Bitter 8

Chapter 8 No More Acting
“I’m not as shameless as you are. You abandoned work just to take your mistress on vacation.” As soon as Leonard spoke, I knew what had happened. The business partner must have finally reached him. If I remember correctly, the design draft for this project had been finalized long ago. The business partner probably reached out to me to modify the design. A few months ago, I was indeed in charge of this project. But later, I was practically on my deathbed, so I naturally had no mind for work. I could not recall if Leonard was seeing Lily at the time. Nevertheless, he did not care about me since he had someone with him. He had assigned others to take over my project. Not only that, he even told the finance department to deduct all my salary. Yes, I used to have a salary for my work. But I had nothing now. He must have thought that I would have to rely on him to live, and would certainly submit to him. But he was wrong. I was not the submissive type, and I did not do anything wrong in the first place. Back when we were dating, he could never win an argument against me. But now that I had become sick and physically weak, my mind had grown unusually sharp. He was now even less of a match for me. “You’re looking for me now since there’s a problem with the business collaboration. But when everything’s fine, you’d look for Lily and ignore me, right?” “You’ve truly failed as a man. It’s just one project, but you can’t even handle it on your own and have to beg your wife to step in. Or could it be that you can’t live or function without me? Stop disgusting me.” My recovery had been going well for the past few days. Now that I had money for injections, I was much more confident. I had done my research last night. Even if I did smash his safe and take the money, it would not be considered illegal. We never had a prenuptial agreement when we got married. I could just live idly my whole life, and half of his money was mine. At most, my action would only be considered as damaging my private property. The police would not be able to do anything about it. Would I choose to be tormented by the disease or be scolded by him? Of course, the latter was the easier way out, at least I would not have to die. With this confidence, my voice grew much louder. He obviously did not expect me to finally stop swallowing my anger after three years and talk to him this way. For a moment, he did not know how to refute my words. I did not feel like wasting words with him. I was just about to hang up when he sneered and spoke again. “So, you’ve finally stopped putting on an act, huh? I was wondering how long you could keep it up. “You even told me that you were hospitalized just to gain sympathy by playing the victim. You’re really something.” “Leonard, I really am hospitalized.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I immediately regretted saying it. He surely would not believe me. Sure enough, his laughter grew louder. “Save the act for someone else. I checked with the doctor, you only got one stitch. Why would you be hospitalized? “Did you think a little injury would make me feel sorry for you? Dream on!” I closed my eyes. My chest started throbbing in pain again. When Lily got a tiny scratch, he called a doctor over, but he thought it was nothing when I got one stitch. But why didn’t he ask the doctor why I was in the doctor’s office? Why did he not ask why I was in the oncology department? Why did he not ask why it was the police calling him, and not me? Since he did not care, he naturally would not ask. All he could see was that I wanted him to put aside an important business meeting to come to the hospital after just getting one stitch. And it even caused Lily to have an allergic reaction. I took a deep breath and said emotionlessly, “Okay. I’ll go to sleep then. Otherwise how else can I dream?” He yelled angrily, “Wait! The project has always been under your oversight, so you have to be fully responsible for this matter.” “I don’t want to do it anymore.” Sick of his commanding tone, I hung up. In just a few minutes, he called again. When my phone rang for the third time, I yelled into the phone. “Leonard, are you stupid? I said I don’t want to do it, so why are you calling me again?” The caregiver next to me hurried over to support me. She was worried that I would tear my wound. I did not hear what Leonard cursed on the other end. He then coldly said, “You’re in charge of this project from the beginning, so you have to see it through.” Yelling seemed to have improved his mood. I had also calmed down a bit. The project was indeed under my oversight. The only thing left was just the construction phase. Overseeing the project meant having to work, and working meant earning money. After a few seconds, I asked, “How much will you pay me? You didn’t give me my project commission last time.” Back then, my commission was deducted since I did not see it through. “Eva, is money all you care about? Is money so important to you? Eva!” I could almost imagine him gritting his teeth. Whenever he got angry, he would clench his teeth hard. Especially when he was angry with me, the way he said my name would be exceptionally clear. I replied indifferently, “Yeah, what else?” With money, I could live. Without it, I would have to die in a miserable way. If money was not important, was he important then? I closed my eyes as I quietly waited for his response. It took a full minute before he spoke again. “Okay. Since you love money so much, I’ll give you the entire project commission!” I let out a sigh of relief, then reminded him of one more thing. “And the base salary and overtime pay.” “It’s all fucking yours!” He hung up angrily, but my mood had become much better. Great. With the project commission, I would not have to smash the cabinet for now.