Spent Millions on His Mom's Birthday, They Treated Me Like a Kitchen Maid

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1.

I spent a fortune on birthday gifts for my boyfriend's mother, and the moment I stepped through the door I was put to work slaughtering a chicken and cooking a meal for fifty tables of guests.

"My son loves chicken. If you can't even kill a chicken, how are you supposed to take care of him?"

"You can't even cook. My son won't get a single hot meal out of you. What's the point of marrying you?"

No matter how much I swallowed at his family's house, my lovesick head won out, and the very next day I went with Xavier Simmons to get our marriage license.

After the wedding, I even sold off my family's company to fund Xavier's business, and I built him up into the president of a publicly traded corporation.

Even when the company went bankrupt later, I swallowed my pride and borrowed money from every relative I had to pay off his debts.

When I finally scraped together enough and carried it home, I walked in on him in bed with his secretary.

I begged his mother to step in and settle it. Instead she snatched the money right out of my hands and shoved me to the floor.

"Years now and still a hen that won't lay. If my son's looking for someone new, that's on you."

When I hit the floor, I started bleeding and couldn't stop. I begged them to take me to the hospital, and instead they confiscated my phone and locked me inside the house.

By the time the debt collectors who came pounding at the door threw cold water on me to bring me around, Xavier and his mother had already made off with my money and were living it up overseas.

The creditors hounded me to death.

When I opened my eyes again, Xavier was granting me permission to visit his family's home in that gracious, doing-me-a-favor tone of his, dropping hints that I should bring plenty of gifts.

I laughed. "Of course! I'll be sure to prepare a whole lot of gifts for your mother myself."

I just wasn't sure they could stomach my kind of "gifts."

1.

The gifts I'd gone out of my way to buy for Darlene Finch, my boyfriend's mother, filled nearly half the living room.

Looking at all those gift boxes stamped with designer logos, everyone turned envious eyes on Darlene.

"That's our Xavier for you, always got a knack for it, snagging himself a girlfriend this rich and this generous. He's set for life now."

"Exactly. And what really counts is the girl's sensible and respectful. First visit and she brings all this. Looks more thoughtful than Xavier, if you ask me."

"Guess the Simmons family won't be wanting for anything from here on out."

"Darlene, you'd better tell that Xavier of yours to hold on tight to this pot of gold."

Called out by name, Darlene's face, smiling a second ago, went cold at once.

The look she slid sideways at me was pure disdain.

"Three generations of honest farming folk in the Simmons family, clean and upright. The wife we bring into this house had better be hardworking and capable."

"A girl who only knows how to spend money and live easy will run through any fortune, no matter how big."

"Besides, my son's got real ability. He's not the kind of man who lives off a woman."

Hearing that, I nearly laughed out of sheer anger.

The onlookers did laugh, though, their eyes on me and Xavier like they were watching a show.

Xavier couldn't stand people looking at him strangely, and his face flushed red.

So he turned on me, indignant.

"Today's my mother's big day. A birthday's supposed to be about good luck and good fortune. Did you have to make such a flashy show of yourself and upset her?"

"Or did you bring all this stuff on purpose, just to come to my house and flaunt it?"

"This is a small house. It can't hold a big shot like you."

Xavier cared about face more than anything.

It was the same in my last life. The gifts I'd handpicked and spent a fortune on earned me nothing but one complaint after another from them.

Yet somehow they never got noble enough to actually give the things back.

Instead, that very night they couldn't wait to tear everything open and hide it away, terrified someone else might have their eye on it.

But back then I was blind and dumb, and I actually took it to heart, apologizing over and over.

Now Xavier lifted his chin and turned his face away.

That was his usual arrogant act, waiting for me to come coax him out of his mood.

I sneered inside, but I still tugged lightly at his sleeve and murmured an apology.

"Oh, it's all my fault. I didn't even ask your mother what she liked, I just bought a bit of everything."

"You're right. A birthday's about good luck, so I really shouldn't have made such a show of it."

I nodded in agreement.

"Then why don't I return all of it?"