I Ate the Secretary's Leftover Cake, Husband Demanded Divorce

Brett Sanchez's junior secretary liked her little pranks.

While I was in the shower, she planted a dead rat to scare me out onto the balcony, then locked the door behind me.

Three days, wrapped in nothing but a towel.

I called out and no one came.

By the time they let me back inside, I was starving.

I saw the day-old cake on the table and shoved a bite into my mouth.

Brett shot me an ice-cold look.

"Let's get divorced."

I lifted my red, swollen eyes to him.

"Because I ate one bite of cake?"

"Yes."

Brett was forcing me to sign the divorce papers in front of everyone.

And he wanted me to walk away with nothing.

Everyone in the room was outraged on my behalf.

"Brett, it was your own junior secretary who locked your wife out on the balcony."

"She was stuck out there three days. What's wrong with her eating one bite of cake?"

Brett's voice came out cold.

"If it isn't hers, she has no right to touch it."

"And anyway, wasn't this the exact trick she used to become Mrs. Sanchez in the first place?"

Everyone turned to look at me, some with pity, some with sympathy.

I lowered my head and dragged out a pale smile.

"Fine. I'll sign."

I reached for the pen.

But after three days without food, I was too weak to even hold it.

"Brett, before I sign, could you let me eat something first?"

I looked at that piece of cake.

I rubbed my hollow, growling stomach and swallowed.

"No."

Brett didn't even glance at me. He reached out, picked up the cake,

and dropped it into the trash without a second's hesitation.

The color drained from my face until I looked like a corpse.

The others couldn't stand it anymore.

"Brett, what could she possibly have done that's so unforgivable you have to humiliate her like this?"

"Exactly. She was locked out on that balcony for three days without a meal."

"It's one bite of cake. There's no need to torture her over it."

Brett looked around the room.

He spoke as if none of it touched him.

"She deserves it."

"I've said it before. I can't stand anyone around me having no sense of boundaries."

"She knew perfectly well the cake was Bianca's. Even if she was going to throw it out, no one else was allowed to touch it."

Bianca Fox was his junior secretary.

The root of countless fights between us.

And the person he sided with for no reason at all.

Even as he said this, he seemed to have forgotten.

That it was Bianca who'd pulled the prank, who'd dropped a dead rat in the tub and set me up to be locked out on the balcony.

I was left to starve for three days.

I called him seventy-two times.

Not one call went through.

And now he stood there like a bystander with nothing to do with any of it, saying these cruel, cold words.

"I can agree to the divorce."

I tugged at Brett's sleeve.

"Please, just not in front of all these people, okay?"

"At least let me go back and change my clothes."

I was so ashamed I wanted to disappear.

Since they'd let me off the balcony, I'd spent all three days wrapped in this same pink towel.

And Brett had brought this whole crowd here to watch.

He hadn't even given me time to change.

I could feel more than a few oily stares clinging to my body.

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

All I asked was that he leave me one last shred of dignity.

What I got instead was a flat, unquestionable refusal.

"No."

"What if you run off?"

Brett looked at me with cold eyes.

"Yvonne Larson, I want you to sign these divorce papers in front of everyone."

"I want to tell every single one of them, this exact way."

"Bianca is not the mistress."

He flung my hand away, cold as ice.

I stumbled two steps back and nearly fell to the floor.

My face went even whiter, not a trace of color left.

And in that instant, I understood.

Brett was doing this to get back at me.

Years ago, Bianca Fox had been one of the poor students Brett Sanchez sponsored.

Later, after she graduated, she used a break during the graduation photos.

On the field, she rose up on her toes and kissed Brett, and I caught the whole thing.

I slapped her across the face right there and left her with a warning.

"We gave you money to help you through school, not so you could learn how to throw yourself at a man."

"If you've got that kind of dirty ambition, you'd be better off figuring out how to land a spot at a Fortune 500."

That fight tore everything open. The two of us, once as close as sisters, split for good on the spot.

Everyone knew we couldn't stand each other after that.

So when Bianca got herself accidentally locked inside an office.

And missed an important interview, letting a top-five-hundred opportunity slip right past her.

She cried that it was my doing.

And Brett believed her without a moment's doubt.

"Yvonne!"

Brett came storming after me, furious.

"Bianca's just a girl fresh out of college. She thinks of me like a brother. She's grateful because I put her through school."

"That kiss was only her way of saying thank you."

"Why did you have to be so vicious?"

"Why did you have to ruin her job?"

That was the first time the two of us, always so loving, stood there red-faced and shouting at each other.

Back then my career was climbing fast, and I was riding high.

I wasn't about to let anyone pin something like that on me.

So I threw it back at him, cold.

"I ruined her job?"

"Brett, open your eyes and take a good look. She's just a scholarship kid. Do you really think she's worth me stooping to that?"

Brett didn't catch what I really meant.

He only heard the contempt in my voice.

"Yvonne, so now that you're pulling in a seven-figure salary, you think you're something, and you can look down on a girl fresh out of college, is that it?"

"Fine. Let's see if you can hold your head that high all the way to the end."

He said it, then turned and walked out.

The next day, he made a call himself.

And in no time Bianca became his personal secretary.

Twenty thousand a month, easy work, pouring tea, running odd errands.

The whole company whispered that the two of them had something going on behind closed doors.

They even said Bianca had been kept by Brett back in her college days,

that that was how she'd landed such an easy, well-paid job.

It made my blood boil, and I warned Brett about it more than once.

He never took it seriously.

Just brushed me off with, "A clean conscience needs no defense."

But I knew that from that kiss on the field, there had never been anything clean between them.

For the sake of the company's name, and to keep the stock from tanking too hard.

I went to Brett's office for the first time.

And walked straight into it.

Bianca was using the same spoon to scoop up the cake Brett had already eaten from.

I fired her on the spot.

Brett tried to stop me, but I was too angry.

I even said that if he didn't fire her, we'd divorce, and things along those lines.

Brett had no choice but to go along with it.

He could only sign his name on her termination notice.

It wasn't until later, when I left the company for reasons I couldn't bring myself to speak of and became a housewife.

That Brett brought Bianca back again.

Thinking back on all of it now, I shut my eyes in despair.

"I'm sorry."

When you're under someone else's roof, you have to bow your head.

Even if I once had every reason to stand up straight.

Now, in this humiliating position.

I was the one who had to apologize first.

"You're saying sorry only now? Too late."

Brett stared at me, cold.

And pushed the divorce agreement a little closer to me.

"Sign it. Now."

"Sign it, and then I'll see if your apology means anything."

In that document, the words walk away with nothing glared up at me, stinging my eyes.

I gripped the pen tight.

"Can you not make me walk away with nothing?"

"Even just a portion of the money. Twenty thousand dollars would be enough."

I lifted my head and forced the words out.

"I'm pregnant"

Brett didn't so much as blink.

"No."

Someone slammed a hand down and shot to their feet, furious.

"Brett! Have you got any decency left?"

"Didn't you hear Yvonne say she's pregnant?"

"That's your wife. That's your child."

Brett suddenly leaned back against his chair, raised his eyes lazily, and gave a mocking smile.

"The wife's mine."

"The child, though, that's another matter."

The air went silent for a few seconds.

The people who'd been pleading for me traded glances.

My eyes were burning red.

And I was almost trembling as I forced out the question.

"Brett, what are you trying to say?"

Brett's smile turned even more cutting.

"Yvonne, back when you had that group of men assault Bianca, what did you use to get them to do it for you so willingly?"

"Money? Or your body?"

Hearing him insult me like that,

I was so furious I lost my mind.

I grabbed the ashtray and hurled it straight at his forehead.

"Brett Sanchez! You're not even human!"

He didn't dodge.

When the blood ran straight down his forehead, he only looked at me, cold.

"Yvonne, you really are insane."

"But even lunatics have to pay a price."

Right there, Brett pulled out his phone and called the police.

"Assault. Attempted murder."

"Yvonne, you think I can't put you away for life?"

Meeting the hard set of his eyes,

my head dropped again.

In the end the officers lectured me at length before they left.

Because of the wound on his forehead, Brett looked like a textbook victim.

He walked away with almost no consequences at all.

And I was ordered by the police to sign the divorce agreement as soon as possible.

"Fine. You win."

I closed my eyes in despair,

and pulled up a bitter, self-mocking smile.

"I give up."

Since this marriage was already meaningless,

what was the point of tormenting each other?

I was reaching for the pen to sign my name.

A hand pressed down on mine.

I looked up into Bianca's amused smile.

"Mrs. Sanchez, how could you give up so easily?"

"Tsk, tsk."

"The Mrs. Sanchez who once ruled the business world, throwing away a million in ten seconds without so much as a blink."

"And now, over a measly twenty thousand dollars,"

"you're practically on your knees begging. Pathetic, isn't it?"

"A woman who ends up living like you really is shameful."

I didn't argue. I lowered my head.

Before I married, I was the pampered heiress of a wealthy family.

After I married, I was the untouchable powerhouse, Mrs. Sanchez.

But Bianca was my undoing.

Since she appeared half a year ago, I had fallen from the clouds into the mud.

I looked at her with hollow eyes.

"I've already given up. I'll sign, just like you want."

"What more do you want?"

She didn't want me to surrender this fast.

To her it was cat and mouse. She needed to toy with me first.

The fun came when the mouse was worn out.

Brett waved a hand and sent everyone away.

Not until only the three of us were left in the room

did he frown and slide an arm around Bianca's waist.

"What is it?"

"A moment ago you wanted to watch me get divorced. Changed your mind already?"

Bianca's smile turned coaxing.

"I just feel like getting it this easily is no fun."

"Besides, Yvonne's willing to walk away with nothing."

"That means she's already out of road."

Bianca's fingers wandered suggestively over Brett's face.

"How about,"

"we make the game harder?"

I gripped the hem of my clothes, a bad feeling rising in me.

I thought of the terror of being locked out on the balcony for three days, driven there by a dead rat.

Face pale, I looked at Brett,

hoping he would say the words "that's enough."

Instead, a trace of a smile curved his lips.

"It's your call."

"But how do you plan to keep this game going?"

It was like a basin of water dumped over my head.

With Brett behind her, backing her,

Bianca grew even more smug.

Her gaze drifted slowly to my rounded belly.

"Since Yvonne's pregnant,"

"why don't we let her watch, right in front of her own eyes,"

"as she loses this child, one step at a time?"

Bianca stroked her own flat stomach, envy and hatred flickering in her eyes.

"Let her taste what it's like to never be able to bear a child, the way I can't."

At the mention of being unable to have children,

Brett's eyes darkened all at once.

"Fine. We'll do it that way."

"It's the debt she owes."

The plea rose to my lips again, and again I forced it back down.

I closed my eyes.

Another memory came flooding up.

It was what happened after the cake incident, after I fired Bianca.

Bianca had lived well in college on that sponsorship.

After a few years of work, kept on Brett's generous salary, she never learned any real skills.

Instead she picked up the habit of extravagant spending.

Once she lost that easy, high-paying job as a junior secretary,

she scrambled to make ends meet, hunting everywhere for work and quick money.

She wandered into a drinking party by mistake.

There she was gotten drunk and assaulted.

It had nothing to do with me.

But Brett still laid the blame at my feet.

And so Bianca had been scheming for a long time, waiting for this day all along.

Waiting for me to be broken and disgraced.

To fall into her hands.

And then to watch me suffer a fate worse than death.

After Brett Sanchez withdrew the divorce papers.

He never brought up divorce again.

Even when I went to him myself.

"Please, give me the divorce papers. I'll sign them."

He only sneered.

"You already made a fool of yourself, standing in front of everyone in a bath towel."

"Bianca said so."

"This time, she needs you to really understand what you did wrong."

And understanding what I did wrong.

Meant being tormented worse than before.

I was going to get an abortion.

Bianca forced me to drink with ten men.

"Once you drink your way into the hospital."

"The baby's gone on its own, isn't it? No need for an abortion."

My allowance was cut off completely.

I had to earn the baby's prenatal-checkup money by doing chores.

Even the money for that day's meals.

The most wretched time.

Was when I washed Bianca's shoes for a ten-dollar breakfast.

Bianca sat in the office chair in Brett's study, watching me with a face full of scorn.

"Mrs. Sanchez, if you'd known it would come to this."

"Would you still have been so unbearably arrogant back then?"

She said it full of hatred, that she'd had a good job back then.

And it was all because of me that she'd fallen into that hopeless nightmare.

She'd never once meant to fight me for Brett.

But after that night.

She was dead set on settling the score with me.

I lowered my head, silent for a long time.

"Secretary Fox, do you know why I ended up like this?"

Bianca froze for a moment.

"What else? It's your comeuppance, of course."

"You became the pampered Mrs. Sanchez, thought you could pop out a kid at home and tie a man down for good."

"What a joke."

Everyone thought I chose to be a stay-at-home wife.

No one knew what I'd been through.

Back when Bianca was fired.

Brett acted like nothing had happened and made up with me.

It was as though we were back in the honeymoon days.

Every night he wrapped himself around me, murmuring in my ear.

"Vonnie, I don't want to watch you work yourself to the bone every day."

"Stay home and have a baby for me."

But Brett had low fertility. Conceiving naturally was all but impossible.

Back then, to have a child.

I took a lot of ovarian injections.

They caused a bad reaction, and I kept leaking urine.

I'd humiliate myself in the middle of meetings.

Listening to everyone whispering and pointing, I was so mortified I wanted to sink into the floor.

After that I couldn't work anymore.

So I stayed home and became a full-time wife.

Little did I know that from the moment I agreed.

I had already walked into their trap.

Bianca's laughter echoed in my ears.

And tangled into it were Brett's cold, merciless words.

"Yvonne, if you want to blame anyone for all this, blame yourself."

"If it weren't for you."

"Bianca wouldn't have been fired from the company."

"Wouldn't have lost her job and been driven to something desperate."

"Wouldn't have been assaulted by another man at a work drinking party."

"You caused all of it."

"So you owe a debt."

Those words followed me like a nightmare, clinging to me every hour.

I couldn't sleep a single night.

That day, Bianca's kite got caught in a tree.

She forced me to climb up and get it.

I nearly dropped to my knees and begged.

"I'm still pregnant. Please, I really can't climb a tree"

But Bianca wouldn't take no for an answer.

She even called over a few security guards to watch, forcing me up the tree.

Halfway up, my hands were rubbed raw.

Two-thirds of the way up, a violent pain tore through my stomach.

My foot slipped, and I fell with a thud.

A hot rush between my legs.

I begged Bianca, "Please, call an ambulance, my baby"

"Call for what."

Bianca coldly flung my hand away.

"Didn't you want an abortion before? Didn't you not want this baby?"

My head buzzed.

"You made me climb the tree on purpose. You wanted to watch me miscarry?"

Meeting my shocked stare.

Bianca only sneered.

"Don't be so delicate. You think climbing one tree could get rid of a baby?"

I froze.

"What do you mean?"

Bianca didn't answer me. Instead she dialed Brett right there.

Her voice soft, coaxing, almost like a purr, smiling as she spoke.

"Brett, why don't we end the game."

"Why don't we tell your wife a little secret."

"The reason her baby's miscarrying is that she's greedy. I put crushed abortion pills in that cake."

"Guess how she'll react?"

The words had barely left her mouth when a familiar set of footsteps came.

"What's going on?"

Brett's voice was low and hoarse.

Bianca faltered.

"Brett, why are you here?"

Brett ignored her and instinctively looked toward me on the ground.

The blood between my legs kept coming.

Staining my white dress red.

Shock and grief flashed through Brett's eyes.

He strode toward me, his voice raw.

"Vonnie, are you all right?"

And I held on, forcing my bloodshot eyes up.

Looking at Brett.

"Then I have a secret to tell you too."