Adrian stood beside my empty desk for almost a full minute.
According to my colleague Maya, nobody dared move.
Finally he turned toward Human Resources.
“Marriage leave?”
The manager nodded nervously.
“Yes, Mr. Gu.”
“With whom?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Who is Elena marrying?”
The woman looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“That information isn’t part of the request.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“Show me the application.”
“Mr. Gu, employee marital information is confidential.”
For three years, Adrian had demanded that nobody know I was his wife.
Now the secrecy he created was standing between him and the answer he wanted.
He slammed his palm onto the desk.
“She cannot marry anyone.”
Everyone stared at him.
Maya later told me that was the exact moment people started putting the pieces together.
Laura had just entered the department carrying coffee.
She stopped.
“Adrian?”
He turned toward her.
“She’s already married.”
The HR manager looked genuinely confused.
“Our records list Ms. Su as divorced.”
Silence.
Laura’s fingers tightened around her cup.
And Adrian finally realized that the company knew something he had spent eight months pretending did not matter.
Legally, I was no longer his wife.
I was at my attorney’s office when he called the first time.
Then the second.
Then the twelfth.
My lawyer, Rebecca Lin, looked at my vibrating phone.
“Are you going to answer?”
“No.”
She pushed the medical report toward me.
“The police already have your statement. The hotel has also confirmed that the ballroom surveillance footage was preserved.”
“Good.”
“The security guards?”
“One has agreed to give a statement. The other is still afraid of losing his job.”
I looked down at the envelope Laura had thrown at me.
Twelve hundred euros.
Rebecca had sealed it inside an evidence bag.
“That helps too,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Laura gave you money immediately afterward and called it compensation. Depending on what she says later, it may support that she understood you had been harmed.”
I laughed without humor.
“She probably thought I’d take the money and disappear.”
“Did you usually?”
I looked at her.
She already knew the answer.
For five years, whenever Adrian crossed a line, I was the one who repaired the relationship.
He forgot my birthday?
I told myself he was busy.
He missed our anniversary?
Important client.
Laura called him at midnight?
Work emergency.
Laura wore his coat home after a company dinner?
She was cold.
Laura knew the password to his private office?
She was his secretary.
There was always an explanation.
And I had become extremely talented at helping him invent them.
Rebecca opened another folder.
“Now we need to discuss the divorce.”
I became still.
Eight months earlier, Gu Holdings had been negotiating a massive financing round.
Adrian told me the lenders were worried that because we were married, some personal guarantees and marital-property exposure could complicate the transaction.
His family lawyer suggested a temporary divorce.
I had refused immediately.
Adrian held me all night.
“Elena, it’s paperwork.”
“We’ll register again when the financing closes.”
“You know you’re my wife.”
Finally, I agreed.
The day we signed, he kissed my forehead outside the registry office and said:
“Eight months at most.”
Eight months passed.
Every time I asked about remarrying, there was another excuse.
Final audit.
Board approval.
Tax review.
Year-end reporting.
I had started to suspect the truth weeks before the annual party.
Now Rebecca placed corporate filings in front of me.
“I had our investigators review what changed immediately after your divorce.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you find?”
“Three things.”
She turned the first page.
“First, the financing closed four months ago.”
I stared at her.
“Four?”
“Yes.”
“So there was no reason we couldn’t remarry.”
“Correct.”
Second document.
“Two months after your divorce, Adrian revised his estate plan.”
I looked down.
His mother became the principal family beneficiary.
Several future trusts were established.
There was no mention of me.
Not even as a former spouse.
Then came the third document.
This one had Laura Liu’s name on it.
I read it twice.
“What is this?”
“An apartment.”
A luxury property worth nearly twenty million yuan.
Purchased by a Gu family holding company.
Occupancy rights granted to Laura Liu.
My hands became cold.
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
Four months after Adrian promised our divorce was temporary.
Rebecca continued.
“And there’s something else.”
A draft marriage-property agreement.
Prepared by the same law firm that handled my divorce.
Prospective parties:
Adrian Gu.
Laura Liu.
Date created:
Six weeks earlier.
I stopped breathing.
“He was going to marry her.”
“It appears someone had at least begun preparing for that possibility.”
I stared at Laura’s name.
Suddenly the annual party made sense.
The intimacy.
The way she called him Adrian.
The confidence with which she ordered security to continue without saying the words.
The tiny smile after each humiliation.
She wasn’t behaving like a secretary competing with the CEO’s secret wife.
She believed I was already the former wife.
Rebecca asked quietly:
“Elena?”
I closed the folder.
“So the divorce wasn’t temporary.”
“No.”
I laughed.
“Good.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Good?”
“For eight months, I thought I was waiting for him to keep his promise.”
I looked at the documents.
“Now I know there was never a promise left to wait for.”
At noon, Adrian finally found me.
Not physically.
Through Rebecca.
His lawyer called hers demanding to know why I had “misrepresented” my leave request.
Rebecca put the call on speaker.
“Ms. Su has not misrepresented anything.”
Adrian’s lawyer hesitated.
“Mr. Gu understands she requested marriage leave.”
“That is correct.”
“To marry whom?”
Rebecca smiled at me.
“That is not presently Mr. Gu’s legal concern.”
Then Adrian took the phone himself.
“Elena.”
I remained silent.
“I know you’re there.”
Still nothing.
“Elena, what happened last night was excessive.”
Excessive.
Not cruel.
Not unforgivable.
Excessive.
“I lost my temper.”
Rebecca looked at me.
I raised one finger.
Let him continue.
“Laura was injured. Everyone was watching. You challenged me publicly.”
There it was.
The truth.
He had not ordered ten slaps because he believed Laura was badly hurt.
He had done it because I refused to obey him in front of his employees.
His authority mattered more than my dignity.
“Elena, come home.”
That was when I finally spoke.
“Which home?”
Silence.
“Our home.”
“The apartment you bought for Laura?”
He stopped breathing.
Rebecca’s eyes sharpened.
Adrian said:
“How do you know about that?”
Not denial.
Never denial.
I laughed softly.
“You really need a new sentence.”
“Elena, that property was a company arrangement.”
“And the marriage agreement?”
This time the silence lasted much longer.
“Who gave you those documents?”
“I’ll take that as confirmation.”
“No.”
His voice became urgent.
“No, listen to me. My mother pushed for it. Laura’s family could help with another financing arrangement. Nothing had been decided.”
“So our remarriage?”
“Of course I planned to remarry you.”
“When?”
“Elena—”
“When?”
He couldn’t answer.
I looked through the office window.
The city looked extraordinarily peaceful for a day on which my five-year relationship was dying.
“Four months ago, the financing closed.”
“How long exactly was I supposed to wait before understanding?”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m awake.”
He lowered his voice.
“Come home tonight.”
“No.”
“Then where are you?”
“Not your concern.”
“Of course it’s my concern. You’re my wife.”
The word almost made me smile.
“No, Adrian.”
I looked at the divorce certificate on Rebecca’s desk.
“You made very sure I wasn’t.”
Then I ended the call.
My leave request spread through the company faster than any official announcement ever could.
By afternoon, employees were whispering that Adrian Gu and Elena Su had once been married.
By evening, someone connected that fact to what happened at the party.
And by the next morning, Human Resources had a serious problem.
More than one hundred employees had witnessed the incident.
Twenty-three submitted written statements.
Four had videos.
One showed Adrian pointing at me while ordering security to strike me.
Another captured Laura saying:
“Until I think it’s enough.”
She later denied saying it.
The video did not.
The two guards were suspended pending investigation.
But I refused to let the company sacrifice them and pretend the problem ended there.
One of them, Michael, called me personally.
His voice shook.
“Ms. Su, I’m sorry.”
I remained quiet.
“I should have refused.”
“Yes.”
“I thought if I refused, Mr. Gu would fire me.”
“I understand.”
He seemed surprised.
“That doesn’t make what happened right,” I added.
“I know.”
“Tell the truth in your statement.”
“I will.”
He did.
So did the second guard.
Both confirmed Adrian had given the order and that Laura had not asked him to stop.
That mattered.
Because Laura was already changing her story.
She claimed she had been “too shocked to intervene.”
Unfortunately for her, another video showed her watching calmly and smiling before the final slaps.
The board could no longer classify the incident as a private disagreement.
Adrian was the CEO.
He had publicly ordered employees to physically punish another employee.
Whether I was his former wife made it worse personally.
But professionally, it did not need to.
The conduct itself was enough.
Three days later, the Gu Holdings board placed Adrian on temporary administrative leave pending an external investigation.
He came to my apartment that evening.
I don’t know how he found it.
Probably through the driver who had once taken me there.
He stood outside for nearly twenty minutes.
“Elena.”
I did not open the door.
“I know you’re inside.”
Silence.
“I fired Laura.”
That made me move.
Not toward the door.
Just enough to listen.
“She lied about falling.”
My eyes closed.
Of course.
Security footage from another angle had shown it clearly.
Laura had stepped backward herself.
No push.
No contact.
Nothing.
Adrian continued:
“I saw the video.”
Still I said nothing.
“She made me believe you humiliated her.”
I finally opened the door.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Red eyes.
No jacket.
Perhaps he expected pity.
I had none left.
“You needed a camera?”
His lips parted.
“What?”
“You lived with me for five years.”
“You knew how I treated people.”
“You knew how I handled conflict.”
“You knew Laura hated me.”
“And when she fell, you didn’t ask one question.”
He looked down.
“I was angry.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You were comfortable.”
His eyes lifted.
“You knew I would go home eventually.”
“You knew I would cook dinner.”
“You knew I would sleep beside you.”
“You knew that even after humiliating me, you could call it a misunderstanding and I would help you move past it.”
His face tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
I laughed.
“You ordered strangers to hit me ten times.”
He flinched.
“Don’t talk to me about fairness.”
He reached into his pocket.
A small red booklet.
Marriage registration paperwork.
My heart stopped for half a second.
Adrian held it out.
“Come with me tomorrow.”
I stared at him.
“We can register again.”
There it was.
Eight months late.
After the police statement.
After the board investigation.
After I discovered Laura’s apartment.
After he thought I was marrying someone else.
“Why now?”
His eyes reddened.
“Because I don’t want to lose you.”
I nodded.
Finally.
The truth.
Not because the financing was over.
Not because he remembered his promise.
Because for the first time, he believed I could genuinely leave.
I asked:
“What about Laura?”
“She’s gone.”
“What about the agreement your lawyers prepared?”
“Torn up.”
“What about the apartment?”
“I’ll sell it.”
“What about last night?”
He whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at the registration papers.
Then at him.
For years, those papers had been everything I wanted.
Now they looked like ordinary paper.
“I requested marriage leave because HR still had unused leave entitlement available after my legal status changed.”
His face froze.
“What?”
“I’m not marrying anyone.”
The hope and panic on his face collided.
“Then why—”
“Because I needed thirty days away.”
“To heal.”
“To move.”
“To meet lawyers.”
“To stop waking up every morning wondering whether you would eventually decide I was worth marrying again.”
He stared at me.
“So there’s no man?”
“No.”
Relief flooded his face.
That was the moment I knew we were truly finished.
He cared more about whether another man had me than about why I no longer wanted him.
I smiled faintly.
“But don’t look so happy.”
His expression changed.
“The leave is real.”
“And so is the divorce.”
He whispered:
“Elena.”
I closed the door.
Laura did not disappear quietly.
She hired an attorney and claimed Adrian had encouraged their relationship for months.
Messages surfaced.
Expensive gifts.
Hotel bookings.
Private dinners.
And, most damaging to Adrian personally, one conversation from six weeks before the annual party.
Laura had written:
When are you finally going to tell Elena the temporary divorce became permanent?
Adrian replied:
After the board vote.
Laura:
And then we register?
Adrian:
Don’t rush me.
That message ended the last question I still had.
He had known.
He had always known.
When I asked him every month whether we could remarry, he kissed me, held me and invented another deadline.
Then he went to work and planned another future.
I printed the messages once.
Then shredded them.
I didn’t need them emotionally anymore.
The lawyers had copies.
The criminal and civil matters took months.
I will not pretend Adrian went to prison because life rarely wraps itself that neatly.
But the consequences were real.
The company reached a settlement with me over the workplace incident and its failure to protect an employee from executive abuse.
The two security guards were disciplined, but both cooperated fully and were later allowed to return under new management structures.
Laura was terminated after the internal investigation confirmed she had fabricated the fall and lied during the inquiry.
Adrian lost the CEO position.
The board allowed him to retain ownership interests, but executive control passed to an outside professional manager.
For a man who had spent years believing Gu Holdings was an extension of his own will, that hurt more than money.
And our personal relationship?
There was nothing left to divide.
The legal divorce had already happened eight months earlier.
Adrian had accidentally made one part of my escape very easy.
Six months after the annual party, my thirty-day leave had turned into a resignation.
I joined another company.
Not as anyone’s wife.
Not as the CEO’s hidden partner.
Just Elena Su.
My first week there, the department director introduced me during a meeting.
“This is Elena. She’ll lead the new infrastructure project.”
That was all.
Nobody whispered.
Nobody knew Adrian.
Nobody knew Laura.
Nobody looked at my face and remembered a hotel ballroom.
I had forgotten how peaceful anonymity could feel.
Then, one Friday evening, Adrian waited outside the building.
He looked different.
Calmer.
Older.
“Elena.”
I stopped.
“What do you want?”
“To apologize.”
“You’ve already apologized.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“But I kept apologizing because I wanted you back.”
I said nothing.
“This one isn’t for that.”
That surprised me.
He continued:
“I watched the videos again during the investigation.”
His voice became strained.
“I kept waiting for the version of me in the video to stop it.”
I looked away.
“He never did.”
“No.”
“I don’t understand how I became that man.”
I looked back at him.
“Yes, you do.”
He frowned.
“You became him one small permission at a time.”
“The first time Laura crossed a boundary, you said I was jealous.”
“The first time your mother insulted me, you asked me to tolerate it.”
“The first time you broke a promise, you discovered I would wait.”
“The paper divorce taught you something dangerous.”
His face tightened.
“What?”
“That you could remove me from your life legally and still expect me to remain emotionally.”
He closed his eyes.
After a moment, he nodded.
“You’re right.”
It was the first time those words brought me no satisfaction.
Adrian took something from his pocket.
My old wedding ring.
“I found it in the bedroom drawer.”
I remembered leaving it there after the legal divorce.
He held it toward me.
I didn’t take it.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“Because it belonged to the woman you were married to.”
His eyes reddened.
“And who are you now?”
I smiled.
“Someone you need to meet again from the beginning if we ever happen to cross paths.”
Hope flashed across his face.
I shook my head.
“That wasn’t an invitation.”
He laughed sadly.
“I know.”
Then he put the ring away.
And for the first time in five years, Adrian let me walk away without calling my name.
A year later, I heard Laura had moved to another city.
Adrian remained on the board but never returned as CEO.
Occasionally business articles mentioned him.
I stopped clicking.
My life became ordinary again.
Beautifully ordinary.
Work.
Friends.
Dinner with my parents.
Weekend trips.
A new apartment with enormous windows.
No secret marriage.
No private rules.
No CEO waiting at home.
And no one asking me to prove love by tolerating humiliation.
One evening Maya—the colleague who had first told me what happened after my leave request—came over for dinner.
She brought wine and laughed when she saw the framed envelope on my bookshelf.
The one Laura had thrown at me after the slaps.
The money was gone.
I donated it to an organization supporting workplace harassment victims.
But I kept the empty envelope.
Maya asked:
“Why?”
I looked at it.
“Because that was the moment I finally understood what they thought my dignity cost.”
“Twelve hundred euros?”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
“And were they wrong?”
I picked up my glass.
“Very.”
She laughed.
Then she asked the question everyone eventually asked.
“Did you ever actually plan to marry again?”
I looked through the window at the city lights.
“Maybe someday.”
“With who?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you filed marriage leave anyway?”
I laughed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because the whole office had misunderstood that request.
Including Adrian.
They thought it meant another man had arrived.
It didn’t.
After eight months of waiting for Adrian to marry me again, I finally needed a symbolic ending more than another wedding.
So I used the leave I had once saved for our remarriage.
Not to marry somebody else.
To leave the man who kept assuming I would always be available when he finally decided I was worth choosing.
The ten slaps hurt.
But strangely, they were not the worst thing Adrian did to me.
The worst thing was teaching me, year after year, to accept smaller and smaller pieces of respect and call them love.
The best thing he ever did?
He made that lesson impossible to ignore.
Eight months earlier, Adrian told me our divorce existed only on paper.
The night he ordered those guards to humiliate me in front of a hundred people, he finally made it real everywhere else.
And once I understood that, there was nothing left to remarry.
