“Who wants my useless wife for ten dollars?”
The ballroom went quiet.
Then a few people laughed because they thought they were supposed to.
Richard stood on the stage in his black tuxedo, smiling into the microphone like humiliating his wife was part of the entertainment.
At a front table, Elena sat frozen in her midnight blue dress.
Her forced smile disappeared slowly.
For twenty years, she had stood beside him at charity galas, company dinners, and family events. She had smiled while he called her dramatic. She had stayed silent when he blamed her for never giving him children.
But tonight, he said it in front of everyone.
Useless.
Her hand trembled against her diamond necklace.
Richard lifted the microphone again. “Come on. Ten dollars. Surely someone wants dinner with her.”
A chair scraped across the floor.
A young man in a tuxedo stood from a nearby table.
His face was calm, but his eyes were burning.
“One million,” he said.
The entire ballroom turned.
Richard’s smile froze.
“For dinner with her?” he asked.
The young man looked straight at Elena.
“Yes.”
Elena slowly stood, confused and breathless.
The young man reached into his jacket and pulled out an old hospital bracelet, yellowed with age.
Elena’s lips parted.
She knew that bracelet.
She had worn its matching half the night she gave birth to the baby Richard told her had died.
The young man’s voice broke as he looked at her.
“One million for dinner with my mother.”
👉 Part 2 in the comments
