he had already switched off his phone. "This tells you his position on the matter, right?" I asked. The clerk nodded and continued processing my paperwork while I waited for more than 20 minutes with my father's urn resting on my lap. Many people in the hall noticed me and looked at me with pity. I brushed my fingers lightly through his ashes. Then, suddenly, Lance called. "Where are you?! Why aren't you at the company?!" I stared out the window in silence. He didn't ask any further questions. He never really cared where I was. "Wherever you are, go to Lucy's house and feed her goldfish. Also, clean and tidy her room while you're there," he demanded. "No, let's not ask Brianna to do that. She's already busy enough as it is!" Lucinda said worriedly from the side. "I can just hire a cleaning service." Chapter 3 Lance wasn't the least bit fazed. "If she were really busy, she'd be in her office instead of coasting on past achievements and wasting valuable work hours scrolling through social media!" he snarled. "She didn't even apologize to you. In fact, she had the nerve to throw a tantrum over some well-deserved criticism!" I clenched my fist. The company's success was the result of both our efforts. My projects had consistently generated returns on our investments over the years. Yet instead of showing gratitude, he repaid me by systematically stripping away my authority within the company. I had let it slide time and again because, at the end of the day, this was the man I had married and promised to spend the rest of my life with. However, he didn't stop there. Instead, he used his authority as CEO to promote Lucinda and grant her powers and privileges that no secretary could, or should, possess. He had deliberately silenced anyone who spoke out against it. One time, Lucinda forgot she had an entire proposal to draft. The client was so furious that the deal nearly fell through. Lance still wanted to protect her, so he blamed me and demanded that I take responsibility. "Do you know how wrong you are, Brianna?!" he snarled. I nodded to myself. "I sure know how wrong I was now." This marriage had lasted a decade. I couldn't believe I had been blind for so long, trapping myself in this torment for all those years. I was ridiculous. He seemed pleased with my answer. Even his tone softened. "Then you should make amends. You can start by feeding her goldfish before cleaning her room. And I do mean putting in some elbow grease." I could almost hear my bones creak as I clenched my fists tighter. "Not a chance." His voice rose sharply. "What did you just say?!" I hung up before he could launch into another torrent of verbal abuse. The clerk handed me a notice. "The review process takes three days. Please be patient." I nodded. Three days was enough time. Lance should be back by then. … The first thing I did after getting home was arrange a memorial service for my father. I wrote and posted his obituary on my account: [I've lost another person who truly loved me today.] The post immediately drew skepticism. One commenter wrote: [What a high-level narcissistic attention-seeker. Is she using her dad to get Mr. Mitchell's attention now?!] Many of my online "friends" were actually employees and colleagues I had once supervised, but most of them were close to Lucinda. Very few believed me when I said my father had passed away. … My father had opposed our marriage at first. After seeing how much I wanted to be with Lance, he softened his stance and finally gave his blessing. But the experience had left a wound on Lance's ego that never healed. Over the past ten years, he had never once shared a meal with my father. He had never even referred to him as his father-in-law. I had explained why my father had been reserved at first, but Lance never listened. Then one day, I overheard a conversation between him and Lucinda. Apparently, he had never wanted to acknowledge my father because he was originally "just a backwater bumpkin." In Lance's eyes, my father was beneath him. He mocked him and treated him like garbage. At the same time, though, he called Lucinda's father "Dad." That man was nothing more than a construction worker! The room originally reserved for my father had been forcibly converted into a storage room. Lance was that opposed to my father's presence. Every time my father came to visit me, he had to stay in a hotel. A millionaire forced to stay in a budget inn every single visit. No one would have believed it if I told them. … A group gathered at the door. They were my relatives from my father's side of the family, so I welcomed them inside and served refreshments. "Brianna, dear... I'm sorry for your loss," one of them said. "You were all he had left." Laura, one of my distant relatives, arrived in an elegant dress. She scanned the room and asked, "Where's Lance?" Chapter 4 Not a single one of them even glanced at my father's photo. "No way. So the rumors are true? You're just using your dad for clout?" "I can't believe you! No wonder Lance ended up with his secretary. How much of a failure does a wife have to be to lose her own husband to another woman?" "I was hoping to introduce him to my niece. Everyone knows the best son-in-law is a rich one!" Laura admitted. My knuckles turned white. All they cared about was how wealthy Lance was. I had naively believed they came because they still cared about their relative and wanted to pay their final respects. But no one gave a damn about my father or me, after all. I pointed at the door and shouted, "Get out!" The crowd froze in shock. Laura tried to salvage the situation by guilt-tripping me, but I wasn't having it. When no one showed any sign of leaving, I grabbed the nearest floral spray and started swinging it at them until they fled. "Get out! All of you, get out!" I yelled before slamming the door shut in their bewildered faces. They ranted and whined on the porch for a while before finally leaving. It was just me and my father again. "I guess I'm the only one here to say goodbye. I hope you don't mind," I muttered as I tidied the room and picked up the urn to place it in a columbarium. … My eyes were puffy and sore when I showed up at the office the next day. I came with only one goal: to hand in my resignation letter. Idle chatter was already underway when I stepped into the HR office. Apparently, Lance had moved Lucinda into an office of her own, and the company was even renovating it for her. "Mr. Mitchell really dotes on her, huh? She has her own office now, and he's paying to get her into a new home!" a woman said. "I wish I had a CEO boyfriend like that..." Someone noticed my arrival and hushed, "Ms. Carter!" The woman pursed her lips and greeted me reluctantly, "Good morning." I handed over my resignation letter. "I'm leaving today." They were stunned. The department head, Monique, responded reflexively. "You can't resign immediately. You need to wait for two weeks—" "I can. I have the right to resign whenever I want. Mr. Mitchell signed a document granting me that right." It was an agreement I had made with him a month earlier. I would take the blame and be held responsible for the losses caused by Lucinda's forgetfulness. In exchange, he would allow me to quit whenever I wanted and give me the freedom to compete against him in the same industry. He had sneered from his luxurious chair, "I'll sign if you agree to take this shit off Lucy's hands. But do you really want to quit? I doubt it. No other company out there would be willing to give you so many benefits. You won't find a position this good anywhere else, I guarantee it. "Don't do anything rash just because you're itching to throw a fit. I'm only helping Lucy because I feel sorry for her, that's all. You don't have to be so dramatic over nothing." He had assumed it was an impulsive decision. He couldn't have been more wrong. I had planned to resign the moment Lance abused his authority as CEO to promote Lucinda to chief secretary and give her the power to hire and fire employees. "Just sign it. I'll take the blame," I had said. … After verifying my documents, the HR department got to work. As I waited, I could already hear the gossip spreading. "She sure has a lot of tricks up her sleeve." "She knows she can't get Mr. Mitchell to look at her, even after turning her father's death into a melodrama, so now she's moving on to her next backup plan. It's pathetic." I ignored them and let the gossip continue. Once I received my formal discharge letter, I left without giving the company a final glance. … Three days passed. I arrived at the courthouse early to receive my divorce decree. I had also managed to see all the posts Lucinda had shared on social media. She must have unblocked me. They all appeared to have been posted within those three days. Chapter 5 I scrolled through the posts. Every place Lance took her was somewhere he had once promised to take me but never did. His promises had been fulfilled, along with the photography skills he had learned to take flattering pictures of me. But the woman who got to enjoy all of it was Lucinda, not the wife he had spent the last ten years with. Under one of the photos, I found a comment where Lance identified himself as her boyfriend. He used to do all of this for me. Now it was all part of Lucinda's experience. I doubted he would be back anytime soon. He seemed to be having far too much fun. … I took the divorce decree with me and went to a restaurant I had always liked. To my surprise, I overheard the laughter and chatter of Lance, his family, and Lucinda. They had apparently reserved a private room, but the door was slightly ajar. His mother, Leah Vedel, held Lucinda's hand affectionately and looked at her son. Leah said, "She's such an angel, dear. Divorce that one and bring her into the family already! Don't you know how insufferable Brianna has been all these years? "It's been a decade, and she still puts on airs whenever she's around us, as if she's too good for us! Pfft. Arrogant girl. She wouldn't even give you a child!" "But this darling? I heard she's incredibly capable. She brings in huge profits for the company and gets along with everyone with ease! "What you're missing in your life is a sweet, warm-hearted cheerleader, Lance. She's that girl!" Lucinda lowered her head as though embarrassed while stealing a glance at Lance's reaction. Lance took a quiet sip of his coffee. "I've been married to Brianna for ten years. A divorce could attract unnecessary attention and bad press." He conveniently left out the fact that we were childless only because he never wanted children, and that every one of Lucinda's so-called achievements had been built on other people's work and claimed as her own. I was about to enter the room when Marlene, Lance's sister, chimed in, "Really?! You think people are going to think you're weird for that? Get with the times already! People divorce for far less, even after being with someone much longer! "Honestly? I hate having Brianna as my sister-in-law. She's embarrassing to talk about. People at school have been laughing at me because of her!" "I know, right?!" Nolan, his brother, added. "Just marry Lucy already, Lance. She's better than Brianna in every way. I really don't want to be the laughingstock of my class when the next semester starts." These two ingrates had only gotten into university because of me. I had found the best tutors to give them private SAT prep. I was the one who had contacted college administrators to help secure their admission. I had even tutored them myself when they struggled with their coursework. And now I was suddenly too embarrassing for them? I let out a snicker. Ingratitude clearly ran in this family. They even used the same excuses to put me down. Back when I invested so much of my money and effort into the company, Leah had praised me to the skies. She would tell everyone she met that I was the best daughter-in-law anyone could ask for. She would go on and on about how I was Lance's greatest blessing. Now? The company was bringing in huge profits, so they no longer needed me. Suddenly, I had become the stain on their otherwise perfect record. I pushed the door open and told the waitress, "I don't need my own room, thanks." Lucinda and the Mitchells froze in surprise. Lance quickly took another sip of his coffee to hide his expression. He managed to put on a frown and asked, "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be working?" I wondered whether he already knew I had quit. My resignation had caused quite a stir, after all. There was no way no one had reported it to Lucinda. And since he had apparently been spending the last three days with her, why would he be unaware? Besides, HR must have emailed him about it. If Lucinda had quit her job, I was certain that he would have noticed much sooner. I met his gaze. "I've resigned. I can be anywhere I want." Chapter 6 "Who approved that?!" Lance shot back instantly. I noticed he didn't ask why I had left. Leah reeled. When she realized that meant I was effectively unemployed, she snapped. "How shameless are you, Brianna?! You're already a terrible wife! And now you're going to live off his money like a parasite?! Damn it! I swear to God, I should have forbidden this marriage back then!" she snarled, trembling with fury. Lucinda quickly stepped in to console her. Lance's expression darkened. "Fine. Resign all you want. But let me burst your bubble right now. I'm not paying your allowance. You're on your own." His siblings immediately chimed in, "Wait! That means there's a vacancy at the company! This is perfect! Lucinda can take the position! She's more than qualified for it!" Leah nodded at once. Lance hesitated for a moment before agreeing. How ridiculous. A few well-placed remarks were all Lucinda needed to become the company's COO. It took her less than a minute, yet I had spent ten years earning that position. The way Lance pretended to give it serious thought made me laugh. I was about to point it out when Lucinda suddenly jumped to her feet and put on a show of gratitude. "Thank you for believing in me, Lance, everyone. I promise I won't let any of you down." She turned to me and flashed a triumphant smile before handing me a gift box. "I know you've been upset with me these past few days, so I prepared a care package as a gesture of goodwill. Please accept my sincerest apology." As she pushed the box toward me, the diamond ring on her finger caught the light. The gesture was anything but subtle. I had already seen the ring on her Instagram post. The matching one was on Lance's finger. I snickered. "Sorry, but your idea of an apology is giving someone a box of free samples?" I already had the same gift box. It was part of a promotional campaign. Anyone could get one without buying anything. "How could you say that?!" Lance immediately protested. "Free samples?! She took the time to pick those gifts out for you!" Lucinda lowered her gaze and stood beside him as though deeply hurt. "It's fine. I shouldn't be surprised Brianna thinks it's cheap. I don't have the money to buy anything better, after all." Nolan and Marlene immediately grabbed the box. "No! Don't say that! She's just being an asshole, Lucy!" Even Leah slammed her glass onto the table in outrage. "We've had just about enough of your attitude, Brianna! You and Lance are clearly incompatible. You're not good enough for him. Divorce is the only way forward!" I caught the slight curl of Lucinda's lips, but when she looked up again, she wore a sorrowful expression. "Mrs. Mitchell, that's too harsh. They've been together for so long! I don't think Lance would be happy with that." The Mitchells turned to him with bated breath as he walked toward me. "This is too much, Brianna. You were out of line. You shouldn't have mocked Lucy's goodwill like that," he reprimanded. "Apologize now and transfer your client list to her. Do that, and I won't divorce you." I couldn't hold it in any longer and laughed scornfully. This bastard was still trying to pave the way for Lucinda's success. "Save your breath," I sneered, raising the divorce decree right in front of his face. "We're already divorced."