Chapter 3 - The Breaking Point at the Dinner Table
The air in the dining room felt heavy, charged with an impending storm. To prove a point about "frugality and discipline," Julian had decreed earlier that week that the household needed to cut back on gourmet dining—not because he was suffering, but because he claimed Chloe was spending too much on organic prenatal groceries. As a sarcastic lesson, he had ordered a case of cheap, instant, artificially yellow ramen noodles online, tossing them at Chloe with instructions to "learn the value of a dollar."
Chloe had prepared them, serving four simple, steaming bowls on the custom walnut dining table.
Julian slammed his palm flat onto the table, the impact sending vibrations through the pristine porcelain bowls. The hot, neon-yellow broth violently sloshed over the edges, staining the wood.
“I give my entire paycheck to my mother!" he roared, his bespoke Tom Ford suit straining against his performative rage. "I’m a man of business. Mom is the elder. She knows how to manage household expenses and invest securely for our future! Are we really going to sit here and nickel-and-dime each other over some groceries?”
Eleanor, weighed down by her Fifth Avenue loot, lifted her chin triumphantly. “Exactly. The wealth my son generates is safe in my hands. If you, as a wife, cannot boost his career, the absolute least you can do is not attempt to turn him against his own flesh and blood.”
Chloe stared at the man who had once sworn to treat her like a queen. Her heavy baby bump pressed against her oversized grey sweatshirt. He was nothing more than a chauvinistic mama’s boy, gladly dumping the crushing financial burden of this Manhattan luxury lifestyle entirely onto his pregnant wife’s draining savings.
“Shut your mouth!” Julian bellowed, his dark eyes flashing with an unfamiliar, ruthless cruelty. “I will say this exactly once. There are plenty of women in this world. If it’s not this wife, I’ll easily get another. I can have a hundred wives, but I only get one mother. If you cannot live with how things are done under my roof, pack your bags and get the hell out.”
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I can have a hundred wives, but I only get one mother.
That single, arrogant sentence was the sledgehammer that finally shattered Chloe’s very last illusion. The lingering affection, the patience, the hope for rehabilitation—all of it vanished in an instant. She didn't cry. She stood up slowly, her eyes locking onto his dilated pupils, ready to throw a grenade of truth that they had never dared to imagine.
