“The money is the only reason you’re standing here,” Elena countered. “If I were truly just a penniless housewife, where would I be right now? At a shelter? On the street? You wouldn’t be chasing me. You’d be celebrating your freedom.”
“No!” Jessica cried. “Elena, I’m sorry! I was just… I was jealous! I missed my mom! I didn’t mean it about the chair!”
Elena stood up. She walked to the window, looking out at the city she practically owned.
“It wasn’t about the chair, Jessica,” Elena said, her back to them. “It was about the fact that after five years, I was still invisible to you. You didn’t want me in your mother’s chair, but you were perfectly happy to live in my house, drive my car, and spend my money.”
She turned around.
“You said that seat belonged to your mother. You were right. You honor her memory. So, I’m giving you exactly what you asked for. A life without me in it.”
“What does that mean?” Richard whispered.
“It means I’m evicting you,” Elena said. “The house goes on the market on Monday. The cards are cancelled. The tuition payments are stopped. You are on your own.”
“You can’t do that!” Richard shouted. “We’re married!”
“The divorce papers are in the mail,” one of the lawyers spoke up for the first time. “Based on the prenuptial agreement you signed—which you didn’t read because you thought she was the poor one—infidelity or abuse voids any claim to assets. We have witnesses to the verbal and physical abuse on Christmas Day.”
Elena checked her watch. “I have a meeting in Tokyo in an hour. Security will see you out.”
“Elena!” Richard lunged toward the table, desperate. “You can’t leave us with nothing!”
Elena looked at him with a pity that was worse than anger.
“I’m not leaving you with nothing, Richard. I’m leaving you with exactly what you had before you met me. Yourself.”
Chapter 5: The Cost of Disrespect
The fall was fast and brutal.
Two weeks later, Richard and Jessica were standing in the middle of a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Queens. The paint was peeling. The radiator clanked loudly.
“This place smells like cabbage,” Jessica whined, sitting on a box. “Dad, I can’t live here. My friends will see.”
“Then get a job!” Richard screamed, slamming a box down. He looked aged. The stress had turned his hair gray. “I can’t pay for your apartment anymore! I can barely pay for this!”
“You told me she was nobody!” Jessica yelled back, tears streaming down her face. “You let me treat her like dirt! You said, ‘Don’t worry about Elena, she’s lucky to have us.’ You lied!”
“I didn’t know!” Richard roared, holding his head in his hands. “How was I supposed to know she was a billionaire?”
“You lived with her for five years!” Jessica screamed. “You slept in the same bed! And you never noticed she was smart? You never noticed she was classy? You just saw a maid!”
The truth of her words hung in the stale air. They had been so blinded by their own arrogance, so convinced of their superiority, that they missed the royalty sleeping next to them.
Meanwhile, Elena was walking through the lobby of the Vane Hotel in Paris.
She felt lighter. The physical weight of the housework was gone, but the emotional weight of the rejection was lifting too.
She was inspecting the new floral arrangements when she saw a familiar figure by the concierge desk.
It was Tyler. He looked disheveled. He had flown here on a budget airline, likely maxing out his last credit card.
