Chapter 2

Heat waves shimmered off the asphalt road.

Russell and Leonardo, sitting in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce, were doubled over with laughter.

She held up her phone with the camera pointed at me. Comments flew densely across the livestream.

"Look at Mr. James, so stubborn," Russell's voice was full of amusement. "Even now he still expects someone to come pick him up."

Leonardo cooperatively stuck his head out with a sympathetic expression.

"Russell, maybe we should let James get in the car. In this heat, walking back could kill someone."

"Don't rush." Russell put her arm around his shoulder and turned to glare at me viciously.

"James, I'm giving you two choices. Either apologize to Leonardo, or walk the full fifty miles."

"The highway is straight. Just follow it and you'll get there."

The comments went even more insane.

"Serves him right! When he refused to let him catch a ride, why didn't he think about how hard it would be for him?"

"Just because he's Miss Russell's husband, does that make him so great? Bullying people because he has some money?"

"This kind of gold digger needs to be taught a lesson. I support Miss Russell!"

"Look at how pathetic he looks. So satisfying."

"Walk fifty miles? He won't make it. He'll collapse after two."

I stood under the scorching sun. My clothes were already soaked through, and my lips had cracked in several places.

Leonardo looked at me, his eyes slightly reddening as he put on a sympathetic expression.

He grabbed Russell's arm, deliberately lowering his voice.

"Russell, forget it. My family was never well-off to begin with. My life is cheap—not precious like James's. Walking a few miles is no big deal."

"James must have his reasons for not letting me catch a ride. Don't make things difficult for him."

As he spoke, he shot me a triumphant glance from the corner of his eye.

My head buzzed.

Before our anniversary, Leonardo had asked to catch a ride home with me.

My car was packed full of luggage—there really wasn't room for another adult.

I politely told him that calling a cab would be very convenient. I even felt a bit bad about it and specially transferred him money for the ride.

Now it had turned into me bullying him, looking down on him and refusing to let him ride.

"Leonardo, you're just too kind-hearted."

Russell's voice was ice cold. She tightened her grip on Leonardo's arm, her gaze piercing straight at me.

"You're too easy to bully. When he used his position as my husband to make things difficult for you, he should have known this day would come."

I stared at her. This was the woman I'd loved for six years.

To marry her, I'd given up SUN, the company I'd founded myself. I thought it was worth it.

The first year of our marriage, our relationship was good.

The second year, she started sponsoring Leonardo.

The third year, after Leonardo graduated from college, she let him join the company and work as her assistant.

I didn't think much of it. Just a student from a poor background who was grateful and wanted to repay the favor by working at the company—perfectly reasonable.

But gradually, things changed.

Once during a company basketball game, he deliberately stepped under me while defending. When I landed, I twisted my ankle. The pain made me push him.

He fell to the ground on purpose, scraping his elbow slightly.

In front of hundreds of company employees, Russell sternly berated me for not knowing my own strength.

That night when we got home, she didn't speak to me for three days.

Later, this kind of thing happened more and more often.

Leonardo took credit for my proposal at a project meeting, presenting it as his own work. When I called him out on the spot, he just lowered his head without saying anything, putting on a fake wounded act.

Russell said I was petty and couldn't tolerate others.

When Leonardo worked late, she said I, as the president and her husband, didn't know how to be considerate of subordinates and dumped all the work on him.

On Leonardo's birthday, when I transferred him money, she said I was being perfunctory and insincere toward subordinates.

Once he deliberately spilled coffee on a contract I'd just signed. I cursed at him, and he kept silent.

Without even asking what happened, Russell immediately decided I had a bad temper and was bullying an honest person.

At first I thought I wasn't doing well enough, so I was careful about everything.

But no matter what I did, she could always find fault.

Until today, standing on the highway in hundred-and-forty-degree heat, watching my own wife lean intimately on Leonardo's shoulder while livestreaming my misery—only then did I finally see clearly.

It wasn't that I wasn't doing well enough. I was just in the way.