“They're just some cheap baby clothes. Once the baby's born, you can buy as many as you want!”
I looked up at him, ice cold. ：“Duncan, I'm not about to get angry over a dog. I said no, and no means no.”
Duncan froze for a second, then a sneer curled at the corner of his mouth：
“Oh, I know. You're mad about Lorna. How many times do I have to say it? I'm with her because I want to be. That's not her fault.”
He wrenched the baby clothes out of my hands, that mocking smile still hanging on his lips.
“Don't think I don't know. That call you made to your family the other day, going on and on about giving me a hundred chances.”
“If I'm counting right, there's still one left. Be a good girl and wait at home for me, and you'll still get to be Mrs. Delgado.”
The blood drained from my face. I hadn't imagined he could hurt me so matter-of-factly, as if he had every right.
He slammed the door on his way out.
Start to finish, he never noticed my flat stomach.
I stared at his retreating figure until it disappeared, whispering：
“Duncan, there is no hundredth chance. I'm leaving.”
But he was already too far away to hear.
The next few days, Duncan and I were each busy with our own things. I was busy with the paperwork to escape him.
He was busy finding excuses not to come home.
One night it was entertaining some executive, the next he had to fly out to close a deal.
He thought I'd pry like I used to, demanding to know where he really was.
I didn't reply to a single message. I was busy resigning.
That seemed to unsettle him. He texted asking where I was.
I swiped his message away while sitting in the HR office, filling out my resignation paperwork.
Behind her glasses, the HR clerk's impatience was plain as she asked again：
“You really want to resign?”
As if she was certain I couldn't survive without Duncan.
I nodded for the fifth time, my voice steadier than ever：
“Yes. I'm resigning.”
“Tch.” She clattered away at her keyboard：
“You haven't hit five years on your contract. Voluntary resignation means a three-month salary penalty, and all bonuses are forfeited.”
She finished speaking and looked me up and down with open amusement：
“Though I'm guessing money isn't exactly a problem for you, Ms. Pruitt?”
I said nothing, quietly tucking a loose thread back into my hem, thinking to myself.
It was. Very much a problem.
Everyone at the company assumed I was Duncan's kept woman, his little songbird locked away in a gilded cage.
But only I knew the truth. I loved him, genuinely, so after college I asked for nothing and took a low-paying job at his company like any other employee.
He never once corrected anyone about what we actually were.
Even when his hand drifted to my waist in the office and someone walked in, he'd instinctively push me away.
Afterward, when I asked him why, hurt plain on my face,
he just said that a man in his position couldn't put personal matters on display.
I believed him. So I stayed, year after year, with no title and no promise.
Even groceries and daily expenses were split fifty-fifty.
And still, I'd lost count of the times I overheard people whispering in the break room about how calculating I was.
Already living under the Delgado roof, already Duncan's hidden bedmate.
And still playing the humble, too-good-for-this-world act.
I didn't want to explain anymore. I just said：
“I'll pay.”
All the deductions added up to a little over a hundred thousand.
I opened my account, looked at the five million in lavish engagement gifts wired from overseas, and spent it anyway.
I told myself I'd pay back every cent to this fiancé I'd never met.
The HR clerk seemed genuinely surprised by how easily I let it go.
Clearly nothing like the gold-digging, sleep-your-way-to-the-top image she'd had in her head.
I was about to sign when something occurred to her.
“Your……status here is a bit special. Let me run it by Mr. Delgado first.”
