Chapter 1

Julian, my husband, was scrolling through our maid Chloe's latest Instagram story. Suddenly, he turned to me and asked, "Don't you think Chloe has such a tragic life?"

I looked up from my laptop. "What do you mean?"

He frowned slightly, his brow furrowing with pity. "She's a single mother, raising twin boys all on her own. Her ex-husband was abusive, her father is a gambling addict, and her mother is currently fighting for her life in the ICU..."

I leaned over and glanced at his phone screen.

In the photo, Chloe was wearing a revealing maid outfit and sheer black stockings, arching her back suggestively as she wiped down our master bathtub.

I smiled coldly. "You're quite the caring employer, Julian. You even know the intimate details of her ex-husband's abuse."

He froze, clearing his throat awkwardly as he tried to look nonchalant.

"I want to give her a raise. Fifteen thousand dollars a month."

"And we can bring her sons to live with us in our mansion."

He blurted it out in one breath, looking at me with dead seriousness.

"That way, she can support her family and focus on her work here without worrying about her kids."

I looked at him with a half-smile, my eyes cold.

"Let's just fire her instead."

He was stunned.

I put down my phone and said calmly, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to move your mistress and illegitimate children into my house. Am I wrong?"

My sarcasm immediately set him off. He stood up, looking flustered and angry.

"Audrey, why do you always have to be so cynical?" he snapped. "As a woman, can't you show some basic empathy?"

I found his sudden burst of morality hilarious. "Julian, you're the Chief of Medicine at my family's private hospital, managing thousands of employees. What's your monthly salary? I don't see you showing this kind of 'empathy' to any of your female staff. Yet here you are, practically begging to bring another woman's kids into our home."

He choked on his words, his face flushing before he tried to defend himself again. "I just pity a struggling woman trying to support her family! Is that a crime?"

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. "I'm not a saint, Julian. I pay her for the work she does. I haven't withheld a single penny of her paycheck."

He wanted to argue further, but I cut him off with a raised hand.

"I'll give you two choices."

"Either you fire her today, or we get a divorce. Your call."

I had laid it out on the table. He should have understood that I was giving him a final chance to clean up his own mess. If I had to step in myself, he would end up with absolutely nothing.

Instead, he slammed his hand on the study table.

"A divorce? Just because I want to give Chloe a raise?"

"Is it because my family isn't as wealthy as yours, and I only got the Chief position through your family's connections? Am I destined to be beneath you for the rest of my life?"

"Do I, as your husband, not even have the right to decide a maid's salary?"

Normally, Julian was the epitome of calm and collected. Even when a rioting patient held a scalpel to his back in the emergency room, he hadn't lost his cool.

I stared at him, unfazed. "So, you choose divorce, then?"

His lips pressed into a thin line, glaring at me in a cold standoff.

Chloe suddenly appeared at the study door, her head lowered, looking timid and fragile.

"Mrs. Sterling, I wanted to say, you're misunderstanding Mr. Julian and me."

"He is so young, successful, and the Chief of Medicine. Just being associated with me feels like I'm dragging him down."

"I'm divorced with kids. No decent man would want me. What could he possibly want from me anyway?"

Her low-cut maid outfit accentuated her cleavage, and her long legs were wrapped in those sheer black stockings.

Suddenly, I remembered the out-of-place anime throw pillow in Julian's sports car.

The cartoon character printed on it looked exactly like Chloe. And the mug on his office desk that he had used for years.

The cute anime girl on it was probably a stylized version of her, too.

I sneered and looked at Julian.

"Chloe is asking what you want from her. Let me guess. Is it her great body and pretty face? Or maybe this fragile, helpless damsel-in-distress act?"

I paused, letting the silence stretch.

"Or is it because she has sons? You've been dying for a son, haven't you? Since you can't produce one yourself, you want to be an instant dad?"

"Audrey!" Julian panicked, darting a nervous glance at Chloe. He rushed over and clamped his hand over my mouth, whispering furiously through gritted teeth.

"Shut up! Do you have to broadcast my infertility to the entire world?!"