He Spoiled His Ex's Daughter While Starving His Own

The upscale family restaurant. The transfers to Denise Simmons and her daughter. Tuition for Mia's international preschool. And gifts too many to count. Every single charge was a big one—several thousand at the low end, tens of thousands at the high end. None of it was an investment. All of it had been spent on Denise and her little girl. In disbelief, I dialed his friend Rupert Butler. "Rupert, how did that investment you and Oliver made last month turn out?" I heard my own voice tremble. Rupert didn't suspect a thing. He laughed and laid it all out. "Real good, actually. We turned a tidy little profit—somewhere around a hundred thousand. Oliver didn't tell you? The flights and hotel for your trip to Aspen, that's what he used the money for." There was a roaring in my ears, and my mind went blank. "When was this?" Rupert caught nothing wrong. He was still teasing. "End of last month. I'm the one who booked the hotel for him—a five-star deluxe suite, for a full two weeks! You two are living larger by the day, I swear." The end of last month. He'd canceled the trip he promised Cynthia, then turned around and set up a resort getaway in Europe for his first love and her daughter. My heart gave a sudden lurch, and I could almost feel the pain of it, sharp and real. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, how could I ever have believed it? Stingy with his own flesh-and-blood daughter, lavish with his first love's child, willing even to lie to and deceive his own wife and daughter. Everything Cynthia had gone without—the money, the affection—he'd poured it all into another child instead. My heart went cold all the way through. I forwarded the bank statements to the lawyer. "I want all of our marital assets recovered, and I want the divorce done as fast as possible." Then, without another moment's hesitation, I signed Cynthia up for a new summer camp. Not the five-thousand-dollar trip around Chicago. The one she'd been dreaming of—the kind where she'd get to visit more than a dozen countries. A second after the hundred and fifty thousand went through, Oliver called. His voice couldn't contain the fury in it. "Isabel, what are you doing spending that kind of money?" I forced down the emotions churning inside me and spoke calmly. "I signed Cynthia up for the European grand-tour camp." The line went silent for a few seconds. Then came his simmering voice. "Isabel, have you lost your mind? "Five thousand for the Chicago trip already put a strain on our finances, and now you've got the nerve to blow a hundred and fifty grand? Refund it. Right now." I gave a cold laugh in my heart and, in a tone of feigned innocence, deliberately echoed the very words he'd said to Denise. "Oliver, don't bother making excuses. I've already paid." "I even booked Cynthia a first-class seat, so she'll arrive comfortable and settled, and can call to let us know she's safe." Oliver's face must have gone darker still, like a ball of fire ricocheting around inside his chest. He shut his eyes and argued through his temper. "Isabel, I've told you. My investment ran into some trouble, and the rest of this money—we're supposed to be saving it for Cynthia to use when she's grown." "Have you even thought about it? Throwing money around like this, what happens to Cynthia in the future?" He didn't catch the meaning underneath my words. He was still fobbing me off with the same old lines. I curled my lips in a mocking half-smile and shot back. "That money of yours—will it even last until Cynthia grows up?" "What's that supposed to mean?" I didn't answer. I hung up on him. I moved half the money into my personal account and headed straight for the mall with the rest. Designer bags for myself. High-end skincare. Gold jewelry. The clothes, the easel, the outdoor gear Oliver had refused to buy for Cynthia—I bought all of it.

Every dollar he'd spent on Denise, I spent right back, all in one go. I'd barely sat down to rest at the coffee shop when my phone started buzzing like mad. He must have gotten the payment alerts on his end and couldn't wait to confront me. I didn't pick up a single call. I just caught a cab and went home. Not long after I got in, Oliver came rushing back too. His clothes were rumpled, sweat beading along his hairline. He hadn't even waited for the workday to end. He'd taken time off and come straight home. The moment he saw the designer shopping bags and jewelry boxes spread across the coffee table, his face went ashen. His voice shot up, none of his usual composure left. "Isabel, who gave you permission to touch the money in that account? Who told you to transfer it out? And then you turned around and blew this much of what was left? What the hell has gotten into you?" I let out a soundless laugh and watched him rage, perfectly calm. "This is marital property. Part of it is mine too." "So you get to squander it out there, but I'm not allowed to spend a single cent? Is that it?" That lit the fuse completely. It was as though I'd struck his deepest nerve, and he lost it entirely. "You're completely out of your mind!" He jabbed a finger at me, chest heaving, every word laced with threat. "I'm telling you one last time. Transfer that money back right now, return every one of these things, and put back every cent you spent, down to the last dollar!" "If you don't, we're getting divorced. Now." I raised my eyes to him, and not a flicker of panic stirred inside me. "Then let's divorce." Divorced or not, that money is mine by right. And I wasn't just going to divorce him. I was going to claw back every dollar Oliver had ever given Denise. He'd never seen me stand my ground like this before. He froze for an instant, then the fury swallowed him whole. "Isabel, what kind of spell has been put on you? You're just going to throw away a perfectly good family?" He hurled the glass off the coffee table, and with a shrill shatter, he slammed the door and was gone. Watching his furious back disappear, I felt strangely more at peace. This family had fallen apart long ago. He was the one who threw it away first. After Oliver left, I opened his computer and went through the accounts he followed on social media. No new follows. I clicked through them one by one, and found that the very first account he'd followed had recently started posting again. 【New York. Reunited with him. A new beginning in life.】 The photo was a selfie of hers. Honestly, Denise wasn't young anymore. Fine lines fanned out at the corners of her eyes, the wear of the years plain to see. But those eyes still shimmered, soft and full of tenderness. I photographed the picture with my phone, memorized her account, then kept scrolling. A screenshot of a chat log came into view. I recognized the profile picture at once. It was Oliver. 【Denise, let me buy you a house.】 My chest tightened, and my breathing slowed for a few seconds. Denise demurred a few times, but he was insistent. 【When we were together, I couldn't give you a good life. I've saved some money now, enough for you and Mia to buy a small place.】 【You and Mia just got to New York. Living in some cramped old rental isn't right for you.】 Denise asked: 【Oliver, aren't you afraid your wife will find out and give you grief over it?】 It took him a few minutes to reply: 【Most of that money I earned. How I spend it is my business, and she has no say in it.】 【Let's meet this weekend. I'll bring you the bank card.】 My temples throbbed, every drop of blood in me boiling. We had agreed. That savings was supposed to be Cynthia's tuition, her cushion, her security.

How could he just give it all away? If I hadn't found out, the fallout would have been unthinkable. I was shaking with rage when the computer chimed. Denise had posted again, just now. The photo showed Oliver holding a little girl, the location tagged at an upscale steakhouse. I hailed a cab and rushed over, and the moment I laid eyes on Denise, my head went blank. She was nothing like the woman in the pictures on her account. In those photos she wore plain, simple clothes, her hair pulled into a loose bun at the back, her face worn by hardship. But the Denise in front of me was decked out in designer clothes and jewelry, her hair carefully styled. Her skin was several shades fairer, too, obviously a regular at some high-end salon. It had only been three short months, and she'd been pampered into looking more than ten years younger. Numbly, I opened the front camera on my phone and stared at the woman in the frame, my complexion sallow, dark shadows ringing my eyes. I hadn't taken care of myself in ages. Oliver had really let me waste away. The three of them sat at the best table, the spread in front of them laid out with foie gras and steak, the works. I thought back to our anniversary last year, when I'd tugged at his hand and coaxed, "Let's have the day to ourselves. How about we go out for a candlelit dinner together?" He'd knit his brows and refused. "What's so great about Western food? Expensive and it doesn't even fill you up." Then he'd turned around and taken me to a noodle shop, where he ordered one twenty-dollar bowl of beef noodles. Back home, I calmly gathered together all the evidence I'd collected recently. The bank statements, his chat logs with Denise, and the rest all went to the lawyer in one batch. The lawyer worked fast. The very next day, he sent a cease-and-desist legal notice to both Oliver and Denise. While Cynthia and I were having dinner, he came barging in, disheveled. I glanced unhurriedly at Oliver, who was panting for breath, and gave Cynthia's little head a pat. "Be good, sweetheart. Mommy will bring your dinner in, and you can eat in your room." "Okay." The moment Cynthia's door shut, he couldn't wait to demand, "Why do you have to blow this up into such a big deal? "Denise and I have nothing going on, none of it. I just saw how hard things were for her and her daughter, and I lent a hand out of the goodness of my heart, that's all! Was it really necessary to humiliate her with a legal notice?" I looked at his face, flushing white and pale by turns, and ladled out a bowl of soup. "Fresh abalone and fish maw soup. Want some?" Beside himself, Oliver slammed the bowl down and grabbed me, trying to drag me out the door. "You sent that notice to Denise's workplace, made it so she can't even hold her head up. You're coming with me right now to apologize and withdraw it!" I flung his hand off hard and picked up the receipts on the coffee table. "You say you were helping out of the goodness of your heart?" I repeated his words back to him, a cold little smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. "Cynthia wanted to go to a five-thousand-dollar summer camp and you cried poverty and forbade it. A pair of sneakers that pinched her feet, you dragged it out for half a month and wouldn't buy them. "And then you turn around and spend fifty thousand dollars on her daughter, take them to a fancy steakhouse, and you even wanted to hand over our entire savings to buy her a house. "You're telling me that's simply helping out?" "That was a special situation!" He rushed to argue, his chest heaving violently. "How hard is it for a woman raising a child all on her own? Anyone who saw it would feel for her! We're family. If we each cut back a little, we can get through it!" "So my daughter and I deserve to scrape by on what you dole out, while an outsider gets to live it up on our marital assets?" I cut him off, my voice going cold. He froze for a moment, then finally softened his tone. Bella, I admit I spent money without any sense of limits, but I swear I never had any bad intentions. I really was just helping her out. Can't you just withdraw the legal notice? Let's settle this privately, no need to blow it up any bigger. I tapped my fingertip against the dense rows of transfer records on the table and said calmly, You call it helping. So this hundred-plus thousand, that counts as a loan, does it? He froze hard. His lips moved twice, but nothing came out. I went on, slow and deliberate, one word at a time, the last syllable lifting ever so slightly. If it's a loan, then call her right now. Tell her to come here and sign an IOU in person.