Years later, after Damian became wealthy beyond anything either of them had imagined, he made himself a promise.
Fiona would never struggle again.
He bought her designer clothing.
Expensive jewelry.
A luxury SUV.
And a mansion large enough to contain rooms they barely entered.
In Damian’s mind, that was love.
Providing.
Protecting.
Making sure she lacked nothing.
What he failed to understand was that while he filled her closets, garage, and jewelry boxes with expensive things, he kept leaving the place beside him empty.
Their marriage began changing even more after Damian’s older sister, Brenda, moved into the estate following a painful divorce.
She said it would only be temporary.
Nine months later, she was still there.
Brenda quickly found fault with nearly everything Fiona did.
Her clothes were too plain.
Her conversations with the gardener were too familiar.
Her habit of setting aside meals for employees working late was, according to Brenda, “embarrassing.”
“You’re married to Damian O’Connor,” Brenda often reminded her. “You need to start behaving like it.”
Damian’s mother, Gertrude, was hardly more welcoming.
She still viewed Fiona as the ordinary girl from Ohio Damian had married before anyone had money.
To Gertrude, wealth had elevated Damian.
Fiona, somehow, had remained beneath them.
Damian rarely witnessed any of it.
He was always working.
Flying somewhere.
Meeting investors.
Opening another property.
Returning home too tired to notice the tension at his own dinner table.
Whenever Fiona tried to bring up something serious, he would kiss her forehead and say,
“Tomorrow, sweetheart. I just can’t deal with this tonight.”
Tomorrow kept getting postponed.
My millionaire husband secretly followed me because he believed I was hiding something from him. Instead, he discovered me sitting alone in the kitchen, eating reheated leftovers while his mother and sister raised glasses of expensive wine only a few yards away.
