Page 29 of Billionaire’s Ruin

Thwack.

The sound of his palm colliding with my face echoed inside the car like a gunshot.

The sting spread like it was on fire. The burn spread down my spine, across my back, until my whole body felt like it was lit up from the inside.

“You don’t know what love is,” he snarled.

“And you do?” A broken sound escaped me. “Why didn’t you show me any of that, huh?”

“Your mom and I…”

For years, I refused to believe I was born out of something other than love. Even when Mom confessed—how she kept me even after he refused. She knew Dad wasn’t right for her. Her parents weren’t after money; they didn’t care about marrying her off to something rich. They just wanted someone who truly loved her. And they were right. They saw right through him before she did.

“What a gold digger! You were after her money, her family’s fortune.” I finished the sentence for him—something he’d never have the guts to admit.

“You have no right to—” He stopped himself, his lip shaking. “You know nothing! I did my fair share for the company. Do you know the kind of impossible standards your grandfather had? Everything I did was wrong! To them, I was useless. A nobody. Always reminding me I didn’t have a degree, didn’t speak perfect English, didn’t grow up in the city, didn’t have some fancy family name.” His fists quivered at his sides. “You know what that does to a man’s pride? It makes me feel small.”

“You shouldn’t have let it,” I shot back. “They were just words. Harsh ones, sure, but if you really loved her, that wouldn’t have mattered.”

“A princess…” His face softened, breaking for the first time. “She was like a princess out of a fairy tale. So beautiful, so elegant. Even famous actresses looked plain beside her. Every man wanted her, but no one dared to even approach.”

If I hadn’t been a victim of his temper, I might have thought he was talking about the love of his life.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Do you even know how we met?”

“No. And why are you telling me all this?” I stared him down, refusing to believe there was another version of the story. He was a gold digger—end of story. Nothing he said could change that.

“I had just arrived in Shanghai,” he said, his eyes distant. “Ran away from my village with my last few yuan for a train ticket. Everyone said Shanghai was magical—but not for the poor like me.” A faint smile crossed his lips.

I dug my nails into my palms. “Where are you going with this?”

“I slept in an ATM booth at night. Looked for jobs during the day. No one would hire me. Then I prayed. Over and over. And one night… she walked in. It was raining. She was soaked, waiting for her driver. I offered her my umbrella. My coat. I hadn’t showered for days, and people usually avoided me. But not her.” His voice softened, almost reverent. “She smiled—so bright I cried. She handed me a tissue and talked to me like I was human. The next day, I went to the company, half-thinking I’d imagined it. But she’d kept her word. A job was waiting for me.”

I barely remembered that version of Mom. The nice one. The one who wasn’t anxious or angry. There were brief moments—neutral, I guess—but never truly happy ones. Even her laughter had an edge that made me more worried than comforted.

“So you decided to ruin her life instead?” I scoffed.

He kept talking, lost in his story. “I started as a mail clerk, barely earning enough to eat. But I was grateful. Every day, I found excuses to go to her floor. Just to see her. Then, six months later…” He paused. “I saw her crying in the corner of the utility cabinet.”

“What kind of person acts like this?” The words tore out of me before I could stop them. My brain refused to accept that there had ever been anything romantic between them.

“Excuse me?” His brows shot up, like he was genuinely offended.

“You stalked Mom for months.” I shook my head, the disgust thick in my throat. “This isn’t some tragic love story. This is horror. Only a monster would do that.”

“You don’t know shit, kid.” His words insulted me in a way I couldn’t explain. “I saw an opportunity, and I took it. All those men who wanted her—they were just rich assholes. She needed me as much as I needed her. I gave her what she wanted. Comfort. Love. Attention.”

“This is fucked up.” My heart hammered. “You just admitted you’re a bag of crap. You used her to climb the ladder. You got promoted. You got the money.”

“Shut up.” His tone was sharp now, trembling with rage.

“And then you got out,” I went on, the anger pushing words through me like fire. “You got out, and now you want more. You want more for your mistress—and your bastard son.”

Pfft.

His saliva hit my face.