The Hijacked Marriage Chapter 07
At that, Claire’s eyes widened, and her breath caught.
“Nathan, when did I break up with you?”
I kindly reminded her.
“Claire, you were the one who said it at home yesterday. I agreed. Did you forget that quickly?”
Only then did Claire belatedly remember. She looked startled.
“Weren’t you just saying that out of anger yesterday?”
“Claire, I meant every word.”
When she heard that, Claire’s whole face fell. When she spoke again, there was a thin edge of anger in her voice.
“Nathan, you’re breaking up with me over something as small as me getting a certificate with Ryan?
“I was just helping Noah get registered for school. Do you really have to hold on to it this long?”
Ryan also beat his chest in exaggerated misery, forcing out a couple of tears as he chimed in beside her.
“Nathan, it’s all my fault. I know I was wrong to take your chance to get married with Claire, but I did it for the child. I had no other choice.
“If you’re angry, take it out on me. Why joke about breaking up?
“Claire already works so hard earning money to support the household. As her boyfriend, you don’t help ease her burden. You lie around at home living off her, and now you’re trying to upset her by talking about a breakup?”
Ryan’s voice was loud, and the parents outside the kindergarten all stopped to watch.
They immediately assumed I was a petty man living off a woman. Disdainful looks landed on me from every direction, and the murmurs began at once.
“He’s got hands and feet, but he insists on spending a woman’s money. What an embarrassment to men.’
“Dude, your girlfriend was doing a good deed. There’s no need to be this petty.”
“Exactly. Besides, she’s the one supporting you. What right does a freeloader have to throw a tantrum?”
It was easy for them to talk when they were not the ones living through it.
Claire knew perfectly well that all these years, I had given both money and labor. I was nothing like the freeloader Ryan described. In fact, she and Whitmore Group had only gotten to where they were because of everything I had sacrificed.
She knew Ryan was smearing my name.
But she did not stop him.
Instead, she let him keep spreading lies.
Even as the crowd criticized me, she did not say a single word in my defense.
I knew she was angry that I had broken up with her. She wanted to use public opinion to teach me a lesson.
After all, every time Claire got mad in the past, she would punish me somehow. Either she would disappear and make me so worried I nearly lost my mind, or she would act close with Ryan and post vague, suggestive things on Instagram just to make me upset.
In the past, I would have felt hurt and disappointed.
Now, I only hated myself for being blind enough to choose a woman like Claire and for sacrificing my future and wasting my youth on someone like het.
I looked at Claire.
She still had no intention of helping me.
If she would not stand up for me, then I would do it myself.
I swept a cold look over the crowd and fired back without the slightest politeness.
“You all say I’m petty and small minded. Fine. I hope that one day, when your partners get married with someone else, you can be just as generous as you’re telling me to be. Don’t make a fuss.
“And another thing. I have never been some freeloader like you’re saying. All these years, I have never spent a single dollar of Claire’s money. She’s the one who has been spending mine.”
As I spoke, I took out my phone and pulled up a screenshot.
The moment they saw it clearly, Claire and Ryan’s faces turned livid.
The screenshot showed the bank transfers of my salary to Claire, along with Claire’s daily expenses on our shared card.
