One Weekend with the Billionaire Chapter 54

*Julia*

I try to busy myself with the same sort of activities that have been keeping me busy for the last two years, but it’s hard because I have absolutely no motivation to do any of them anymore. In the past, at least I got some pleasure out of doing my best to be a good wife to Jeff. Now, I know it doesn’t matter whether I am a good wife to him or not. He doesn’t appreciate me. Nothing I do can make him appreciate me, and I’m not sure I even want to be appreciated by him.

I wonder how much will really change from all of this, assuming I stay here. This morning, he asked me if I wanted to have sex instead of just taking it, instead of just using my body as a play thing and then discarding it, discarding me. He might do that again tomorrow morning, maybe the day after that. But this is Jeff I’m thinking of, and I know it won’t last. He will not be able to stop himself from going back to his old ways. Before long, he will simply stop asking and start taking again.

Then what? Will I just roll over and take it, the way that I always have in the past? Will I be content to be his toy again? I hated it before. I will most certainly hate it even more when it starts happening again. Before, in my mind, I could justify it the same way that I did doing the dishes or the laundry. It was part of my duties. If Jeff wanted to have sex, I’d have sex, even though it did absolutely nothing for me, and he never even seemed to notice that I didn’t care.

But… now things are different. I can no longer be the only giver in this relationship. I cannot sustain myself and Jeff based on pure duty alone. It is a terrible way to live.

Compared to the alternative, I would be a fool to continue to live this way.

I sit at the dining room table and think about what my mother said to me on the phone. She has told me to go ahead and do what I need to do to make myself happy, but at the same time, I have to wonder if she truly means that. Or will she and my father be so angry at me for getting a divorce they will disown me? I am afraid of the latter. I don’t want my family to be anything less than proud of me.

I go through the motions of a normal day, my mind bouncing from Braxton’s beautiful face to Jeff’s angry snarl. I do the things I am meant to do, but I don’t want to do them. I get Jeff’s dinner ready. I contemplate calling Braxton before my husband gets home, but I don’t see the point. Nothing will change tonight.

Pork chops are ready and on the table at the time Jeff is meant to arrive. He is late again, just like the night before. I eat without him. The food tastes fine, but I don’t even notice it as I chew and swallow. By 7:30, when Jeff isn’t home, I leave the table and go into the living room to try to read a book, even though I know the words are all jumbled in my head. When he comes in around 8:00, tipsy and not walking straight, he shouts at me that the food is cold. I get up and walk into the bedroom and close the door.

I can hear him out there, cussing and screaming, calling me all sorts of names. Calling me a whore and a bitch. Saying I can’t do anything right and he should toss me out. I contemplate packing my suitcases and leaving. Actually, my suitcases are already packed. All I need is the phone, card, and money, and I can go right now. I can walk away from here and never see Jeff Thompson again.

As I am considering this, the bedroom door squeaks open. Fear pulsates throughout my body as I see my husband standing in the doorway, his shirt unbuttoned most of the way, his tie gone, and his belt in his hands. The look on his face is deadly. I pull my knees up to my chest, more frightened than I have ever been in my entire life.