"Hilda Pruitt, I was in a meeting with a client just now. What was that screenshot supposed to mean?"
"I think you know exactly what it means," I said evenly.
Silence. Then his voice came back sharp, edged with anger.
"Hilda! Don't tell me you actually think I'm cheating. Dozens of people go on business trips every month. What makes you so sure I'm the one who bought them?"
My tone didn't waver. "You seem to have forgotten. When you arranged my position at the company, you also gave me one specific task: compiling the monthly log of all employees on business travel."
"And last December, you were the only one who traveled. Oh, right. You and your secretary."
The line went quiet.
When he spoke again, his voice had softened a few degrees.
"Is... is that so? Then maybe I did buy them. Must've accidentally charged them to the company account."
"Well, since you've brought it to my attention, let's stick to our agreement. Go ahead and transfer me your half."
A cold laugh escaped me.
From the very beginning of our marriage, he'd insisted on a 50/50 split for everything. Appliances, groceries, down to a plastic bag. He loved telling people that his wife wasn't some decorative housewife who couldn't pull her own weight.
And yet for something as loaded as condoms, he hadn't asked me to split the cost.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Besides, ever since Damian came back from that trip, we hadn't been intimate. Not once.
He'd had his fun with someone else, and now he had the nerve to come to me for reimbursement.
What a joke.
"Whoever you used them with," I said coolly, "take it up with her."
I didn't wait for a response. My thumb was already on the button.
But just before the call cut out, I heard Eleanor's voice in the background.
"Babe, what's his problem? She depends on you for everything. Without you, she's nothing."
A cold laugh curled inside my chest.
Neither of them had any idea. The company was nothing more than a subsidiary under my group.
So who, exactly, was depending on whom?
Long before I married Damian, I had already inherited the commercial empire my parents built. Back then, I wanted to evaluate one of our newer subsidiaries firsthand, so I entered the company under a low-level position. It was during a strategy meeting that I first met Damian.