His Secret Empire, Her Shattered Heart

Freda shot Dirk a playful, reproachful look, her tone dripping with feigned exasperation. "My boyfriend knows I can't stand scallions, so he always picks them out for me." "I told him I couldn't handle the taste, and he just... stopped eating them entirely. The CEO of Butler Group, making his kitchen staff leave out scallions even at business dinners!" A year ago, Dirk—who had never been a picky eater—suddenly announced he didn't eat scallions anymore. I'd assumed his stomach couldn't handle the irritation, so I'd been careful with every meal I cooked. Turns out, it was all to accommodate Freda's preferences. "Now everyone in his circle calls him whipped!" Freda beamed as she complained, radiating happiness. I stood rooted to the spot, cold seeping through every inch of my body. She didn't notice anything off about me. She kept eating, nodding between bites. "This really is good. Leave me your number—I'll reach out to you directly next time." Dirk's expression cooled. His voice dropped low. "You're just the hired cook. Don't overstep." The warning in his tone cut through me, and a bitter wave of indignation surged up from somewhere deep inside. I was the one who'd been with him first. So why was I being treated like the other woman? My chest burned. I opened my mouth, the impulse to confront him clawing at my throat. Then he pulled Freda into his arms, and his eyes locked on mine—hard, vicious. The hostility in that stare was so foreign it stole the words right out of me. Freda's face was pressed against his chest, oblivious to the look he'd given me. "Dirk? What's wrong?" The sight of them together stung so badly my vision blurred. I mumbled an excuse about having somewhere to be and practically fled, stumbling out the door. My phone buzzed. A message from Dirk. Be home tonight. We need to talk. What was left to talk about? When we'd first gotten together, I'd even teased him once. "Your last name is Butler, and you work at Butler Group? Don't tell me you're secretly the CEO." I blamed myself for being so oblivious. I never followed business news, never questioned anything he told me. Whatever came out of his mouth, I believed. A quick search told me everything. Dirk Butler was the sole heir to the Butler family, wielding enormous power at a remarkably young age. And I'd met him five years ago, waiting tables at a coffee shop. He'd never breathed a word of it. Looking back, the signs had been everywhere. He'd told me his clothes were thrift-store finds, bargain-bin deals. But the fabric, the tailoring—they were finer than anything you'd find at a designer boutique. He complained about being overworked and underpaid, but his hands were smooth. Not a single callus. I'd scrimped and saved for nearly six months to buy him a mid-range designer watch for his birthday. He never wore it. Not once. When I asked why, he'd pinched my cheek and smiled, all warm and indulgent. "It's a gift from my girl. I'd feel bad wearing it out." Now I understood. It wasn't that he couldn't bear to wear it. He'd been embarrassed by it. A watch like that was beneath a man of his status. The tears came before I could stop them. I cried the entire walk home. Late that night, I heard the front door. Dirk stepped inside and found me sitting there, face streaked with tears. Something flickered across his features—pain, maybe guilt—and he crossed the room to pull me into his arms. Then he sighed. "Celeste, don't blame me." "Freda's still in college. She's young, carefree." "But you... all you think about anymore is work and money. You can't even go out for our anniversary without using a discount coupon." The words hit me like a bolt of lightning. Six months ago, Dirk had told me he'd gotten a promotion and a raise. I'd scraped together enough to buy two discount vouchers for a high-end steakhouse to celebrate. I'd told him about it with so much excitement on my face, practically glowing. And Dirk's expression had gone cold.

He'd slammed the door and left that night. We parted on the worst of terms. But just now, scrolling through Freda's social media, I learned the truth. That same night, he'd been on a luxury yacht, throwing a party for her. A single bottle of champagne from that party cost more than hundreds of discount coupons. I suddenly felt like a joke. Dirk had raised Freda like a hothouse flower while watching me grind myself down just to survive, and he had the nerve to call me shallow? A violent cramp seized my stomach, and I doubled over, gagging. Dirk panicked and grabbed me by the shoulders. "Celeste, what's wrong?" "Don't touch me!" I shoved his hands away with every ounce of strength I had and forced myself to stand straight. Tears trembled on the edge of falling. "We're done. This is it." "Just go. Don't come looking for me again." Dirk stared at me, eyes full of hurt. I turned away so I wouldn't have to see it. A sigh came from behind me. "Celeste, whatever you're thinking, I never wanted us to end." "But if you insist on blowing this out of proportion, maybe we both need to cool down." His voice had gone cold. I closed my eyes and let the tears slide down my face. Only when I heard the door shut did my body give out, as though every last drop of strength had been wrung from me. The cramping in my abdomen became unbearable, and I crumpled to the floor. In the dead of night, my phone rang. I sighed, answered without looking at the screen. "Don't call anymore. We're breaking—" Freda's voice cut in, thick with tears. "Celeste, I think my boyfriend is cheating on me. What do I do?" "He just left out of nowhere tonight, and he still isn't back." "What else could it be besides sneaking off to see some woman? He used to tell me everywhere he went!" I didn't respond. Or rather, I had no idea how to. What was I supposed to say? That the man who spoiled her rotten was actually my boyfriend? I listened to the sobbing on the other end of the line, then silently pressed the button to hang up. I didn't sleep at all. The next morning, I dragged myself to work with dark circles under both eyes. Exhausted, I made my way home, only to find Freda standing outside my apartment complex. The moment she spotted me, she threw herself at me. "Please, can I stay with you?" I didn't dare let anything show. I played dumb. "Doesn't your boyfriend have money? Did you two have a fight?" Freda's eyes turned red instantly. "He cheated on me. I refuse to spend a single cent of his!" "I'm still in college. Besides you, none of my classmates even like me. I have nowhere else to go." She cried so pitifully that I couldn't bring myself to refuse. I took her home. Inside my cramped rental, the atmosphere was impossibly awkward. Freda sniffled. "Honestly, I don't really believe he cheated. I just feel insecure, you know? I wanted to throw a little tantrum so he'd care about me more." "Dirk doesn't know you, so there's no way he'd think to look for me here." There was a hint of smugness in her voice. I listened and had nothing to say. Freda didn't notice my silence. She wandered around the apartment on her own little tour. "So, things aren't that great between you and your boyfriend, huh?" I froze. Freda was pointing at the box of ultra-thin condoms in my drawer, a sly grin spreading across her face. "If things were good, why would the packaging still be sealed?" A blush crept over her cheeks. "My boyfriend is insatiable. Every time, he wears me out completely. We never run out of condoms at our place." "Oh, funny coincidence. I like the lemon-flavored ones too. I always make him buy this exact brand!"

My mind went blank. Life had been so exhausting that Dirk and I rarely had time for intimacy. Two months ago, he'd come home and this box of condoms had fallen out of his jacket pocket. I'd assumed he'd bought the lemon-flavored ones on purpose, and I'd felt a little shy about it. They were for Freda all along? The humiliation crashed over me like a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. Freda was still rambling, oblivious: "I get the feeling your boyfriend doesn't really love you that much. Otherwise, why would he let you live in a place like this?" "My boyfriend always says, where the money goes, that's where the love is. So he makes sure I get nothing but the best." Her tone was so innocent, so breezy. To me, it was the cruelest thing I'd ever heard. I smiled bitterly. Dirk understood the importance of money perfectly well. He just didn't see the point of spending it on me. I had never once experienced the kind of devotion he showed her. Every word out of Freda's mouth was a knife, slicing me apart piece by piece. I practically fled to the bathroom. When I came back to the living room, Freda was holding my phone, staring at the screen with a blank expression. My pupils contracted. I'd left in such a rush that I'd forgotten to lock the screen. Freda's voice was barely above a whisper: "What a coincidence. Your boyfriend's name is Dirk Butler too?" My hands and feet went ice cold. Before I could get a single word out, the front door rattled. "Celeste, I picked up that cake you like..." Dirk pushed the door open. His eyes met Freda's where she sat on the couch. "You're a piece of garbage!" Freda slapped him across the face and ran out crying. Dirk's composure shattered in an instant. He turned to me, glaring with a fury I had never seen before: "I told you, I never planned on leaving you! Why would you hurt Freda like this!" "You think this is going to scare her off? Not a chance! The more jealous you act, the more I'm going to protect her!" He rushed after Freda, shoving away the hand I'd raised to explain. The motion was so forceful it knocked the piggy bank off the shelf. Porcelain shattered across the floor, and a cascade of coins spilled out with it. I didn't even register the shard that sliced my ankle. I just stood there, staring at the coins scattered on the ground. Those first few years after I'd started working, the hours were brutal and the pay was almost nothing. Dirk had gone out and bought that piggy bank, told me to toss in whatever loose change I had. He'd joked that we'd save up enough for a big apartment someday. He forgot about it eventually. I never did. Sometimes I'd go to the farmers' market and ask the vendors to break bills into coins, just so I'd have something to drop in. As if filling that jar would somehow mean Dirk and I would finally have a home of our own. I crouched down and started counting the coins, one by one. Most of them were dimes and nickels. There were barely any quarters. It wasn't much. But it was enough for a plane ticket out of here. I didn't know what Dirk said to Freda after he caught up with her. That night, a post went viral. Freda had put her name on it, publicly accusing me of being a homewrecker. She claimed I'd used cooking as a cover story to hunt for a sugar daddy and seduce her boyfriend. She sobbed through the whole video, tears streaming down her face: "We just had a little fight, that's all. I never imagined someone like her existed! If my boyfriend didn't love only me, she might've actually stolen him away!" She let my phone number, personal details, and address slip into the post, as if by accident. Within minutes, my phone was overwhelmed. The insults poured in, hundreds of them, each one more vile than the last. A deafening crash outside my door. Someone had hurled a bucket of red paint across it. On the wall beside it, someone had scrawled the words HOMEWRECKER and SHAMELESS. I was shaking with rage. I wanted to find Dirk and demand answers.

I had barely stepped outside when something slammed into the side of my head. A rock. The pain at my temple was blinding, white-hot. In the last second before consciousness slipped away, I heard a voice dripping with contempt: "Homewrecking slut thinks she can just waltz around in public? You deserve to die!" When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital. The nurse told me not to be too upset. I could always have another baby. I stared at her blankly. My hand drifted to my flat stomach, and only then did the recent changes in my body click into place. What surged up alongside the pain was a bitter, crushing irony. Your own child, Dirk. Was this what you wanted? The next day, I dragged my weakened body back to the apartment, only to find my landlord standing at the door with her arms crossed and fury in her eyes. "Get out. I don't rent to homewreckers who destroy other people's relationships!" She would rather forfeit my deposit than let me stay another night. I wheeled my suitcase past her, and she spat on the ground behind me. "Disgusting! Looking all prim and proper, but you're nothing but a shameless tramp!" Dirk called me. His voice was low, measured. "Celeste, I never wanted us to split up. But you hurt Freda. There has to be some consequence for that." "She's calmed down now. You can come back to Butler Group anytime. Celeste, I really do want to protect you." I hung up. The nausea that had been building in my chest finally broke loose, and I doubled over, retching. He probably assumed I had nowhere left to turn. That he was my only option. What he didn't know was that I'd already been planning to leave. I flagged down a cab headed for the airport. The post sitting in my drafts folder was already polished and ready. Freda wasn't the only one who knew how to go public. Laid out on a timeline, the truth was unmistakable: Freda was the real other woman. The one everyone should have been cursing. I hit send. Then I turned and took one last look at the city I'd poured seven years of my life into. And I boarded a plane heading south. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, an assistant burst into Dirk's office in a panic. "Mr. Butler, Ms. Finch just posted your entire relationship timeline online!" "She's saying Ms. Henson was the other woman!"