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On our wedding day, my mother-in-law jacked up her price on the spot, taking the eighty-eight-thousand-dollar car fee all the way to three hundred and eighty thousand.
I didn't haggle. I wired it right there.
Every guest in the room laughed at me, calling me spineless, a man driven out of his mind over a woman.
None of them knew: eight years of a long-distance relationship, all online.
I sent her a Louis Vuitton bag, she sent me back a Rolex.
I mailed cordyceps to her family, and she turned around and shipped me a case of premium whiskey.
Add up all those gifts and it was worth well over a million already.
She was the least money-hungry, most decent girl I'd ever met.
It's only three hundred and eighty thousand for the car fee. In a little while, at the ceremony, I'm going to hand her every last cent of my savings!
I gripped my bank card, heart pounding.
They'd called out the auspicious hour three times now. I walked up to the door of the wedding suite.
A familiar woman's voice drifted out through the crack in the door:
"Babe, the three hundred and eighty grand is in the bag~"
"Eight years and he never caught on. One last payout after we bow at the ceremony, and it's ours for sure!"
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Babe?!
The blood in my body went ice-cold in an instant.
Who was she calling babe?
The suspicion barely surfaced before I forced it back down.
I gave my head a hard shake and gripped the bouquet in my hand.
No way!
Eight years of dating online. I knew exactly what kind of person she was.
One offhand comment from me about feeling run-down, and a box of American ginseng showed up at my door the next day.
She never took anything of mine for free. Everything she'd sent me, added up front to back, came to a million!
If she was really after money, why bother acting it out for eight years?
I must have heard wrong!
I forced down my hammering heart and laid my hand gently on the door handle.
Then a man's voice came from inside. "Baby, you've really had it rough."
I went rigid on the spot, no time to think it through.
Her coquettish voice came again. "For you, what's a little hardship? Once I reel in this last payout, we'll go buy a villa in Miami! Playing the sweet, innocent lady in front of him every single day—God, I've been dying inside!"
What did that mean?
I clenched my teeth. A chill shot up my spine.
The man's voice went on. "Be honest with me. He never touched you in these eight years, right?"
"How could he! I wouldn't even let him hold my hand! I told him my family raised me strict, that I wanted to save my first time for our wedding night, and the idiot bought it on the spot. Transferred me fifty grand in spending money, said it broke his heart, how sensible and sweet I was!"
"My body—of course that's only for you, the man I love most!"
Her words drove into my ears and everything in front of me went black.
So that was it.
That day she'd explained it to me in that soft little voice, saying I was the most important person to her, that she wanted to save her most precious first night for our wedding.
I was so moved I almost cried.
I'd thought I'd hit the jackpot, meeting a girl this pure, this good.
I swore I'd treat her well—and it was all an act!
My chest clogged tight, and a sweet, coppery taste surged up my throat.
My phone buzzed. A text popped up.
"Hello, sir. The wristwatch you submitted for inspection is a replica knockoff, and the whiskey gift set and the rest are all counterfeit. Total market value is approximately eighteen hundred dollars."
Eighteen hundred.
For eight years I'd scrimped and saved, worked so much overtime my stomach bled, and poured over a million dollars in gifts into her, front to back.
And got back a pile of fakes worth less than two thousand!
Plus the three hundred and eighty thousand I'd just wired—that was the retirement savings my parents had set aside for themselves.
I stared hard at that line of text, and then I laughed.
So I'd fed my whole heart to the dogs.
Did she really think she could just walk away clean?
"Why's the groom standing there like that?"
The emcee hurried up behind me and shouted at the top of his voice. The door of the wedding suite swung open.
My mother-in-law blocked the doorway, her face pulled long. "Leon James, honey, don't rush in just yet! That three hundred and eighty thousand was the car fee. To come through this door, you've got to add another hundred and eighty thousand!"
