Chapter 3 - The Waitress’s True Colors
On day twenty-one, the illusion completely shattered for Julian.
I found out through the corporate grapevine—my former assistant, who was still entirely loyal to me, called me late one evening.
“You aren't going to believe this, Claire,” she whispered excitedly over the phone. “Julian brought Mia to the annual shareholder dinner tonight.”
I winced. The shareholder dinner was an incredibly delicate event, filled with old-money traditionalists who valued discretion above all else. “How bad was it?”
“A disaster. She showed up wearing something that belonged in a nightclub, drank four martinis before the appetizers, and loudly asked the Chairman of the Board when Julian was going to get his year-end bonus because she wanted to buy a yacht.”
I closed my eyes, almost feeling pity for Julian. Almost.
That night, Julian and Mia had a blowout fight that echoed through the empty halls of Hawthorne Manor. According to the single security guard who hadn't quit yet, Mia screamed that Julian had lied to her. She accused him of being poor. She told him that she had wasted her youth on a man who couldn't even afford to keep his own house staffed.
Julian finally saw her. He saw the shallow, grasping reality of the woman he had traded a twelve-year marriage for. He realized that Mia didn't love him; she loved the lifestyle he had promised her. And without my silent, constant labor maintaining that lifestyle, Julian was just an exhausted, cash-strapped man in a massive, lonely house.
My phone rang at 2:00 AM. For the first time, I answered it.
“Claire,” Julian’s voice cracked through the speaker. He sounded hollowed out, older than his years, stripped of his usual arrogance. “I made a mistake.”
I sat up in my warm bed, looking out the window at the quiet, starlit mountains. “No, Julian. You made a choice. Now you have to live the life you built.”
“She doesn't know me, Claire,” he pleaded, his voice thick with tears. “She doesn't know how I take my coffee. She doesn't know about the days I wanted to quit. She just wants the money. You were right. You were right about all of it.”
“I’m hanging up now, Julian.”
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“Please, don't. Cancel the paperwork. Come home. I’ll kick her out tonight. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I am home,” I said softly, and ended the call.
