Part 2My Billionaire Wife Starved Me

The next morning, I returned to the clinic to consult a gastroenterologist.

The specialist gave it to me straight: the lining of my stomach looked like raw meat. Without intensive IV therapy, medication, and clinical nutrition, I was headed straight for a full perforation. On top of that, blood panels confirmed acute malnutrition.

I hesitated in the vinyl chair, my fingers nervously fraying the hem of my jacket.

"How much would the initial hospitalization and therapy cost out-of-pocket?"

The doctor looked up from his chart, startled. "Hospitalization? Son, looking at you, you’re on the verge of collapsing. Doesn't your wife know about this?"

I lowered my eyes, finding no words to offer.

With a sympathetic sigh, he scribbled on a pad. "Conservatively, with tests, bed rest, and specialized IV infusions... around fifteen hundred to two thousand upfront."

I glanced at my phone. After maxing out my low-limit credit card on the diagnostic scans, I had forty-two dollars of credit left to my name.

Clutching the medical report, I left the clinic and caught the bus directly to Bishop Tower. I needed to see Mallory face-to-face. I had to show her the cold, hard medical truth.

Outside the executive suite on the sixty-second floor, Damon intercepted me like a guard dog.

"Mrs. Bishop is in an executive committee meeting. Do you have an appointment, Connor?"

I gripped the crinkled diagnosis sheet, feeling the heat rise in my hollow cheeks. "I'm sick, Damon. It's real. Extensive gastric erosion. I need to be admitted. I just need enough to cover the admission fee..."

Damon barely glanced at the paper before flicking it back against my chest, letting it flutter toward the plush carpet.

"You really don't quit, do you? Now you're forging medical letterheads?" He sneered, loud enough to cut through the quiet hum of the open-plan office. "What's the plan for next month? Faking an organ transplant so you can squeeze another payout from her?"

Around us, several junior analysts and secretaries glanced up from their dual monitors, their whispers sharp and carrying.

"Isn't he the one who married into the Bishop family?"

"Doesn't Mrs. Bishop give him a massive personal allowance every month? Why is he pulling fake hospital stunts?"

"He treat her like an ATM, honestly."

With every word, I sank deeper into myself, the ground threatening to swallow me whole.

Damon stepped around me, smoothly pressing the elevator call button. "Mr. Bishop, let’s not disrupt real business hours. Have a pleasant afternoon."

I bent down, retrieved my wrinkled report, and stepped into the descending elevator amidst the murmurs.

In the marble lobby on the ground floor, I caught Damon’s voice echoing through the security desk headset via the intercom: "Going forward, don't let that freeloader past the turnstiles."

I hurried out the revolving doors into the crisp autumn air, clutching my stomach as a dry, breathless sob escaped my lips. "How am I going to survive this?"

Catching my reflection in a shop window, my eyes fell on my wrist.

The rose-gold Patek Philippe.

Mallory had given it to me for my birthday earlier that year—a limited-edition piece sourced through an international broker. A collector’s dream.

Desperation made the decision for me. I hailed a cab to the nearest high-end watch buyer in the luxury district.

The dealer took one look at my pale face and frantic eyes and immediately smelled blood. He offered me ten thousand dollars—a tenth of what it was worth.

I knew I was being robbed blind. But I was starving, and my stomach was bleeding. I took the wire transfer.

For the first time in an entire year, seeing four digits in my mobile banking app made me exhale. I finally had the money to see a specialist.

By that evening, however, the gossip pages had already picked up the scent: "Bishop Enterprises Heiress's Husband Seen Pawning Luxury Timepieces."

A blurry paparazzi shot showed me pushing the watch box across the velvet counter. Online commenters had a field day, branding me a secret degenerate gambler burning through his wife’s family fortune.

My phone vibrated violently. It was Mallory.

Her voice was like dry ice. "Are you really that broke, Connor? Desperate enough to pawn my birthday gift?"

"Mallory, listen to me—"

"No wonder Damon told me you tried shaking him down with fake hospital bills this afternoon," she cut in, cold, exhausted, and deeply disgusted. "If you need money, you ask my office through proper channels. Why do you have to humiliate me with these pathetic lies?"

Her disappointment was a physical weight, pressing the air straight out of my lungs.

Every explanation I had gathered withered in my throat. All I managed was a hollow, "...Understood."

I hung up, staring blankly at the wall, wondering how I was going to schedule my clinic admission for the morning.

Then my phone pinged with a banking alert.

The ten thousand dollars from the watch—along with the thirty dollars Brett had lent me—had been completely debited out of the account.

A text from Damon popped up immediately:

"Mrs. Bishop feels you lack basic financial self-control. I have transferred the funds to an escrow sub-account. I will be managing your liquidation on her behalf."