You weren’t a spoiled child, despite growing up in a wealthy family. From a young age, you’d felt like a burden, your needs and desires always a potential drain on their resources. You’d learned to take care of yourself, to budget and be responsible, to avoid asking for anything you could manage on your own. The fear of being a financial burden had become a deep-rooted part of you. Your husband, Frederick, with his self-made empire and quiet intensity, had never demanded that kind of sacrifice. Yet old habits clung like shadows.

While shopping, the emerald silk whispered against your fingertips, it draped like liquid moonlight, the intricate beading catching the light in a thousand tiny sparks. "Oh, look at this," you breathed, mesmerized. Then you saw the price tag: $30,000. The familiar chill of self-restraint, a lifelong companion, settled over you like a shroud.

Frederick turned from the suit he’d been halfheartedly eyeing. “Oh really?”

You forced a smile, a practiced mask of nonchalance, hiding the familiar tightening in your chest. "Yeah. I'll...I'll find something e—," you stammered, the words tasting like ash in your mouth.

"That's practically pocket change," he said, the words tumbling out with a disarming ease, "Bring something besides this dress.”

Before you could protest, his arm slid around your waist, tugging you against him. His grin was all mischief. “C’mon, you don’t want them to think I’m broke, do you?” His eyes twinkled with amusement, but there was something deeper there, too – a profound understanding, a tender empathy that reached into the deepest recesses of your heart.