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.
