My Husband Chose His Mistress,So I Took Everything

My husband told me his secretary had just gotten divorced and couldn't afford to send her son to school.

He wanted to get the boy into my school.

I felt sorry for them, a mother and son on their own.

So I not only admitted the boy for free, I put Bobby Abbott in the same class as my daughter, to make it easier for her to look after him.

But a few days later, my husband came asking for more.

He said Bobby wanted to be a class officer, and that our daughter should give up her position to him.

I told him plainly that officer roles were awarded by grades, and she couldn't just hand hers over.

But my daughter, afraid I'd fight with him over it, quietly gave it up anyway.

And now Joe Delgado has come with something even worse:

"Bobby's scores aren't high enough for Ashford. Give him Carol Fisher's guaranteed placement."

I stared at him, unable to believe it.

"Do you even hear yourself?"

He didn't flinch.

"You're a school board trustee. You have to think about appearances. If your own daughter gets a guaranteed placement, people will talk."

"Besides, a girl gets married off sooner or later. Sending her to college just trains talent for another family. It's a waste of money."

"Pull her out for now and give the Ashford spot to Bobby."

I narrowed my eyes and held his gaze, my voice low.

"Someone should be pulled out, all right. Just not my daughter."

...

I called the three of them to the school.

Then I had someone bring me Bobby's transcript and his school record.

The test papers were a wall of red X's; the sight of it made my head spin.

From the day he enrolled until now.

Every single exam. A zero.

And when I got to his conduct record, my face went darker still.

In six months.

Twenty absences. Seven counts of cursing or hitting a teacher. Five thefts.

"You little bastard!"

I was shaking with rage.

This was the model student Joe Delgado kept praising, the fine boy top of his class in character and grades?

I never imagined the trust I'd given him would come back to me as this piece of trash.

When I walked into the office with my daughter.

Audrey Galloway and Bobby had arrived too.

Joe Delgado had driven them there himself.

Once, my daughter had begged him, sweetly, to drive her to school just once, and he'd snapped at her.

"A grown girl still needing to be dropped off. How pathetic."

"You know those kids out in the Appalachian backcountry your age? They're already married with children of their own."

"You can't even take care of yourself. You may as well drop out now."

But look at him now.

Joe Delgado opening the car door for the two of them himself.

He even lifted the boy out of the car so nothing would interrupt Bobby's game.

Watching how tenderly he did it, for a moment my vision blurred.

Ever since Audrey Galloway appeared, Joe Delgado had gotten up two hours early every day.

He'd drive Bobby to school himself, then go pick up Audrey Galloway for work.

The president of a company, acting like the household help for Audrey Galloway's family.

I'd thought about it seriously, why Joe Delgado had become like this.

So openly favoring outsiders.

So willing to ignore his own daughter entirely.

Was it because he no longer felt anything for this family?

Or was it that in his eyes, I was just a lovesick fool who'd let herself be trampled, who would forgive him everything with no line she wouldn't cross?

"Naomi Pruitt, all this over some little thing, and you need a face-to-face meeting?"

"Do you think everyone's got as much free time on their hands as you?"

He sat down across from me, sprawled and imperious, his tone thick with impatience.

"Carol's my daughter. If you give her a guaranteed placement, how do you think that makes me look?"

"Won't people say the company president is abusing his position for his own family?"

"Cutting corners like this, you'll ruin the kids sooner or later."

And with that, he tossed a placement transfer application across at me.

"Sign it. Now."

"I'm deciding this. Carol can test into college on her own merit."

"Give the guaranteed placement to a student who actually deserves it."