The Wealthy Husband
Zachary threw out his wife Julia after her infidelity, though not without ensuring she was provided for. Yet he refused to speak to her ever again, under any circumstances.
“It’s your fault, Zach! Forgive me!” Julia pleaded, her words falling on deaf ears.
“Have you lost your mind?” he bellowed. “Humiliating me like this? Be thankful I’m merely casting you out!”
Julia had been forty-six at the time, the same age as him. Thanks to his wealth, she scarcely looked thirty—another bitter irony for Zachary. Who would glance twice at a woman of her years without the fortune poured into her appearance?
All the tales of life…
“Zach, hello! Why the cold shoulder?” called a voice from the distant past—Dennis, a neighbour, if he recalled rightly.
Zachary gritted his teeth. Was this his punishment? He’d left that neighbourhood years ago, yet still, they recognised him, called him by name. And of all people, it had to be the local drunk—just his luck.
The car window rolled down, and his driver, Simon, asked softly, “Need anything, Mr. Zachary?”
He waved him off, striding toward the building without a backward glance at the man who had once been more than a neighbour—perhaps even a friend. How long ago had that been?
“Never remarried after the divorce, eh? Still playing the bachelor?” Dennis persisted, unfazed.
Or was his name Geoffrey? What did it matter? Zachary had spent half his life trying to forget those days. Once, they’d been young men together, sharing cheap wine in dimly lit pubs. Thirty-five years ago? And now he was expected to exchange pleasantries with washed-up alcoholics? Just because his mother…
“Hello, Mum!” he called out loudly as he opened the apartment door.
“Zachary, darling!” she cried back in delight.
Why wouldn’t she move in with him, to his grand estate in the countryside? But no, she clung stubbornly to this old flat, her roots too deep to tear free.
“How are you, Mum?”
At seventy-eight, his mother remained spry—walking ten thousand steps daily with her cane, ordering groceries effortlessly via an app, indulging in modern films on the state-of-the-art home theatre he’d gifted her. She travelled twice a year, either to the Mediterranean or Europe. A thoroughly modern elderly woman—Zachary was proud of her. Yet her attachment to this flat baffled him. Every visit circled back to the same uncomfortable conversation, one he couldn’t avoid.
“Mum, have you reconsidered?”
“Reconsidered what?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
He loved his mother dearly—would miss her terribly when the time came. But the thought alone was unbearable.
“You know what I mean! Move in with me, so I don’t have to keep coming here!”
“Oh, but you don’t have to! If you want to see me, we can meet in town.”
How could she speak so casually? Not visit his own mother? The only family he had left?
“I can’t just stop visiting!” he insisted. “I need to know you’re alright—here, and… well, generally.”
“Generally? You mean mentally?” she teased, eyes twinkling.
Zachary couldn’t help but smile.
“Mum, must you discuss my personal life with your gossipy friends?”
“Do I?” she raised an eyebrow.
“You must, if the local drunks ask whether I’ve remarried!”
“Perhaps you should! Then you’d fuss over me less.”
“So this is fussing now?” he scowled. “Visiting my own mother is some imposition?”
“You don’t just visit! I feel like you’re waiting for me to weaken so you can drag me off to your fancy estate!”
“Mum!” He was genuinely wounded.
She rose from her chair, stamping her foot. “Yes! By force! You’ll never understand—I just want to live out my days peacefully, in the home I grew up in! The home where I raised you, you ungrateful boy!”
Zachary recoiled. What had gotten into her?
“I’ll come another time,” he muttered, turning toward the door.
“Next time, don’t bother if it’s just to badger me about moving! I won’t be carted off to some nouveau riche palace!” she called after him.
His home was eight miles from the wealthiest stretch of Hertfordshire, but his mother dismissed such distinctions—to her, it was all the same. Nouveau riche, upstarts, the lot of them.
His mother had spent her career as a professor of literature, chairing her department. She’d buried his father young, at fifty-two. Back then, Zachary wouldn’t have minded her remarrying, but she’d declared: “After Henry, that part of life holds no interest. There’s so much else to enjoy!”
At the time, Zachary had been happily married to Julia, raising their son, Peter—who’d left for Oxford and never returned. When the divorce happened eight years ago, Zachary found himself alone. And though he told himself it suited him, the loneliness crept in. Was he repeating his mother’s fate? Did they share more than he cared to admit?
He’d climbed high, but now the thought of acknowledging Dennis—once a friend—brought only disgust. Why? They’d shared laughter, cheap wine, youth. But that was long gone.
“Let’s go, Simon,” he grumbled, sinking into the car.
Before shutting the door, he glanced at the quiet courtyard—empty. Once, this neighbourhood near Exhibition Road had seemed perfect. When had he grown so disdainful?
“Home, sir?”
“Actually, the office. Some papers left to review.”
He needed to finalise the acquisition of Compass—worth three hundred million. His executives had vetted it, but Zachary liked to double-check. Control was his habit. Or was his mother right?
Catching Simon’s gaze in the rearview mirror, he bristled.
“What?”
“You work too much, sir. If I had your money, I’d retire tomorrow—cigar in one hand, whiskey in the other, lounging by some Caribbean pool!”
Zachary laughed. Simon was refreshingly blunt, never late, never complaining. Loyal to a fault.
“Tired, Simon?”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Take a holiday if you want. I’ve not overworked you?”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead!” Simon grinned.
“Fine. Blast the office—have Strickland email the documents. Take me home.”
On the way to Hertfordshire, he debated inviting a young lady over. There were plenty willing—pretty, educated, some even clever. But their eyes always held the same hope: Would this ageing fool marry them? As if his fortune was wasted on him.
No, better to open a bottle from his cellar—perhaps the Château Mouton Rothschild 2004. A book, a glass, the perfect evening for a solitary billionaire.
Yet his thoughts circled back to his mother. Was the countryside so lacking in walks? The gardens were vast, the paths immaculate. Deliveries arrived daily, the staff impeccable. His mother would want for nothing.
Then it struck him—so sharply he spilled wine on his trousers. He was lonely. At fifty-four, he still needed his mum. Pathetic.
He’d failed to keep his family. Work had consumed him, leaving Julia neglected. Peter had fled abroad. And when Julia, bored and lonely, took up with a neighbour—his cook, Marion, had exposed the affair—he’d thrown her out, though not without a settlement.
“It’s your fault! Zach, forgive me!” Julia had begged.
“You crazy old—” he’d roared. “Embarrassing me like this? Be glad I didn’t throttle you!”
Julia had been hurt more by being called “old” than anything else, but Zachary didn’t care. Infidelity was unforgivable.
For months after the argument, he avoided his mother. The idea that he—a grown man—needed her like a child unnerved him.
Then, one day, her voice on the phone sounded frail.
“Mum, are you ill?”
“Don’t fuss! I’m fine!”
But he wasn’t convinced. Rushing over, he found a stranger—a woman his age—answering the door.
“Where’s Mum?” he demanded, barging past her.
“Quiet! She’s resting!” the woman hissed. “She fell—concussion, high blood pressure. Let her sleep.”
“Who are you?”
“Don’t you remember?” she laughed. “Natalie. Dennis’s sister! Natalie the charmer!”
Good lord—thirty-five years. Married young, moved away. Returned to find everything changed.
“And you’re here because?”
“I’m a nurse. Giving your mother her injections.”
“Why didn’t she call me?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to worry you?”
“I’m taking her home!”
“And that’s precisely what she feared.”
Natalie’s sarcasm stung. As she brushed past him,After the wedding, as Zachary watched Natalie laugh with his mother under the English sun, he realized that wealth meant nothing compared to the warmth of a love that had been waiting for him all along.
