Jamie Knox hated working in an office, she tried it once when she graduated from the University and it almost gave her a mental breakdown. She came home crying everyday after a 9 to 5 job as a Public Relation Officer at her father’s company and was laughed at by her family because they thought she was being a princess.
She grew up privileged even though she didn’t ask for it, and she was always told to be grateful because of how easy her life was. She was never ungrateful, it’s just not the life she preferred and her family didn’t know the difference.
She held onto the job for two months before she quit cold turkey on it. She took up online courses to develop her writing skills and started taking freelance jobs to do small campaigns and PR work for small businesses.
In a couple of years, she managed to compile quite a variable portfolio and her dad offered her another chance to do PR work for his companies. She gave it another try. That was when she learned the dark side of business and how ugly it could get when someone really looked on the inside.
She struggled between doing the right thing and being on her family side. She knew the consequences if she went against her very rich and powerful family. But she couldn’t see herself doing something that she knew was wrong. She decided to expose one of her father’s businesses and caused her to be striked out from the family’s will.
She never regretted it, she always felt that she made the right choice and dived in deeper into her passion to care for the animals and the environment. She was only 24 at the time. That’s when she got acquainted with Eduard Payne, the son of one of her father’s partners, another member of the elite 10 of Lancaster.
He was 12 years older than her, it was the first time she really fell in love with a man. Compared to the relatively same age boyfriends she had before him, Eddie was above them all in every aspect of a partner. He was nurturing, more experienced, he was like a mentor and she looked up to him.
Eddie pleased her in bed like no other sexual partner she ever had, she clang to him with dear life especially after she was cut out of her family’s will. She thought he was her savior that can give her the security she always had from her family. So she set her mind to please him in every way she can, including giving up her passion to do what she believed in because Eddie thought it was a waste of time.
It made sense to her at the time, Eddie can buy her anything she wanted without her having to work a day in her life. He dressed her like a modern day princess with jewelry and tailor made dresses. She was so beautiful, and young, just to have her standing beside him boosted his pride. One more accomplishment he had achieved in his life, a trophy wife.
She was proud to have stood beside him too, a well accomplished man of which she had nothing to do with his success, but she was proud of him nonetheless. And she loved him. So when he asked her hand in marriage at the age of 25, she didn’t think twice about it.
He asked her to sign a prenup so he can have assets under her name tax-free, she agreed. They were partners, romantically, and business wise.
All the glitter was gold for the first year or two. She was the stunning young bride of Eduard Payne whom he paraded around among his associates and business partners. Until he thought it was time to make babies, an heir to his throne. He asked her to stay at home more often to rest because as it turned out, getting pregnant wasn’t easy in their case.
Having a child was the next logical step in a marriage, she was in on the idea as much as Eddie was. She was getting tired of tagging along with her husband to business functions and high end parties without anything to show for herself. She wasn’t doing anything with her life other than being Mrs. Eduard Payne, and she was slowly known for the extravagant gifts her husband showered her with.
She started to lose her sense of self, and stayed home in the huge manor that her husband rarely came home to made her feel like a caged bird whose wings had been clipped. She wanted to go back to do what she was passionate about, but Eddie thought it was ridiculous, that she should focus on getting pregnant instead.
It got worse when Eddie only came home to plant his seed and brought her gifts, then later the gifts no longer came but complaints on why she wasn’t pregnant yet after over three years of marriage. She broke down and cried in her 500 square meters bedroom because she was scared of what would become of her if she stayed in that marriage and spent the rest of her life trying to please her husband.
She stared long and hard into the mirror and tried to recognize the reflection staring back at her. It was the woman who compromised herself to be with a man who didn’t care whether she liked herself or not, as long as he liked her. And he liked her to stay home, make babies, compliment him on his achievements, praise him for what a great husband he was without giving her an ounce of appreciation that her life was important too.
There was a tight knot in her stomach. Of all the ways she tried to explain to him what was wrong with her life, she got the same accusation of being ungrateful for such an easy life. She knew she had to be her own hero, there was no knight in shining armor that was going to come and save her.
“Divorce me” was the note she left on the foyer when she left her husband’s mansion with a small suitcase. She didn’t take any of the jewelry her husband gave her, just some hippie clothes that she loved but never wore since she got married. She left with no money to her name, but she left with a much more valuable possession she had abandoned for a while, her freedom and dignity.