He Used Me as His Drinking Shield, Then Chose His Secretary

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Nigel Matthews was allergic to alcohol. In the three years we'd built the company together, I'd taken on every deal that came with a bottle attached, every toast, every negotiation soaked in liquor. Not once did I let a single drop touch his lips.

At the gala celebrating the company's IPO, I was at it again, holding the line ten drinkers deep, drinking on his behalf.

Halfway through the banquet, I stepped away to take a sobriety pill and catch my breath.

That was when I saw him slipping my sobriety pill between the lips of his little secretary.

"Mr. Matthews, if you give me your sobriety pill, what about Ms. Pruitt?"

"She's a born drinker. She could put away eight bottles of the strongest stuff and still stand. Worst case, she makes a fool of herself."

The little secretary covered her mouth, giggling. "What kind of fool?"

"Stripping in a client's car... and the next morning she thought it was with me..."

The whole table of girls burst out laughing.

Only I stood there as if nailed to the floor, going from numb, to a sharp sting, to something in me turning to cold ash.

No wonder he kept saying the company owed everything it had become to what I'd given up for it.

The next second, he picked up the secretary's glass and drained it in one go.

Then he pinched her cheek.

"Same rule as always. Don't tell Selina Pruitt, or there'll be no one left to drink for me."

So even the alcohol allergy was a lie.

I didn't call him out. I forced myself to turn away and, with a single tap, sent off the email transferring away every last one of my shares.

From now on, I would never drink for him again.

Behind me, the stunned laughter kept rolling on.

"Mr. Matthews, so it's not that you can't drink, it's that you didn't want to?"

Nigel made a hushing gesture and said, carelessly:

"Selina loves to drink, and she loves that beauty-saves-the-hero glow she gets from drinking for me. As her boyfriend, I had to indulge her little fantasy!"

Mila Atkins, the little secretary, added in a sugary voice:

"Actually, the first time Mr. Matthews had an allergic reaction, it was because of a mango cake I made. Ms. Pruitt just assumed he was allergic to alcohol."

The others gasped.

"Mila, you're really something! You knew Mr. Matthews that far back?"

Mila laughed prettily and answered:

"I was the only scholarship student Mr. Matthews ever funded. I had nothing to repay him with, and the only thing I could offer was a cake I made myself. Who knew it would turn into such a huge mix-up!"

"But it's a beautiful misunderstanding. Mr. Matthews never has to drink at a single business dinner again for the rest of his life. Even if he hit me or cursed at me, I'd take it!"

Nigel shot her a mock-scolding look.

"As if I'd ever hit you or curse at you. I baby you every single day, and you still have the nerve to go spilling our little secret!"

The doting in his voice came through crystal clear, even from the other side of the door.

A cold dread shot up from the base of my spine to the crown of my head.

The grief and fury of being deceived were buried completely beneath that cold.

That night had been my first time with Nigel.

Candlelight, red wine, roses, cake. Everything so perfect.

The only flaw was Nigel suddenly flushing all over, his throat swelling up.

I was so terrified I couldn't think straight, sobbing, ready to call 911, but he stopped me and said he'd be fine after an allergy pill.

Afterward, I asked him how he could possibly have had a reaction out of nowhere.

He told me it was an alcohol allergy.

It was never a misunderstanding at all. It was him covering for Mila.

Because the wine was something I'd bought. The cake was something Mila had made.

That night, guilt-ridden, I did everything I could to please him, and for the three years after, I drank down countless glasses in his place at the table.

I ended up in the hospital three times with a perforated stomach, suffered through drunken headaches too many times to count, and he would say he loved me over and over with red-rimmed eyes, yet never once would he tell me the truth about the allergy.

Still less did he ever tell me he had once funded someone else.

How laughable, that I'd treated that night as our most precious memory.

That I'd treated all those days of drinking for him as the foundation stones of the happy future we were building together.

Never once did it occur to me that it was only ever a fantasy of my own.

That night was where our paths began to split.

Mila's coquettish voice piped up again.

"Fine, fine, I'll drop it. But then, Nigel, at least tell us how Selina did her striptease. That much you can do, right?"

Nigel tapped her forehead lightly.

"Don't you already know all the details?"

Mila swung his arm, wheedling. "I just want to hear it one more time. Come on, tell us!"

The other girls chimed in, giggling and coaxing.

"Nigel, tell us! We all want to hear it!"

Surrounded by a cluster of pretty young women, each simpering in her own way, Nigel put on a show of stern disapproval.

"Behave yourselves! It was nothing. Your Selina mistook a client for me, stripped down to her underwear, scared the poor man half to death. He tried to get out of the car, but she locked the doors and wouldn't let him leave. If I hadn't gotten there in time, the client's dignity wouldn't have survived..."

As his voice rose and fell through the telling, the jumbled memories I'd forced down were rewritten without mercy.

No wonder the way he looked at me after I sobered up had been so strange.

I'd asked him what was wrong, whether I'd made a fool of myself drunk, and he'd said,

"Selina, thank you for everything you've given me. I'll make it up to you someday, I promise. Once the company goes public, I'll marry you."

After that, he rarely touched me. He poured more and more of himself into work instead.

And I sank deeper into the dream he'd built for me, throwing myself into growing the company harder than ever.

All so I could become his bride that much sooner.

But the company went public, and he never said a word about marriage.

Instead, to keep Mila and the other girls entertained, he turned the ugliest moment of my life into a joke.

Nigel gave the group another order, his tone all doting indulgence.

"That's enough. Everyone treat this as a joke and keep it here. I don't want it getting out."

They agreed, still laughing. But after I went into the restroom, a few of the girls slipped in behind me.

"Hey, what do you think Nigel meant by all that today? You don't think we're about to get a new boss's lady, do you?"

"Feels like he's kicking away the ladder once he's climbed up. A secret stops being a secret the moment you say it out loud. Selina's probably not far from getting dumped..."

"Then we'd better stay on Mila's good side. As much as Nigel dotes on her, she'll be moving up fast. I heard from Mila that Nigel had those clients get Selina drunk on purpose, so the proposal tonight would fall through because she was too wasted..."

"It's almost funny, stripping again and again for Nigel and ending up with nothing! She's worse off than a plucked chicken!"

"Are you sure that proposal was meant for Selina? She looked like she had no idea about any of it!"

Their mockery drove into my heart like a dozen knives.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep the tears from spilling.

Because I'd asked Nigel last night whether he had a surprise for me today, and he'd told me, plainly, that he didn't.

My phone buzzed. A message came in.

I hear you're selling all your shares. Would you sell them to me? Name your price.

I stared at the sender, more than a little surprised.

I never expected Cliff Donaldson would want to buy the shares I held.

He was the big client I'd mistaken for Nigel, the one I'd done that whole striptease in front of.

I hesitated for two seconds, then asked,

Why?

Call it compensation for the time I took advantage of you.

We can talk it through when you come out. I'll take you to get some air and clear your head in the meantime.

I froze despite myself.

Cliff had been one of tonight's invited guests too. Had he just heard everything?

I asked him outright.

He only said,

That night, I should have stopped you from drinking so much. It was my fault, and I'm the one who should make it right.

So this was the reason his company had a better option and still decided to sign the contract with me?

I thought it, and I asked it too.

The other side typed for a long time before a single line came through:

Don't carry any guilt over this. Partnering with the Haonan Group is no loss for me.

I stared at the two words, Haonan, and my eyes stung without warning.

The company's original name had been built from mine and Nigel's.

But before the IPO, Nigel had someone read the fortune in it, and they said "Haonan" sounded too much like "so hard," bad luck for the company's future, so he changed it.

Now everyone knew only "the Matthews Group," and the ones who still remembered its former name, "Haonan," were next to none.

Wei, the same sound as Vee.

What was there left for me not to understand?

The scumbag's name was Nigel, my name was Selina, and the other woman's name was Mila.

And I understood something else even better. The partnership, the offer to buy the shares I was selling off, all of it was Cliff trying to make up for my humiliation that night.

But my boyfriend, the man I'd loved for years, had never once thought I shouldn't have drunk that much.

He'd taken my humiliation and turned it into a tool to please other people, with his own hands.

Fine. Wait for me.

I put my phone away, waited for the girls to leave, and stepped out of the restroom.

An arm caught mine out of nowhere.

"Selina, I've been looking all over for you. Where'd you go? I still need you to drink for me!"

Catching the faint scent of cologne on Nigel, I didn't turn around.

"I've got somewhere to be, so I'm leaving. As for the drinks, drink what you can handle, and if you can't, don't."

He froze for a beat, then walked around to face me, staring at me, displeased.

"What's this about? Mad I haven't proposed yet? We haven't gotten to the main event. You think I'd back out on something I promised you?"

So he still remembered the promise, to propose to me the day the company went public.

I'd waited for it all this time, at peace.

Only to end up with the cruel truth instead.

He pulled a velvet box from his pocket, coaxing me in that gentle voice.

"Once everyone's been taken care of, it's your big moment. Excited?"

Inside the box sat the engagement ring I'd dreamed about for so long.

But I only smiled and pried his hand open.

"I really do have to go. Go drink with them."

Nigel knit his brows.

"No, seriously, what's gotten into you? I'm allergic to alcohol, how am I supposed to drink? Come inside with me, Vee and the others are still waiting to toast you!"

The self-righteousness in his voice sent my stomach churning.

"Are you really allergic to alcohol?"

I looked at him, steady and unblinking, waiting to see if he'd say the truth.

But there wasn't a flicker of guilt on his face. Instead he started dragging me toward the private room without another word.

"You didn't even drink that much. Why are you talking nonsense?"

I shoved him off hard and ran for the restroom beside us, hugging the toilet as I threw up until the world went black.

Nigel waited two impatient minutes, then Mila, who'd come looking for him, pushed him back into the room.

"Mr. Matthews, go rest. I'll take care of Ms. Pruitt!"

And Nigel actually walked off without so much as a backward glance.

Mila brought over a glass of red wine and patted my back.

"Ms. Pruitt, what are you working yourself to death for? A woman who's too driven, nobody's ever going to love her!"

"Or is it the truth from before? Can't quite accept it?"

I whipped my head around and looked at Mila with bloodshot eyes.

"You did this on purpose?"

Mila watched me, smug, and poured the wine straight down over me, sneering with contempt.

"What else? Mr. Matthews has put up with you for a long time but couldn't bring himself to break it off, so someone had to be the villain! You have no idea, every time he lay next to you, all he could see was you doing a striptease for the clients. How sickening is that!"

"And where he couldn't see, you were probably getting passed around by the clients, weren't you? How do you even have the nerve to keep clinging to him?"

The wine dripped down, soaking through my white gown.

I lowered my head, looking at the wine stain spreading across my chest, and laughed out loud.

"You schemed your heart out for three whole years. The trash is all yours."

"You're calling Mr. Matthews trash? As if you're worthy?"

Mila raised her hand with a smile.

I lifted my arm to block her, but instead she smiled and slapped herself twice.

She showed herself no mercy, and her cheek went red and swollen in an instant.

"Ah! Ms. Pruitt! Why did you hit me?"

She shrieked, tearing open her own collar, screaming for help.

When Nigel rushed out, he arrived just in time to see her looking utterly wrecked.

He didn't care that this was the women's restroom. He strode straight in and pulled Mila into his arms.

Then he took off his suit jacket and draped it over her, soothing her in a gentle voice.

"I'm here. Don't be afraid."

But when he turned to me, his voice went cold.

"Selina! You're drunk!"

"Apologize to Mila!"

Nigel asked nothing. He simply believed Mila, no conditions attached.

I shook my head and refused.

"I didn't hit her. She threw the wine on me, then staged this whole thing"

Mila suddenly cried even harder.

"Mr. Matthews, don't blame Ms. Pruitt. It's my fault. I saw Ms. Pruitt reaching for more wine right after she'd thrown up, so I told her to drink less... I spilled her wine so she couldn't have any. I really did deserve to be hit..."

At those words, Nigel abruptly slapped me across the face.

"Selina, are you sober now?"

He pointed at Mila's red, swollen cheek, his voice cold.

"Look at what you've done! If you can't hold your liquor, don't force it! And now look, drunk out of your mind, throwing a fit, making a disgrace of yourself!"

"Don't you know you go crazy when you drink too much? Last time you mistook a client for me and did a striptease in the car. I didn't expose you because I didn't want you humiliated, and now you've hit Mila and you still won't admit it!"

"Are you going to blame the alcohol for this too, the way you did when I caught you in bed with a client? You really think everyone's like me, that they'll put up with your nonsense no matter what?"

If I really were drunk, chances are I'd have echoed whatever he said and apologized to Mila.

But I was clearer than I'd ever been.

Clear enough to see just how worthless I was in his eyes.

Everything I'd sacrificed had become nonsense to him.

It was absurd.

The commotion was loud enough to draw a crowd.

Word spread from one mouth to the next, and in no time everyone knew my sales record had been earned on my back.

People pointed at me and murmured.

"God, a woman like that actually thought she could marry Mr. Matthews? She's not even close to worthy."

Someone chimed in with a sneer.

"She's had plenty of men. She's clearly got her ways."

"What ways? I'd like a couple of turns myself. Is all it takes signing a contract with you?"

Some drunk lecher whistled at me.

The irritation on Nigel's face vanished completely at that whistle.

"Selina! Apologize to Mila! Or the grand finale tonight is canceled!"

He was actually using the proposal to threaten me.

But I didn't care anymore.

"Nigel, we're breaking up."

His face froze, disbelief written all over it.

"You hit someone, and now you're throwing a tantrum and demanding a breakup?"

"I can see you're really drunk, not thinking straight. Since you love drinking and causing scenes so much, tonight I'll let you drink your fill. Let you see what you're like when you're wasted!"

Nigel dragged me hard into the private room and forced liquor down my throat in front of a table full of young women.

No matter how I struggled, he wouldn't let go.

One of the girls couldn't stand to watch and spoke up for me.

"Mr. Matthews, if Ms. Pruitt gets hurt from being force-fed like this, you'll be held responsible!"

Nigel shot her a vicious glare.

"Don't worry. She's my girlfriend. Whatever happens, I'll take responsibility!"

Venom flashed through Mila's eyes, but she grabbed his arm, sobbing.

"Mr. Matthews, let it go! It's all my fault! Every bit of this is on me. Let me take three drinks as a penalty, to make it up to Ms. Pruitt!"

She snatched the bottle out of Nigel's hand and tipped it straight into her mouth.

One swallow and she was coughing, her whole face flushed crimson.

Nigel panicked on the spot and swept her up into his arms.

"Mila, are you out of your mind? Your stomach's already bad. How could you drink like this? It'll start hurting again any second!"

He scooped her up and headed straight for the hospital.

I'd had two crates of liquor forced down me, and he hadn't spared a thought for whether my stomach hurt, whether it might perforate a second time.

Mila took a single sip, and he came unglued.

Watching his hurried back disappear, I finally understood, fully, what I was to Nigel. A tool for taking the drinks meant for him.

My stomach burned like it was on fire, but I walked toward the dressing room to change as if I felt nothing at all.

I'd only gotten halfway out of my clothes when the door I'd bolted from the inside swung open.

I whipped around and saw several clients walk in, leers plastered across their faces.

"Well, well. Ms. Pruitt really knows how to play it. Caught our hint and couldn't wait to give us what we wanted, hm?"

"Then it'd be rude of us to refuse!"

Several greasy hands reached for me.

I grabbed the chair beside me and hurled it at them.

"Get out!"

But they caught the chair and yanked it toward themselves, hard.

I stumbled and went down.

A stab tore through my stomach, and that familiar taste of blood spread across my mouth.

The pain had me seeing stars. I pulled out my phone and dialed the emergency line to call Nigel.

No one picked up.

A sleazy taunt slid into my ear.

"Oh? Still hoping Mr. Matthews will come save you? Your Mr. Matthews is busy looking after his little secretary. He's got no time for you. And besides, he told us to keep you drinking until you'd had your fill!"

Someone played a voice recording.

It was Nigel's voice. No mistaking it.

"Craig, Ivan, haven't you two always wanted to drink Selina under the table? Tonight you can have your fill. Just film her getting drunk and making a fool of herself, that's all I need!"

My heart clenched with a pain I couldn't control, and the blood in my veins froze at those words.

The next second, someone gripped my chin.

Breathing in the rich smell of liquor at the tip of my nose, for the first time I found it sickening.

My stomach heaved, and I lost consciousness completely.

When I woke, I was in the hospital.

Cliff was keeping watch over me, his eyes rimmed red.

"You're awake? Anything hurting?"

I shook my head and spoke, my voice a rasp.

"Is the transfer contract ready?"

He didn't say anything more, just took out the contract and a pen.

I signed my name carefully, and Cliff arranged for it to be notarized right away.

By the time everything was settled, Nigel's calls came flooding in.