When His $5k Story Met the $500k Truth

Your husband got a half-million-dollar bonus this year! What are you guys doing for the holidays?

It was the company's annual gala, and my husband Nathan's colleague's wife, Laura, was smiling at me.

I froze.

Half a million?

Nathan told me it was five thousand.

He said business was slow this year, that everyone took a pay cut.

I stared at Laura's genuine, smiling face, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Oh, you know. The usual," I heard myself say, my voice sounding distant and hollow.

On the drive home, I replayed the last eight years in my mind.

Business is slow. The company's struggling. Just wait a little longer.

I had been listening to those words for eight years.

When I got home, Nathan was on the sofa, scrolling through his phone.

The TV was on, the volume barely a whisper. A half-empty glass of cold tea sat on the coffee table.

"You're back?" He glanced up at me for a second before his eyes returned to the screen. "How was the gala?"

"It was fine."

I put down my purse and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Standing at the kitchen doorway, I watched the back of his head.

Eight years.

We had been married for eight years, and he never let me manage our finances.

"I'll earn it, you'll spend it," he'd promised when we got married.

But what had I spent in these eight years?

The house we lived in, he bought before the wedding. The car was his before we married, too.

The year I quit my job, he said, "Just stay home and take care of the kids. You've got me."

I believed him.

"Nathan," I said, walking over to sit beside him on the sofa. "How much was the year-end bonus?"

His thumb froze over the screen.

It was a tiny, almost imperceptible hesitation, but I saw it.

"I told you. Five thousand. Business was slow this year."

"What about Kevin?"

Kevin was in the same department as him, having joined the company two years after Nathan.

"Him?" Nathan frowned. "Probably about the same. Why?"

"No reason."

I didn't press him further.

But I remembered what Kevin's wife, Laura, had said at the gala.

"Your department did great this year! My husband got $400,000, so yours must have gotten even more."

Even more.

Thats what shed said. Even more.

That night, after Nathan showered, he left his phone charging on the nightstand.

I lay in bed, pretending to read.

He went out to the balcony for a smoke.

I stared at the phone, my heart hammering against my ribs.

In eight years of marriage, I had never gone through his phone.

He had never gone through mine.

We were the kind of people who "respected each other's privacy."

But tonight...

My hand reached out and picked up the phone.

I knew the passcode. Our wedding anniversary.

I opened his messages, scrolling through the chat history.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

I opened his payment app and checked his transactions.

Nothing there either.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, about to put the phone down

When a single line item caught my eye.

"Transfer to Bank Account ending in 8856: $35,000"

Thirty-five thousand dollars?

I scrolled down.

The same account, last month: $28,000.

The month before that: $32,000.

And further back

Every single month. A transfer.

The amounts varied, the lowest being twenty thousand, the highest fifty.

My heart began to beat faster, a frantic, painful rhythm.

I didn't recognize that account number.

It wasn't any of our cards.

The balcony door slid open.

My hand trembled. I quickly placed the phone back on the nightstand and squeezed my eyes shut.

Nathan came back to bed.

He climbed in beside me and fell asleep almost instantly.

But I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, until the sun came up.

The next morning, after Nathan left for work, I dropped our daughter, Phoebe, at her kindergarten and didn't go home.

I went to the bank.

"Hello, I'd like to check the account holder's information for this card."

The teller glanced at me. "And you are?"

"I'm his wife."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. We can't disclose another person's account information."

I paused, then forced a smile. "Of course. Thank you."

I walked out of the bank and stood on the sidewalk for a long time.

Account ending in 8856.

Twenty to thirty thousand dollars a month.

That was three to four hundred thousand a year.

Over eight years...

I didn't dare do the math.

Back home, I opened my laptop and logged into Nathan's email.

The password was his mother's birthday. I knew it by heart.

I found his pay stubs.

A monthly salary of $48,000. With benefits and bonuses, his annual income was nearly $800,000.

Eight hundred thousand dollars.

He had told me it was $300,000.

He said business was slow, that everyone was taking pay cuts.

He said the bonus was only five thousand, that I should be careful with money.

And me?

The last time I bought a coat for $200, he gave me the silent treatment for a week.

"Why do you spend so much? It's not like you don't have clothes to wear."

I returned the coat.

That afternoon, I went to a coffee shop near Nathan's office.

I wasn't there to see him. I was there to see Laura, Kevin's wife.

We'd met a few times. We weren't close, but we had each other's numbers.

"Sophie? What's up?" Laura looked curious when she arrived.

We rarely met up alone; she probably thought it was strange.

"Nothing much, just wanted to chat," I said, smiling as I ordered her a coffee. "I had to leave the gala in a hurry the other night, didn't get to finish our conversation."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah." I looked at her directly. "So you said your Kevin got a $400,000 bonus?"

"That's right," Laura beamed. "It was a great year. He said their department was number one, and everyone's bonus was up almost fifty percent from last year."

"So what about Nathan? He's the department head. He must have gotten more, right?"

Laura paused for a second. "I guess so? Kevin said Nathan got the biggest bonus in the department, something over half a million, he heard. Why?"

I smiled. "No reason. Just curious."

Half a million dollars.

He told me it was five thousand.

When Nathan came home that evening, I had a full dinner waiting for him.

Braised short ribs, sweet and sour fishall his favorites.

"What's the special occasion?" he asked with a grin, taking a seat at the table. "Did I win the lottery?"

"No reason. Just felt like cooking." I served him a bowl of soup. "Nathan, how long have we been married?"

"Eight years," he said, picking up a piece of pork. "Why the sudden question?"

"Eight years, and I've barely traveled anywhere," I said. "How about we take Phoebe on a trip for the holidays this year?"

"A trip?" Nathan's brow furrowed. "Where to?"

"Maybe Hawaii. Phoebe's been saying she wants to see the ocean."

"Hawaii?" He put down his chopsticks. "That's so expensive. Flights and hotels during the holidays would be tens of thousands."

"But didn't you just get your bonus?"

"It was only five thousand. What's that going to cover?" he said, shaking his head. "Besides, I'm swamped with work after the new year. I don't have time to go anywhere."

I just looked at him, saying nothing.

He went back to eating as if nothing had happened.

I suddenly remembered when Phoebe was three. I told him I wanted to take her to Disneyland.

Nathan said it was too expensive. Maybe later.

Phoebe is six now.

"Later" still hadn't come.

After dinner, Nathan went to the balcony for his smoke.

As I was clearing the table, his phone rang in the living room.

I glanced at the screen.

The contact was saved as "Mom."

But it wasn't his mom.

I had his mother's number saved. The last four digits were 3344.

This one ended in 6677.

I answered the call.

"Hello? Nathan? Max has a fever. Can you come over?"

It was a woman's voice.

Young, with a hint of a sweet, wheedling tone.

Max?

Who was Max?

"Who is this?" Her tone changed instantly. "Who's on the phone?"

I didn't speak.

Neither did she.

Three seconds later, she hung up.

I stood there, phone still in my hand, frozen.

Nathan walked in from the balcony and saw the look on my face. He stopped.

"What's wrong?"

I held the phone out to him.

"Who is Max?"

The color drained from Nathan's face.

It was only for a second, but I saw it.

Then he chuckled, taking the phone from me. "Max? Oh, that's my subordinate's son. She's a single mom, things are tough for her. The kid got sick, she must have panicked and called me."

"A subordinate?"

"Yeah, her name's Isabelle. Just started last year. Her husband's working abroad, so she's raising the kid on her own." He slipped the phone into his pocket. "I'm her boss. I have to help out sometimes."

I stared at him.

He met my gaze, his expression open and honest.

"You don't believe me?" He smiled. "Fine, I'll delete her contact. Here, you can watch."

He pulled out his phone, opened his contacts, and scrolled to a name.

The profile picture was of a very young woman, posing with a little boy.

The child looked about five or six, with a bright, happy smile.

Nathan hit delete.

"There. Happy?" He waggled the phone at me. "Seriously, you're overthinking things."

I didn't say a word.

He patted my shoulder and walked into the bedroom.

That night, he slept soundly.

I didn't.

I waited until I was sure he was asleep, then quietly got out of bed and took his phone.

He had deleted the contact, but not the call history.

I found the numberthe one ending in 6677.

There were so many calls.

At least two or three every week.

Sometimes he called her, sometimes she called him.

The longest one was forty-seven minutes.

I wrote down the number, put the phone back, and returned to bed.

The next day, I contacted a private investigator.

It wasn't that I couldn't find things out myself. It was that I needed professional, undeniable proof.

"This phone number. I need to know who it belongs to, where they live, and what they do."

The investigator was a man in his forties with a calm, seen-it-all expression.

"Alright. You'll have your answers in three days."

I went home, and life continued as normal.

I cooked, took care of Phoebe, and waited for Nathan to get home from work.

He acted just like he always did. Came home, ate dinner, scrolled on his phone, showered, and went to bed.

As if nothing had happened.

On the third day, the investigator called me.

"Mrs. Davies, we have the results."

"Tell me."

"The number belongs to a Ms. Isabelle Reed. She's thirty-two years old and currently resides at the Willow Creek Estates in the southern district."

Willow Creek Estates.

I knew the place.

A new luxury development that opened three years ago. The average price was over a million dollars for a condo.

The place we lived in was worth a quarter of that.

"She owns a 1,300-square-foot condo, which she moved into in 2022. She also has a car, a BMW X3, purchased in 2021."

"Did she buy the condo and the car herself?"

"The property was paid for in cash," the PI said, pausing for effect. "The payer was not her."

My knuckles went white as I gripped my phone.

"Who was it?"

"The system shows a wire transfer from a corporate account. The legal representative of that corporation isNathan Davies."

Nathan.

I closed my eyes and took a deep, shaky breath.

"What else?"

"Isabelle Reed has a son. He's eight years old, his name is Max. The father's name is left blank on the birth certificate. However"

He paused again.

"However?"

"We checked through some other channels. The boy's private kindergarten and elementary school tuition fees were all paid from Nathan Davies's bank account. And every year, during winter and summer breaks, Nathan is the one who takes the boy on vacation."

I heard myself laugh.

A quiet, dry, brittle sound.

"Is there more?"

"One last thing," the investigator said. "The title deed for Ms. Reed's condo has two names on it. Hers, and"

"Nathan Davies."

"Correct."

I hung up the phone and sat in my car for a long time, the engine off.

Eight years old.

The boy was eight years old.

Nathan and I had been married for eight years. Our daughter, Phoebe, was six.

That meant the boy existed before Phoebe was even born.

Before we were marriedno, wait.

We got married in 2016.

The boy was born in 2016.

I thought back to the spring of 2016.

Nathan and I had just gotten engaged and were planning the wedding.

One night, he told me he had a last-minute work emergency and had to go on a business trip for three days.

When he came back, he gave me a diamond necklace, saying he'd picked it up for me while he was away.

I was so happy.

I thought he loved me so much.

It turned out he spent those three days with another woman while she gave birth to his son.

I went home. Nathan wasn't back from work yet.

I sat alone in the living room, staring at our wedding photo on the wall.

It was taken eight years ago. We were smiling so sweetly.

I was twenty-six then. I had just quit a decent job at a good company, ready to become a full-time housewife after the wedding.

Nathan had said, "Just relax and stay home. You've got me."

I believed him.

Not only did I believe him, I was grateful.

I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world to have found a man who wanted to provide for me.

For eight years, I never bought a piece of clothing that cost more than fifty dollars.

Because every time I bought something a little more expensive, Nathan would frown.

"Our budget is tight. You need to be more frugal."

I switched my skincare from designer brands to drugstore ones.

I swapped my designer-adjacent handbags for ones I found online.

I even used the personal savings my mother gave me to help with household expenses.

Because Nathan said business was slow, and he was under a lot of pressure.

I felt sorry for him.

I wanted to share his burden.

And him?

He bought another woman a luxury condo.

He bought another woman a new car.

He sent her tens of thousands of dollars every month, for eight straight years.

Over eight years, that had to be at least three million dollars.

I did a quick calculation.

An average of $30,000 a month is $360,000 a year. Over eight years, that's $2.88 million.

Add the down payment on the condo, the car, the private school tuition

At least four million dollars.

And what about me?

How much money had I spent in those eight years?

I tried to think, but I couldn't calculate it.

Because the amount was so small.

So small I couldn't even remember what I'd bought.

At six o'clock, Nathan came home.

"You didn't cook tonight?" he asked, taking off his shoes and walking into the living room.

I sat on the sofa, watching him.

"Nathan."

"Yeah?"

"Who is Isabelle Reed?"

He stopped in his tracks.

But he recovered almost instantly.

"I already told you, she's my subordinate."

"Then who is Max Reed?"

This time, his expression finally cracked.

"You've been investigating me?"

"I wasn't investigating you," I said, standing up. "I was investigating the woman who's been living off our family's money for the past eight yearsto the tune of four million dollars."

Nathan was silent.

He stood by the doorway, not moving forward, not backing away.

After a long moment, he sighed.

"I was going to tell you, when the time was right."

I laughed.

"The right time? You couldn't find it in eight years?"