Divorcing the useless son in law ; The return of the Tycoon

"Happy birthday to me," Caelum whispered to the quiet air inside his car.

He looked down at the small bakery box sitting on his lap. Inside was a tiny strawberry cupcake with a single pink candle. It was cheap and simple, but he had bought it with a soft smile on his face. Today was his twenty-ninth birthday. He did not want a grand party or expensive gifts. He only wanted to share this small sweet treat with his wife, Seraphine.

Caelum placed his hand on the hand controls of his custom car. Three years ago, a terrible car crash had taken everything from him. In one single night, his father, his mother, and his grandparents were all gone. The grand Vanterpool family, once the undisputed kings of the business world, was left with only one surviving heir: Caelum.

The crash had broken his body and stolen the use of his legs. While he lay in the quiet hospital room, listening to the dull beep of heart monitors, his distant relatives and greedy business associates had hovered over him like vultures. They did not care if he lived or died. They only cared about his money and his name.

Disgusted by their fake tears and hungry eyes, Caelum had made a bold choice. He decided to vanish from the public eye. He hid his true identity as the sole heir of the multi-billion-dollar Vanterpool Empire. He moved to a quiet city, bought a modest house, and chose to live as an ordinary, penniless man in a wheelchair.

He had wanted to answer one simple question: could anyone in this world love Caelum the man, without knowing Caelum the billionaire?

Then he met Seraphine Ollivier at a modest community charity event. She was working as a volunteer, smiling brightly as she helped set up tables. When the small front brake on Caelum’s wheelchair had snapped and caused him to roll toward a steep curb, Seraphine had dropped her box, run forward, and caught his chair just in time. She did not look at him with pity or disgust. She simply knelt down, pulled a pink hairpin from her thick hair, and used it to bind the loose metal brake back together.

She had looked up at him, wiped a tiny smudge of grease off her cheek, and laughed softly.

"There," she had said, her eyes shining with warmth. "It is fixed for now. Try not to race down any steep hills, okay?"

Caelum had fallen in love with her in that exact second. They married six months later in a simple courthouse wedding with no expensive flowers or grand guests. Caelum moved into the Ollivier family house as a live-in son-in-law.

For the first year, life was sweet and peaceful. Seraphine loved him with a warm and gentle heart. When her bitter cousin Dagny called Caelum "the leftover crippled husband" during a family dinner, Seraphine had stood up without hesitation and slapped Dagny across the face.

"Do not ever insult my husband in my house again!" Seraphine had shouted, her chest heaving with pride.

Caelum had sat in his wheelchair that night and felt a deep, quiet happiness. He thought his test was complete. He thought he had found true, pure love.

But then, things began to change.

Seraphine’s small family business, the Ollivier Group, began to face terrible financial troubles. Banks refused to lend her money, suppliers demanded cash up front, and big clients walked away. Seeing his wife cry herself to sleep every night broke Caelum’s heart. He could not sit back and watch her suffer.

So, Caelum secretly reached out to his loyal aide, Barnaby Quill. Through quiet channels and secret offshore funds, Caelum began backing the Ollivier Group. Whenever a bank miraculously approved a huge loan for Seraphine, it was Caelum’s money guaranteeing it. Whenever a major international supplier offered her cheap raw materials, it was Caelum’s hidden factory fulfilling the order. Whenever a giant client signed a lucrative contract with her, it was Caelum’s old contacts pulling the strings behind the curtain.

Over the next two years, the small, dying Ollivier Group grew into a famous multi-million-dollar company.

And as the company grew, Seraphine changed.

She moved Caelum out of her bedroom and into a small guest room at the end of the hall. She stopped coming home for dinner. She stopped holding his hand in public. She began to care about fancy dresses, expensive wine, and high-society parties. When her mother, Marguerite, insulted Caelum at the dinner table, calling him a useless burden who ate their food for free, Seraphine no longer defended him. She simply lowered her head, cut her steak, and remained completely silent.

Then came Lucian Draymore.

Lucian was a tall, handsome man who wore tailored Italian suits and drove sleek luxury sports cars. He claimed to be the vice president of a massive capital firm. Soon, Seraphine spent every single evening with Lucian. Whenever she talked at home, she no longer said "Caelum thinks." She only said "Lucian says."

What Seraphine did not know was that Caelum had known about Lucian for five months. His aide Barnaby had begged Caelum to stop funding her company and end the quiet test.

"Sir," Barnaby had pleaded over the phone a year ago. "She is forgetting who stood by her. She thinks her success is her own doing. Let me pull out our funds and show her the truth."

Caelum had closed his eyes and whispered, "One more year, Barnaby. Please. I want to be wrong about her. I want to give her every chance to choose me."

He was not wrong.

Caelum pushed the door of his car open, adjusted his lightweight wheelchair, and expertly maneuvered his body onto the seat. He rested the cupcake box on his lap and pushed himself through the grand glass doors of the Ollivier Group skyscraper.

The young receptionist at the front desk barely glanced up from her phone. She did not bother to smile or say hello. Everyone in the building knew the boss’s husband: a quiet, useless man in a wheelchair who brought no value to the firm.

Caelum rolled down the wide hallway toward the executive elevator. He pressed the button for the top floor. When the elevator doors opened silently on the floor, he pushed his wheels across the soft blue carpet toward Seraphine’s private office.

The door to her office was slightly open.

Caelum paused outside, about to knock, when he heard a man’s low, smooth laugh coming from inside.

"You really are amazing, Seraphine," Lucian’s voice drifted through the gap. "Look at these quarterly revenue numbers. You are standardizing the market. A beautiful woman with such a powerful brain... you deserve the absolute best in life."

Seraphine’s clear laugh followed. It was a happy, playful laugh that Caelum had not heard from her in over two years.

"It was all hard work, Lucian," Seraphine replied softly. "I worked day and night for this success. But I couldn’t have expanded into the northern market without your advice. You are the real genius here."

Caelum held his breath. He slowly pushed the wooden door open with one hand.