Chapter 1: The $150 Wife

I dated Marcus Ellison for three years, and only after we got married did I find out he was the heir to a wealthy family.

Even now, thinking back to those early days, I remember the little moments—coffee dates on campus, cheap movie nights, splitting gas money for road trips upstate. He always came off as just another regular guy, living paycheck to paycheck with average dreams. Turns out, the world he came from was anything but ordinary.

But all of Marcus’s friends insisted I was after his money, and even encouraged him to manage my bank account or put me on an allowance.

They’d whisper when they thought I wasn’t listening, drop snide comments at brunches, and always had this edge to their voices—like they knew something about me I didn’t. They’d nudge their mimosas and say, “Wow, Marcus, you’re really spoiling her,” like I was a stray dog who’d wandered in. The judgment seeped into my skin, making me second-guess every move, every smile, every dinner out.

And Marcus actually believed them.

I never thought I’d see that look in his eyes—wary, calculating, nothing like the boy I’d fallen for. It stung worse than anything, how he let their doubts wedge themselves between us.

After we got married, not only did he forbid me from working, he only gave me $150 a month.

It was like an allowance you’d give a teenager, not your wife. The kind of money you’d blow on a single dinner in his world, but he expected me to make it stretch for thirty days.

He said it was enough.

And it was—at least on the surface.

I learned how to keep up appearances. Shopping bags on my arm, a smile on my face, and a bank account that said otherwise. It was a performance, and in this town, everyone’s always watching.

Not only did I go shopping every day, I could even afford luxury skincare and designer handbags.

The AC in the boutique was cranked so high it made my skin prickle, but I kept my smile bright for the salesgirls. My closet started to look like a magazine spread—Gucci, Dior, you name it.

He started to get suspicious and questioned where my money was coming from.

I could feel his gaze, heavy and uncertain, every time I carried a new bag through the front door. There was a tension building, and I knew it would snap soon.

I looked at him innocently. “Honey, you give it to me every month.”

I said it sweetly, channeling the world’s most clueless housewife, but inside I was screaming.

He was furious. “I only give you $150 a month—what could you possibly buy with that?”

I laughed, but it sounded hollow, echoing off the marble countertops. Was this really my life now?

So he did know that $150 a month was nowhere near enough.

For a guy who loved to play dumb about my needs, he sure understood the price of things when it suited him. The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on me.

But it didn’t matter.

He gave me $150 a month.

His so-called good friends? Each of them gave me $150,000 a month.

A cruel twist, really—the men who warned him about gold diggers ended up throwing money at me like confetti at a Fourth of July parade. It was almost enough to make me laugh, if it weren’t so sad.