Chapter 2From Rescuing His Broke Self to My Own Disaster

Half an hour later, Maya’s file was in my inbox.

A quick scan told me her life had been rough. After breaking up with Mark, she was laid off from a major tech company. She then bounced between several jobs, but the companies either went bankrupt or let her go before her probationary period was up.

Over the past year, as the job market tightened, she’d been unemployed for long stretches, eventually sinking so low as to work as a debt collector for some fly-by-night agency.

Back when she was at the top of her game, working at a big tech firm, she was surrounded by powerful men who fawned over her for her connections. Her standards had become inflated, which is why she’d made those ridiculous financial demands of Mark and ended things.

I didn’t believe for a second that her return was a coincidence.

That same day, I sent Maya’s file to a private investigator and told him to dig into her personal life for the past seven years.

I paid him well, and by that evening, I had the complete report. It was exactly as I’d suspected.

Maya had come back with a clear agenda.

As her career had tanked and her family’s financial situation worsened, the quality of men she dated had steadily declined. Now, she was older, with no career prospects. Her most recent boyfriend was a community college graduate earning just over sixty-eight hundred a month.

When they broke up, she posted this on her social media:

“What do you do when you’ve tasted lobster and now you’re stuck eating porridge? It just doesn’t hit the same.”

“Right after college, I dated this guy. He wasn’t much back then, came from some poor rural family, parents had no pension. He couldn’t even afford the down payment on an apartment in the city, let alone the 188k I asked for as a security deposit.”

“The pressure from my family got to me, so I broke up with him. But guess what? Right after we split, he met some rich local girl, and a few years after they got married, he became a huge CEO. I heard his company is about to go public.”

“Ugh, I was fine before, but ever since I found out, I feel sick. Especially when I look at my own 3k a month paycheck and the guy lying next to me who only makes 6k. I can’t stand it.”

“How do I get over this feeling of being so cheated?”

The post was brutally honest and got hundreds of comments overnight. Many people told her to get a grip on reality and accept that what’s gone is gone.

But one comment stood out.

“Why panic? From what you said, you and your ex had a great relationship and only broke up because of circumstances. Just go find him again.”

“Even if he’s married, you can be his mistress. You’d make six figures a year, which is way better than your 3k salary. And his new wife is probably some bossy rich girl. You just need to be sweet, give him the emotional validation he craves. If he fell for you once, he can fall for you again.”

Maya didn’t reply to any of the comments calling her out or telling her to move on.

Except for that one. To that one, she simply replied: “Thanks.”

After reading the post, her intentions were crystal clear. I didn’t hesitate. I had our housekeeper print out the entire thread, along with every piece of information the private investigator had found.

That evening, when Mark came home, I calmly handed him the file.

“This is what my investigator found on Maya. You should take a look.”