The Useless Husband Is A Secret Young Master

Chapter 1: The Bad Wife

Chapter One

"Get your dirty, penniless hands off that glass counter before you smudge it, you useless poor church rat!"

The front desk receptionist’s screech rang out across the immaculate, marble-paved atrium of Cross-Town Corporate headquarters. She glared at Liam Cross as if he were a gutter stray that had somehow sneaked past security.

Liam lowered his hands immediately. He took a small step back, his fingers tightening around the handles of a crinkled brown paper bag. He was wearing a faded, cheap dress shirt with frayed cuffs and washed-out elbows. In a building where bespoke suits cost more than a family car, he stuck out like a glaring stain on white silk.

"I am just here to deliver lunch for my wife," Liam said softly, holding up the bag and forcing a quiet, patient smile.

"Your wife?" The receptionist threw her head back, letting out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed through the lobby. She pointed a freshly manicured nail straight at his chest. "Listen to yourself! You are nothing but a freeloading leech who got lucky enough to trick Miss Sandra into a marriage certificate. Everyone in this building knows the truth about you, Liam. You are the infamous useless son in law living off her hard work!"

A crowd of security guards and lower-level corporate staff gathered near the turnstiles, chuckling loudly at the spectacle.

"Look at him," one of the guards sneered, folding his arms. "The CEO works eighteen hours a day closing multi-million dollar deals, and her pathetic church rat of a husband brings her a five-dollar meal in a greasy paper bag. Is that your full-time job now, boy? Playing housemaid?"

"Does she even let you sleep in the main house, or do you sleep on the porch like a stray dog?" another staff member chimed in, causing the surrounding employees to burst into snickers.

Liam kept his head up, enduring the barrage of mocking glances and quiet chuckles. His heart burned, but he swallowed his pride. He was used to their contempt. For three long years, he had swallowed every insult, every sneer, and every ounce of disdain without offering a single word of defense.

"Please," Liam said calmly, holding the receptionist's cold glare. "Just tell her I am here. She has been working since dawn and skipped breakfast."

"Fine," the receptionist spat, rolling her eyes in disgust as she slapped the intercom button. "Go up to the top floor. But do not touch anything in the elevator with those dirty hands of yours."

Liam nodded quietly and walked toward the high-speed elevators, carrying the weight of dozens of judgmental eyes on his back.

When the heavy glass doors of the grand boardroom slid open on the top floor, the room fell dead silent.

A critical, high-stakes strategic meeting was in full swing. Around a twenty-foot polished mahogany table sat thirty of the city's most influential directors, executives, and investors. At the head of the table sat Sandra , looking breathtakingly regal in a sharp tailored suit that screamed pure power and authority.

The moment her eyes landed on Liam standing in the doorway, clutching his crinkled paper bag, her face transformed. Her professional composure vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust and burning rage. The team of executives turned to stare at him, whispering among themselves in utter disbelief.

"Why are you here, Liam?" Sandra ’s voice cut through the silent room like a razor blade, cold and razor-sharp.

Liam stepped forward onto the plush carpet, offering a hopeful, gentle smile despite the suffocating hostility in the air. "You forgot to eat, wife. You've been skipping meals again to deal with the board, and I wanted to make sure you had something warm..."

A loud, theatrical burst of laughter shattered his words.

Julian, the senior executive vice president sitting right to Sandra 's right, leaned back in his Italian leather chair. He looked Liam up and down with absolute contempt before tossing his pen onto the table.

"Look at this, everyone!" Julian shouted, his voice dripping with venomous mockery. "The useless poor church rat inlaw has arrived! He isn't even Uber Eats. He is Uber Emotion!"

The entire boardroom burst into unrestrained, cruel laughter. Directors slapped the table, laughing out loud at Liam’s expense.

"Tell us, Liam," Julian continued, rising from his chair and stepping close to Liam, towering over him with a sneer. "Did you spend all morning boiling broth for our CEO like a good little maid? Or did you have to scrape your pockets for spare change just to buy this garbage? Look at you. You look like a beggar who wandered into a royal court. Have you no shame at all?"

Liam’s fingers tightened on the paper bag until the paper crumpled. He stood entirely still under Julian's vicious words.

Sandra ’s face flushed bright red with extreme humiliation. She stood up so fast her leather chair scraped violently against the floorboards.

"Do you have a single shred of dignity left in you?" she shrieked, her voice shaking with rage.

She stormed across the room, grabbed the lunch bag out of Liam's hands, and hurled it with all her strength across the boardroom. The bag slammed hard against the far wall, tearing open and splattering warm soup and food across the pristine wallpaper before crashing into a trash bin.

The loud impact echoed like a gunshot in the room.

Liam flinched violently. His face drained of all color, turning deathly pale under the relentless assault of her cruelty.

"I am the CEO of a listed, multi-billion dollar enterprise!" Sandra screamed right into his face, her fingernail nearly touching his nose. "I am standing at the pinnacle of the business world, and you come here looking like a vagrant, handing me trash in front of my board! I don't need a useless church rat for a husband who spends his life playing housemaid! We have been pretending this pathetic excuse for a marriage works for far too long!"

"Send him back to the gutters where you found him, Sandra !" one of the male directors shouted from the table, laughing. "He is dragging down the company image just by standing on this carpet!"

"He is nothing but a parasite feeding off a successful woman," another female director added, shaking her head in disgust. "A useless man who cannot even afford a decent suit."

Liam stood frozen in the center of the storm, his heart breaking into a thousand pieces under the weight of her venomous words.

She did not know.

She had no idea that ten years ago, when she was broke, hopeless, and crying in a small rented apartment, it was Liam who secretly channeled millions in seed capital through anonymous shell companies to launch her startup. She did not know that every single major contract her company won was quietly pushed into her lap by his hidden hand.

She had no idea that he had turned down board seats, unimaginable wealth, and his rightful position as the heir to the most powerful family in the nation. He had turned his back on his family's vast empire, choosing to live anonymously by her side as a nobody, taking every insult and living in obscurity just to protect her from the dangerous, bloodthirsty enemies who had once tried to assassinate him.

He had sacrificed his pride, his status, his future, and his very identity for her safety and her dreams. He had given up everything to keep her safe, and she never even knew.

And now, standing on the very floor of the corporate empire he had built for her from behind the scenes, she looked at him with nothing but hatred and disgust.

"Look at him," Julian mocked again, stepping right up to Liam and tapping his shoulder disrespectfully. "He doesn't even have the spine to speak back. Just a useless, penniless church rat standing there like a mute."

Liam lowered his eyes, breathing slowly as the cold reality settled into his soul. The woman he had protected for ten years did not see a husband. She saw a stain on her reputation.