2: 2
My feet froze on the spot.
Was this the same woman who had always been so warm with me, who called me "sweetheart" in every other breath?
My father's face darkened in an instant, but he didn't storm in to cut them off.
James James set down his teacup and drawled out his reply.
"Exactly. You can't spoil a woman."
"What good is a high salary? The more she earns, the less she listens, the harder she is to manage!"
"I say we wait until after the wedding, make her quit that job, and have her stay home and raise kids like she should."
Camille James nodded at once.
"Right. The most important thing for a woman is to support her husband and raise the children. Parading around out there all day, what does that look like!"
"And no more of that no-kids nonsense. That would cut off the James family line. Just wait, I won't just make her have kids, she'll give me three boys!"
My fingertips curled in, tighter and tighter, and something sat like a stone in my chest.
How could a person put on such an act?
Just yesterday.
She had held my hand, smiling, and said to me:
"Sweetheart, you're so accomplished. I'm the first to support a woman having her own career."
James James had stood right there backing her up, even joking that Calvin would be the perfect househusband for me.
I never imagined they'd already been plotting over my womb behind my back.
"That's right. For someone like her, and she still has the nerve to ask for eighteen thousand in engagement gifts? I say we give her a token ten thousand and one and be done with it!"
James James clicked his tongue.
"But the house and the car she brings, my son's name goes on all of it from now on!"
Camille James was thinking of something, and her eyes narrowed with her smile.
"Right. My son's about to make supervisor. The house has to have our son's name on it."
"And later we'll make her hand over her paycheck too. She earns that well, we can't let her family reap the benefit!"
"Enough, that's enough!"
My heart sank even deeper.
Right then, Calvin, who hadn't said a word, finally spoke.
Some part of me couldn't help but hope.
He still loved me.
But the next second, what came out of his mouth dropped me into ice water.
"Mom, Dad, you're all right, but now isn't the time!"
"She's riding high right now, her career's going well. Push her to quit out of nowhere and she'll never go for it."
"Besides, her father's a sharp one. Better to wait until we're married, until she's pregnant. Once the kid is born, where's she going to run?"
He raised his voice.
"Listen to me. Once we're married, once there's a kid, once she has a weak spot, that's when we make our demands."
"By then the house, the paycheck, won't it all belong to our family?"
The words landed, and the private room burst into laughter.
"That's my clever boy!"
"Now that's playing the long game to land the big fish!"
Standing outside the door, all I felt was a cold running through my whole body.
So my father had been right.
Calvin really was rotten inside. He couldn't be trusted.
Three years of love, and it was nothing but a scheme.
The joke was that it took until today for me to see his true face.
But I didn't want to charge in and confront them.
It would cost me too much of my own dignity.
It would only make me look desperate to marry, as if it had to be Calvin or no one.
Men, if this one won't do, the next one is bound to be better.
There was no reason to waste myself on garbage.
I took my father's hand, and my voice came out perfectly calm.
"Dad, thank you for all the trouble you went to."
"You were right. Calvin isn't worth it."
"This marriage, there's no reason to go through with it. Cancel the promotion we promised him."
