Chapter 1

For three years of marriage, Jackson James and I had always gone Dutch.

Even for a roll of toilet paper, we split the cost down the middle, and he'd always frown and say:

"I'm helping you stay independent. A woman shouldn't lose herself just because she's married."

Then he found out I was pregnant, and out of nowhere he went and booked a $30,000 postpartum care retreat.

"Don't worry about the money. The only thing that matters is delivering the baby safely."

In that moment, I thought he'd finally learned how to care about someone.

On the way home, he got out of the car to smoke, but forgot to disconnect the car's Bluetooth.

"Mom, don't worry. How could I let her take advantage of our family?"

When the call connected, his voice was smug. "I got the money by running it through her health insurance card, plus the nutrition money her mother gave."

"Once Margot moves in, she'll get six meals a day there. I'll eat there and take some home every day, and we'll save on our own grocery bill too."

I sat in the car, my hand pressed to my belly, feeling like I'd dropped into an ice cellar.

I thought, if the baby could choose, it surely wouldn't want to come into a home like this.

...

Jackson's mother's voice came through the Bluetooth speaker.

"That's my boy—you really know how to run a household, know better than to let the good water flow to someone else's field."

"Pack a little extra to bring back later, so your dad and I can have a taste too."

Then Margot spoke up, sounding wounded.

"Big brother, your wife is so lucky, getting to stay at a postpartum retreat while she's pregnant."

"I'm five months along, and that broke loser I married doesn't care about me at all."

"Boo-hoo."

Margot's aggrieved sobbing came down the line.

Hearing his little sister cry, Jackson was suddenly heartbroken over her.

"I told you back then not to be with him. I wanted you to do like me and find someone from a well-off family, but no, you had to marry someone you liked! See where it got you!"

"All right, all right, stop crying. Your wife's parents gave a hundred thousand in childcare money, and I'll take fifty thousand and book you an even better postpartum retreat."

Margot's tears turned to laughter at once.

"I knew my brother loved me best."

Hearing that, I couldn't hold back the urge any longer and got straight out of the car.

The instant his eyes met mine.

Jackson's face went panicked and he fumbled to hang up the phone.

But that flash of guilt lasted all of two seconds before he knit his brow out of pure habit.

"How did you get out of the car without making a sound? Sneaking around behind people, eavesdropping on their conversations—do you have any manners at all?"

I stared at him, my stomach churning.

"What? You want to use the money my parents gave for the baby to book a postpartum retreat for your sister, but I'm not allowed to hear about it?"

Jackson threw his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his foot.

"What do you mean, 'your money'?"

"That's marital property. It belongs to both of us."

"Your parents said it plainly—the money is for their granddaughter."

"I'm the baby's father, so why can't I touch it?"

"Don't forget, the baby in Margot's belly is a James family child too. She's in trouble right now, and as her big brother I can't just ignore her."

I clenched my fists and tried to keep my voice level.

"Where's her husband?"

"Samuel doesn't make much, and you know it."

"So because her husband earns less, she gets to spend my money?"

In that instant, a chill ran through my whole body.

In my memory, when I first met Jackson, he didn't wear this sickening face.

Back then we were both running our advisor's project together, and I knew he had a crush on me, though I never called it out.

Later, when my father had a sudden stroke and was hospitalized, he quietly took on all of my work without a word.

When the project wrapped and the bonuses came in, he flat-out insisted on giving me half.

"You did most of the early work. I only stepped in temporarily. I could never take advantage of you."

It was that solid decency—not grabbing credit, not taking advantage—that made me let my guard down and start to like him.

Before we married, he was the one who proposed we split everything after the wedding.

"You're more capable than me, and your family has more money than mine. I don't want to trap you with family and money."

"Marriage should let two people grow together and be freer."

Back then my mother was full of worry: "When a couple keeps such careful accounts, life turns cold pretty fast."

And I foolishly defended him: "Mom, it's called respecting each other's independence."

I used to think that the most reliable kind of love was a man who didn't take advantage of his wife and knew how to respect her independent space.

It wasn't until today that I finally woke up to just how badly I'd been wrong.

All that so-called "respect" went sour after we married.

On finances he insisted on splitting every penny down to the last cent, but the housework naturally fell entirely on me.

He paid the down payment on our marital home, then asked me to put up $300,000 for the renovations.

"I bought the house, so you handle the renovations. That's only fair."

Yet from start to finish, only his name was ever on the deed.

The most ridiculous thing was last month, when I had a fever that wouldn't break and bought a twenty-dollar box of fever reducers.

That very night, Jackson sent me a payment code.

"You're the one who's sick, so by rights the cost of the medicine is on you."

"But I feel bad for you, so I'll cover half the medicine. Just send me ten dollars."

Looking back on it now, I only feel wave after wave of disgust and bitter irony.

What kind of independent woman was I? I was plainly boiled little by little like a frog in slowly warming water, trained into a free nanny who paid out of her own pocket.

In his eyes, our marriage was never a union of feelings—it was a transaction where he was guaranteed to come out ahead.

I looked at him coldly. "Jackson, listen to yourself. Is that even something a human being would say?"