Bound By Lies: The Unwanted Contract Wife

“My husband of two years and I had a purely transactional marriage. Or so I thought, until I discovered he was using me as a human shield to protect his true love-a woman who once saved him from severe depression. To keep her hidden from the tabloids, he staged scandals, and even threw me out of his car on the freezing Brooklyn Bridge at night just because I found her perfume. To protect my shattered pride, I publicly mocked him in a crowded lounge, claiming I didn't care about his affairs and that he was nothing but an on-call ATM to me. "A machine that spits out cash?" Enraged by my coldness, Kevin retaliated by exposing my deepest, most humiliating scar in front of everyone. He screamed about how I had gotten blind drunk on my eighteenth birthday, crying and hugging a streetlamp in the freezing cold while begging a stranger for comfort. I was paralyzed with shock. I had only ever told my closest friend that secret. But Kevin sneered and claimed I had drunkenly babbled the pathetic story to him two years ago, using my trauma to beg him for his pity and money. The overwhelming humiliation suffocated me. Had I really thrown away my deepest pride while unconscious just to get him to sign our prenuptial agreement? Standing alone in the bitter Manhattan wind, I wiped my tears and made a decision. I was done playing his convenient shield, and it was time to cash out and leave.”