Girlfriend Used My Card With Her CEO Sweetheart; I Rejected His Investment

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The night I dropped my girlfriend off at her startup training class, my phone buzzed with a charge notice from the Fourth Season Hotel: $8,888 for the premier suite.

I called the hotel manager and demanded to know what was going on. His answer was polite.

Mr. Finch, your girlfriend, Miss Cobb, checked into room 504 with a guest.

It hit me like a live wire. My hand was shaking as I dialed Rosalind Cobb.

The phone rang a long time before she picked up, and I could hear a man in the shower behind her.

"Julian Chavez just got into Ashford. I'm keeping him company while he settles in for a bit. Since when do you check up on me?"

Through my teeth, I asked her how she could take my money to book a room for another man and still face me.

Rosalind laughed, cold and sharp.

"Julian's got a complete startup plan this time. Once he lands Pinnacle Group's investment, his salary starts at ten million a year, minimum."

"So I catch up with the future boss. What's the problem?"

"A woman who's been protected by a lion isn't about to settle for suffering alongside a stray dog like you."

The line went dead.

On my computer screen sat the startup funding proposal Julian had just emailed me.

I told my secretary to reply and decline the investment outright.

...

1.

I carried our old photo album into the kitchen and turned on the gas burner.

Five years, from our first photo together to the last.

The flame was small. I burned them all night long.

By the time the last photo went up, the sky had gone light, and only then did Rosalind open the front door.

"What are you doing?"

"You've filled the whole place with smoke! Are you sick in the head?"

She kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the sofa, reeking of alcohol.

"Julian just got into Ashford last night. He had nowhere to stay, so I took him to the hotel to get settled."

"Then we had too much to drink and ended up talking about the startup for a while."

"You're a grown man, quit whining. Can't you think bigger than this?"

She grabbed a change of clothes in a hurry, turned, and walked back out without so much as a glance at me.

I checked the clock. Time for work.

I hadn't slept all night, and I sat through the meeting with my head like wood.

When it broke up, I scrolled my social media to shake off the fog.

The first thing on the feed was a new post from Rosalind.

The photo showed a busy shopping street, sunlight falling soft over everything.

She stood beside Julian, a faint smile on her face as she looked at him.

Dead center in the nine-photo grid was the two of them gazing into each other's eyes, easy and intimate.

The caption read: So much time has passed, and thank goodness neither of us has changed.

It felt like someone had stamped down hard on my chest, every organ crushed into one tight knot.

Five years with Rosalind, and she had never once put up a single post about me.

Said I was just a small manager at a branch office. Not worth showing off.

Five years of us, and this was what it meant to her.

I wasn't going to keep playing the fool, and I sure wasn't going to keep bankrolling the two of them, so I canceled Rosalind's supplementary card.

Not half an hour later my phone was buzzing like mad. Rosalind called thirteen times in a row.

The second I picked up, her furious voice came through.

"Milton Finch! You canceled my card?"

"What is your problem? I'm out shopping with a friend. You want to humiliate me?"

"What are you trying to pull? A revolt?"

"I'm telling you, you have ten minutes to send the money. Otherwise we are finished!"

In the background Julian's voice slid in, snide and mocking. "Rose, this is exactly the kind of man you can't keep. You spend a little of his money and suddenly he thinks he's an emperor."

"Once my funding comes through, this pocket change is nothing."

"My salary starts at ten million a year, minimum. You'll be able to spend whatever you want."

"I'll set you up. Come work at my company as my executive secretary. A hundred grand a month, minimum."

"I just got back from overseas, that's all. My dollars aren't easy to use here yet, or a sum like this wouldn't even register."

Then I heard Rosalind's voice go sweet. "Julian's the best! Not like some broke little nobody."

She had never once used that tone with me.

"Milton, let me tell you something. Me spending your money is me doing you a favor!"

The call ended.

I set the phone down slowly, and it suddenly struck me as absurd.

Ten at night, Rosalind finally came home. The moment she was through the door she hurled her bag onto the sofa.

"Milton, you humiliated me today, completely!"

I sat in the dark and said nothing.

"Do you have any idea what it's like, standing in a luxury store, having your card declined while the salesgirl looks down her nose at you?"

"Julian was standing right there. How was I supposed to save face?"

"Did you do it on purpose?"

Her chest heaved with rage. "Milton, how much does a branch manager even make? Let me tell you, once Julian's company goes public, I'll have a job of my own!"

"By then, you could get down on your knees and beg me, and I still wouldn't spend a cent of your money!"

She slammed the bedroom door and locked it from the inside.

I drove my fist into the wall as hard as I could.

Five years. Five years, and all I'd raised was an ungrateful snake.

I stared out at the dark.

Rosalind was afraid of the dark. She couldn't sleep alone.

For her, I'd rushed home the second work ended, every single day.

I skipped the company dinners, ducked out of the boss's networking rounds, turned down any overnight travel and came back the same day.

Coworkers got promoted. I didn't.

Project opportunities came around. I missed them.

Tiansheng Group kept getting bigger, and me, the chairman's own nephew, was content to bury myself in a peripheral branch as a small-time manager.

I didn't care.

I thought home mattered more than work, and she mattered more than money.

Looking back now, I was just a world-class idiot.

Fine. If she looked down on me for being poor, I'd stop pretending.

Starting the next day, I threw everything back into work.

Out the door at seven in the morning, home at eleven at night.

Sometimes I didn't go home at all. I just slept in the lounge at group headquarters.

In three days I flew to two cities and signed three contracts worth hundreds of millions.

In one week I ran thirty-two internal meetings and cleaned up every rotten account on Tiansheng Group's books.

Rosalind couldn't adjust to the change in me.

"What time are you coming home? I'm here all by myself!" she complained over the phone.

"No idea."

"I haven't even eaten!"

"Order takeout."

"Milton! You didn't used to be like this!"

"That was then," I said coldly.

The next day she called again. "What exactly are you so busy with? Are you giving me the silent treatment on purpose?"

"Work."

"You're a small-time manager at a branch office! How much can you possibly have to do?"

"Milton! Did being nice to you for a couple of days make you forget who's in charge here?"

"You don't actually think you're that important, do you?"

I hung up and blocked her number.

By the third day, Rosalind stopped calling me.

Because Julian came over to see her every night.

The times I stopped home to grab documents, the two of them would be glued together on the couch.

The late-night snacks and bubble tea Julian had bought sat on the table.

They'd watch TV, laughing loudly at everything, over the top.

As if the moment I walked in, they had to put their romance on display for me on purpose.

I didn't even change out of my shoes. I grabbed the documents and left.

I acted like none of it was there.

Near the end of the month, the landlord came by.

When he knocked, Rosalind and Julian were feeding each other by hand.

"Rent for next quarter is thirty thousand. Time to pay up," the landlord said.

I walked over. "Terry, I'm here till the end of the month. I won't be renewing."

"All right, then start packing early. I'll get an agent to find someone else."

The landlord turned to go.

"What do you mean, not renewing?"

Rosalind came rushing over, shrieking, her face all disbelief.

"Milton! If you're giving up the place, where am I supposed to put all my clothes and luggage?"

"Starting next month I'm moving into company housing. What you do is none of my business," I said, expressionless.

The landlord looked at Rosalind. "The young man's out. You renting or not?"

Rosalind's eyes shot straight to Julian, pleading for help.

Julian looked a little awkward. "All my money's tied up in the funding round. I've got no cash on me right now."

"Rosalind, once the money from Pinnacle comes through, I'll buy you a big house outright!"

"But what do we do right now? I maxed out my credit card recently." Rosalind was panicking.

Julian waved a hand, his eyes darting.

"Relax. I've got a way."

He took Rosalind's phone and smoothly installed three payday loan apps.

A few taps later, he'd pulled out thirty thousand total.

The landlord took the money, shook his head, and left.

Julian patted Rosalind's shoulder. "Don't worry, Rosalind. Once my funding comes through, a little interest like this is nothing!"

"This round's a hundred million!"

"My salary's ten million a year! The good days are still ahead of us!"

With that, Julian shot me a contemptuous glance.

I looked at the sky-high interest popping up on Rosalind's phone, and inside I sneered.

Good days? Your final days are just getting started.

When I got up that morning, my car key was gone.

There was a note on the table:

Julian's going out to close a big deal. Borrowing your car.

Not even a heads-up. She'd just taken something of mine and handed it over to prop up some other man's image.

On whose say-so? I didn't hesitate. I called the police.

Then I dropped the note in the trash, phoned a moving company, and had everything hauled out.

An hour later, my phone buzzed with a vehicle alert. My car had taken serious body damage.

I checked the location and went with an officer to wait at the garage entrance before they got back.

Half an hour later, Rosalind and Julian climbed out of the car.

"That junk car of yours is a real pain in the ass to drive!" Julian kicked the tire, cursing.

"No power, no handling, nothing!"

"You could beg me to drive it later and I still wouldn't!"

I walked over and looked it over carefully.

There was a deep gouge down the right side, all the way through to the bare metal, and the front bumper was caved in.

"Who hit the car?" My voice was ice.

"Backed up without looking. Just scraped it a little." Julian said it like it was nothing.

"Repairs are three thousand. Send it to me."

I pulled out my phone and shoved my payment code right in his face.

"That junker of yours wouldn't even sell for much! Why bother fixing it!"

"Just scrap it while you can!"

Julian saw me holding up the payment code without moving and let out a snort.

"You steal a car now?"

The officer beside me spoke up out of nowhere.

Julian went blank for a second.

"You actually called the cops over something this small?"

I gave an indifferent shrug.

"Did you get my okay before driving my car? No okay, that's stealing, isn't it?"

Julian ground his teeth.

"Babe, just send him the money. From now on you don't drive some poor man's car and pick up his cheap stink."

"A car like this rents for fifty bucks a day at any lot, and that includes the scratch coverage!"

Rosalind rolled her eyes and jumped in.

"Milton, you're really making a mountain out of a molehill! Calling the police over this? It's your own busted mirror that made Julian scrape it in the first place!"

"One little scratch and it's three thousand? Who do you think you're playing for a fool?"

Rosalind dug two hundred bucks out of her pocket and flung it on the ground like she was tossing coins to a beggar.

"Two hundred. That's a day's rental on your car. That covers it, right?"

"Pick it up and get lost!"

Rosalind grabbed Julian's arm, and the two of them strutted off.

I didn't pick up the money on the ground.

Looking at the car that had been with me for five years, I couldn't help a bitter laugh.

I'd bought this car for Rosalind.

Fresh out of college, she hated cramming onto the bus and said it wasn't safe coming home late from work.

Back then I was working three jobs at once.

Up before dawn frying dough at a breakfast joint, out doing sales all day, bussing plates at a barbecue stand at night, hauling rebar at a construction site on weekends.

I wore through several pairs of gloves. The blisters on my fingers rose and healed and rose again.

Nine whole months of saving, and I finally bought that little runabout.

Now it wasn't worth mentioning.

I took out my phone and called the used-car lot.

"Come tow this away and sell it. The sooner the better."

Let it vanish from my life, along with all these memories.

At work, I was going over spreadsheets in my office when a message from Rosalind came in.

It was a video of her and Julian.

The background was the BMW dealership. The two of them stood in front of a brand-new BMW 7 Series, gazing sweetly at each other.

Julian had an arm around her waist. "Babe, this is the car a CEO pulling ten million a year should be driving!"

"You'll never have to sit in Milton's junk heap again, the one you can't even sit up straight in!"

Rosalind flashed a taunting smile at the camera. "See that, Milton? That's what having vision looks like."

I quietly turned off the phone.

Rosalind had already changed.

That afternoon, my landlord called.

"Milton! Your bathroom pipe burst! The unit downstairs is flooded, the ceiling's soaked through. I can't get through to your ex-girlfriend. Get back here and take a look, quick!"

I dialed Rosalind's number.

It rang a long time before she picked up.

"Hello?" Her voice came through noise, laughter and clinking glasses filling the background.

"The landlord says a pipe burst at the apartment. It's flooding." My voice was cold.

Julian's voice came in at once.

"Your pipe bursts and you call Rosalind? What's she supposed to do about it? She's not a plumber!"

"You're a grown man. You can't even handle a little thing like this without running to Rosalind? What a loser!"

"Tomorrow's the end of the month. Until then, you and Rosalind are still splitting that lease. Your pipe, your problem!"

Rosalind's friend cut in, voice dripping.

"Who is it?"

"That deadbeat Milton, who else! Our Rosalind finally wised up!"

"There's not one thing about him good enough for Rosalind. Broke as a joke!"

Julian didn't bother hanging up. He said it loud on purpose: "If I were Rosalind, I'd have dumped that Milton ages ago. What is he, even?"

"He's not worth one of my toes!"

Then came a wave of laughter.

I set the phone down and went back to the apartment.

We'd been neighbors for years, after all. I couldn't leave the people downstairs to eat it.

I spent the whole afternoon patching the pipe up as best I could, then paid the downstairs neighbors a few thousand.

Then I packed the last of my things.

Sitting on a cardboard box, I lit a cigarette.

Five years I'd lived here. Every corner held something Rosalind and I had picked out together.

The gray curtains she'd chosen. The coffee table we'd dug out of a secondhand market.

I stubbed out the cigarette and stood. At this point, thinking about any of it was pointless.

The door swung open.

It was Rosalind, a brand-new Chanel bag on her arm.

Julian stood behind her, twirling the keys to the BMW.

She leaned against the doorframe, glanced at the water stains on the floor, disgust all over her face.

"I told you to fix the pipe and this is what you call fixed?"

"How are you this useless? You can't even do a simple thing right. No wonder you'll be a low-level manager your whole life."

Julian snorted and slid an arm around her waist. "Rosalind, let's go stay in a presidential suite tonight."

"I can't stand another second in this dump."

"Tomorrow we'll get someone to clean the place up, then come back."

"You've still got a little left on those payday loans. Just get through the next few days. Once my funding hits a hundred million, I'm taking you to the top!"

Rosalind gazed at him, all tenderness. "Julian, whatever you say."

Looking at the two of them, I suddenly laughed.

"Julian, good luck with your funding tomorrow."

Julian tipped his chin up, arrogant. "Smart of you to know your place. But you'll be looking up at me for the rest of your life!"

After I moved out, I went straight to the Tiansheng Group suite.

It happened that Chairman Lambertmy unclehad worn himself sick and needed to be hospitalized. He handed me full authority over the group.

Every day I worked through the backlog until early morning.

Until I opened an email and found a startup funding proposal.

Chavez Technologies. Funding sought: one hundred million. AI big-data sector.

Legal representative: Julian Chavez.

I called my secretary in and dropped the file on the desk. "This project. Dig into it until there's nothing left to find."

"Mr. Finch, Chairman Lambert caught something off about this one before he was hospitalized. He had me look into it already."

Justin James flipped open the folder. "I checked. There are serious problems."

"The company's registered in Silicon Valley. I had someone go by. The address is a run-down apartment building."

"The listed office is in Northgate. I asked the property manager. The third floor is rented out, sure, but the tenant runs an e-commerce shop selling knockoff sneakers. No sign of Chavez Technologies operating anywhere."

"As for that early-stage investment firm in the Harbor District he mentioned, there's no record of it with the registry. And the bank statements he provided are all Photoshopped."

I gave a cold laugh. "Keep digging."

Justin was fast. In three days he'd turned Chavez Technologies inside out.

A shell company. Fake statements. Fake backing.

He even dug up an old case. Two years back in Los Angeles, a crew ran the same scam and took an investment firm for ten million.

This business plan was clearly the 2.0 upgrade of that job.

I tapped the desk. "Justin. Call Julian in the name of Tiansheng Group's investment division."

"Tell him Tiansheng is very interested in his project, and we'd like him to come to headquarters for a face-to-face."

"And let him know I'll have a few friends from the industry there to talk it over too."

Justin understood exactly.

That afternoon, Julian arrived right on time.

He wore a rented suit, his hair slicked back and shining, a briefcase in hand, playing the part of a business elite to the letter.

He pushed open the conference room doors and swaggered in.

When he saw me seated at the head of the table, ringed by executives, his steps stopped dead.

The smile froze on his face and his eyes went round.

"Milton?"

"What are you doing here?"