I was rushing to sign a contract when my wife's assistant called, demanding I pick up a coffee and bring it back to the office for him.
I told him I had something urgent to take care of and turned him down.
What I didn't expect was that when I returned to the office with the signed contract in hand, my wife would pick up a cup of coffee and throw it in my face in front of everyone.
"Everard Stephens, you nearly got Edward Delgado killed!"
"He had a blood sugar crash this morning and begged you to bring him a coffee to save his life, and you just left him to suffer."
The coffee soaked through the contract I'd worked so hard to sign. Edward's low blood sugar wasn't going to kill him. But if I hadn't signed that contract and earned my bonus, my mother would die.
I looked up at my wife. Before I could get a word of explanation out, she tore the contract apart in a fit of rage.
"Deal's off. I'm making sure you don't see a cent of that bonus. Consider it a lesson."
Watching the contract I'd nearly killed myself to secure turn into confetti, something inside me went cold. "Marcia Harding, let's get a divorce."
——
Marcia's face froze. Then a wave of fury, sharp and indignant, flooded her expression.
She crumpled what was left of the contract into a ball and hurled it at my face. "Everard, give you an inch and you take a mile."
"Wasn't it you who was in the wrong first?"
My own temper surged, and my voice came out harder than before.
"Wrong? How exactly was I wrong?"
"Do you have any idea what it took to close this deal? I spent days and nights on the edge of collapse, burning through cup after cup of coffee at two in the morning, reworking every flaw. I gave everything to this job. I put your company first in everything I did. I set up the meeting, got the partner to the table, signed the contract, all to boost your numbers."
"And what did you do? You destroyed all of it over some assistant's harmless blood sugar dip. You made sure I can't collect my bonus. My mother is lying in a hospital bed right now, waiting for that bonus to cover her medical bills."
Ever since I married Marcia, her father had insisted we split everything fifty-fifty.
Because I wasn't wealthy. But Marcia was born into money.
Her parents were convinced I was using her to climb the ladder, so to keep me in check, they demanded we keep our finances completely separate.
After my mother got sick, I never touched a dollar of Marcia's money for her treatment.
So I worked twice as hard. Threw myself at every deal I could find.
And the contract I'd nearly worked myself to death to bring home had just been ripped to shreds like it was nothing.
After my voice rang out, every colleague in the room stared at me with a different look in their eyes. Whispers rippled through the office.
"What? Everard's been killing himself at work just to pay for his mother's treatment?"
"If that's true, then what Ms. Harding did is way out of line. He's still her husband. That's her mother-in-law lying in that hospital."
"You guys don't know the half of it. She practically dotes on that little assistant. The two of them even share a couch to nap on sometimes."
"Shh, keep your voice down."
The more Marcia heard, the angrier she got. Her delicate face darkened like a storm rolling in.
She was convinced I'd done this on purpose, played the victim to turn our coworkers against Edward.
Because the moment Edward heard those whispers, he hunched over and bowed to me, guilt and shame written all over him. His pitiful, wounded expression made it look like I was some kind of monster.
"I'm so sorry, Everard. I didn't mean to have a blood sugar crash right then. If I'd known you had something important to handle, I never would've asked you to get me that coffee."
The second the words left his mouth, he turned and ran, looking devastated. He didn't watch where he was going and tumbled down the stairs.
Marcia screamed. Then she whipped around and slapped me across the face.
"Everard, I never thought a grown man like you could be this manipulative. Your mother has a common illness. It's nowhere near as serious as you're making it sound."
