He Gave Me $800 and Expected Me to Stay?! Yeah, No… Watch Me Turn the Tables Chapter 05
The air seemed to freeze.
Vincent turned to look at me, still not ready to let it go.
“How much did you just say you get a month?”
“Eight hundred.”
I let out a cold laugh and pulled an old phone with a cracked–corner screen out of my pocket.
I brought up the statements and shoved them right in his face.
“See it clearly, Mr. Sterling?”
“March, $3,000.”
“April, $1,500.”
“May, $800.*
“That’s the eight hundred thousand a month you keep going on about?”
Vincent snatched my phone, his fingers shaking as he scrolled up.
Every transfer was clearly labeled with Sienna Quinn’s name.
The memo line read,
“Abysmal performance. L’eduction.”
“Punishment for not listening.”
“Last living allowance. You’re on your own.”
Vincent’s face went paper–white in an instant.
“Sienna told me you bought bags and jewelry every month.”
“She said eight hundred thousand wasn’t enough for you, that you
even wanted an advance…”
“So you just believed her?”
I snatched my phone back.
“Vincent Sterling, you’d rather believe some outsider’s garbage than let me explain one sentence.”
“In your eyes I’m just a gold digger who never has enough, right?”
Vincent stood there, frozen.
He looked at my T–shirt, washed so many times it had gone pale.
He looked at the burn marks on the back of my hands from working the griddle day after day.
He looked at the beat–up cart behind me.
A flash of panic and disbelief went through his eyes.
Chloe, I…”
The customers around us were already whispering.
The livestream chat blew up even harder.
“What a bombshell!”
“This guy got played by his two–faced secretary? She pocketed all the money?”
“Eight hundred thousand turned into eight hundred. Middleman
markup this ugly should be illegal!”
Vincent spoke up.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this. You’re coming back with me right now!”
I picked up the spatula and banged it hard on the griddle.
“Vincent Sterling, we’re done.”
“I’m the boss of Chloe’s Wraps now, not your kept woman.”
“Move. The next customer is waiting.”
Vincent stared at me and wouldn’t leave.
The look in his eyes was too mixed to read.
Shock, fury, and a thread of panic.
He called his assistant, his voice cold enough to freeze over.
“Send people to bring Sienna here. I’ll drop you the pin.”
He hung up and turned to look at me.
‘Chloe, give me half an hour. I’ll give you an answer.”
I ignored him, turned around, and went back to making wraps for the line.
“Boss, extra two eggs!”
“You got it, coming right up!” I worked the griddle like I’d done it a thousand times, treating
Vincent like he was air.
He stood off to the side, watching how smooth I was, watching me smile at customers for a few bucks.
His hands clenched into fists, veins standing out on the backs of them.
Half an hour later, they brought Sienna in.
“Vince, calling me over this late…”
Her voice cut off the second she saw me.
Sienna’s face changed in an instant, then she got it back under control just as fast.
“Ms. Paige is here too?”
She pushed up her glasses, still in that all–business tone.
Vincent’s face was dark.
“Sienna, the eight hundred thousand I sent Chloe Paige every month. Where did it go?”
Sienna’s body stiffened a fraction.
“Vince, didn’t I already report this to you?”
She forced a calm little smile.
“It all went to Ms. Paige. She still said it wasn’t enough.”
“Is that so?”
Vincent slammed a thick stack of financial statements into Sienna’s face.
Paper scattered all over the ground.
“Look for yourself whose account this money actually went into!”
Sienna glanced down at the papers on the ground, and her face went deathly white.
“Vince, I did it for you!”
“Chloe Paige is some broke orphanage brat! She was never good enough for you!”
“Give her that much money and she’d only blow it! She’d only grow ambitions she shouldn’t have!”
“I held the money back and put her on KPIs to help you break her
in! So she’d know her place and be an obedient little kept woman!”
Hearing that, I couldn’t help a cold laugh.
“Ms. Quinn, with workplace gaslighting skills like yours, not teaching a class is a waste of talent.”
I looked at her with the spatula still in my hand.
“You say it was to break me in, and then you took my money and bought Hermès.”
“I could hear you cooking those books all the way from a run–down neighborhood.”