### Chapter 3

Mid-rant, Stewart's gaze snagged on the gauze wrapped around my head.

The alcohol had worn off by now, and a flicker of guilt crossed his face. "Your head..."

Before he could finish, Vivian burst through the door, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe:

"Stewart, maybe I should just go get rid of the baby right now! Better that than having everyone call it a bastard!"

Stewart panicked. He pulled her into his arms, his voice going impossibly soft:

"Don't talk like that. You're not the other woman, and our baby is not a bastard!"

"We have a marriage certificate. You are my lawful wife."

"Anyone who says otherwise, I'll destroy them."

But Vivian only cried harder, on the verge of passing out:

"But everyone knows Leonora is your fiancée. I should just stop being an eyesore and leave right now!"

Stewart held her tighter, not bothering to hide his devotion:

"I already told her I'd settle things with her in a couple of years. What more does she want?"

"Stop crying. Every tear you shed feels like a knife in my chest."

Vivian struggled in his arms:

"But everyone thinks I'm the other woman. I can never show my face again. What's the point of staying by your side?"

The moment he heard that, Stewart pulled out his phone and called his assistant, barking orders that the wedding was back on.

Not only that, he wanted the whole thing upgraded to a multimillion-dollar affair.

"That way, the entire world will know that you, Vivian Porter, are my wife."

Vivian finally quieted, burying her face in his chest as her sobs turned into a coy smile. "Stewart, you're so good to me. How could I ever bear to leave you after two years?"

"Then don't. I'll take care of you and our child for the rest of your lives."

Once Vivian was properly soothed, Stewart finally lifted his head and looked at me with a sidelong glare:

"Why are you still standing there? Did you post the clarification? If you did, then hurry up and apologize to Vivian!"

Watching their little love show, I felt like I was the other woman in this story. The laughable third wheel.

But I hadn't done anything wrong. Why should I apologize to her?

"Stewart, what if I say no?"

He stared at me with that look, as though he had me all figured out, and let out a single contemptuous scoff.

"You're clinging on and refusing to leave because you want money. Just say it."

He pulled out a checkbook, scrawled a few strokes with a flourish, and slapped it on the desk.

"You were with me for years, so I'll be generous. A hundred thousand should cover it. Now go stand in front of the entire company and clarify that Vivian is not the other woman."

Employees had crowded around the office doorway, craning their necks for the show.

Feeling every last one of those contemptuous stares boring into me, I laughed. For real this time.

So that was all I was worth. A hundred thousand dollars.

"What's so funny? Think it's not enough? Every meal you ate, every thing you used these past years came out of my pocket."

"You should be grateful I'm offering you a hundred grand at all."

Listening to him say it with such righteous conviction, I felt nothing but a bone-deep bleakness.

I must have been blind to have loved a man like this for six whole years.

I reached across the desk and picked up the check. Slowly.

A knowing smirk tugged at the corner of Stewart's mouth.

Then, right in front of him, I tore it to shreds.

"Keep the money. Your happy little family of three is going to need it."

And that day was coming sooner than he thought.

Stewart's face twisted with humiliated rage.

"Leonora, I told you the wedding is just postponed! It's not like I said I'd never marry you!"

He still believed that no matter how far he pushed, I'd be standing in the same spot, waiting.

But betrayal was the one thing I would never forgive.

"Save it. You'd better enjoy your wedding with her while you can. It might just be the last party you ever throw."

The words left my mouth laced with ice.

"Leonora, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He noticed me bending down to gather my things from the floor, and he froze mid-step:

"You're quitting?"

"There's no reason for me to stay."

I packed my belongings into a box without once looking up at him.

"Fine! Then get the hell out of my sight! Once you leave Delgado Corp, let's see which company in this city would dare hire you!"

### Chapter 4

He was seething, teeth clenched, shouting at me like a cornered animal.

He was waiting for me to regret it. Waiting for me to beg. But I pushed through the crowd at the door and walked out without looking back.

I'd barely gotten into the car when my father called. "That Delgado bastard actually had the nerve to tell me the wedding is still on."

I drew a long breath. So he couldn't wait to announce his wedding to Vivian Porter to the whole world.

"And he had the audacity to say you were the one who fell for another man and called off the engagement first."

"Just wait. I'll make that animal pay."

Even though I didn't love him anymore, the sting still cut deep.

To protect his pride, I'd never told him. His biggest investor, his majority shareholder, was my own father.

And this was how he repaid me. Dragging my name through the mud, stripping whatever dignity was left from what we'd had.

I drove back to the Delgado house and packed as fast as I could.

Six full years, and I'd lived so frugally that everything I owned fit in a single suitcase.

I grabbed it and drove to the bridal shop.

The wedding dress had been custom-made before my mother passed. She'd overseen every detail herself. It was filled with her love, her blessing.

The wedding was off, but that dress was coming with me.

I hadn't even made it through the door when I saw Vivian Porter holding a pair of scissors, demanding the staff alter my dress.

"Stewart, I really love this gown. It's just too small. Tell them to let out the waist right now. We can't let it delay our wedding."

Vivian clung to Stewart's arm, her voice syrupy and simpering.

Stewart was busy negotiating with the shop manager.

"Call the woman who ordered it. I'll pay half a million on top of the original price. She can hand the dress over to my wife."

For Vivian, he really would throw money around without a second thought.

The manager's eyes lit up at the number. He turned and headed for the back room, saying he'd call me.

Vivian kept waving the scissors around the fabric, measuring, snipping at air. My heart was in my throat.

"I don't agree!" I charged in. "Vivian Porter, put my dress down!"

She flinched for a second. Then her expression twisted into something cold and cruel.

The scissors raked across the gown.

The skirt tore apart, shredded beyond recognition.

The back of my hand caught the blade when I tried to block her. Blood welled up instantly.

"Oops. My hand slipped."

Vivian dropped the scissors with a look of wide-eyed innocence, but the smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth gave her away.

I stared at the ruined dress. The pain in my chest was unbearable. Losing Stewart hadn't hurt a fraction of this.

"You vile bitch! That was my mother's. You owe me!"

I didn't feel the cut on my hand. I didn't feel anything except blind rage as I swung and slapped Vivian across her pale face as hard as I could.

"Ah!"

A bright red handprint bloomed across her cheek.

"Vivian!"

Stewart backhanded me even harder. The force sent me crashing to the floor.

"Stewart, my face hurts so much!"

Vivian wailed at full volume, throwing herself into Stewart's arms as if she'd suffered some unimaginable injustice.

My chest heaved. Tears burned in my eyes as I stared up at Stewart from the ground.

He knew what that dress meant to me. Better than anyone.

But he couldn't see the blood running down my hand. He couldn't see the dress torn to pieces on the floor.

All he did was cup Vivian's swollen cheek and stroke it over and over, so gentle, so tender, his hands trembling with how much it pained him.

"Leonora!"

He tucked the sobbing Vivian behind him and turned that frozen stare back on me.

"Have you lost your goddamn mind? If you hurt the baby, how the hell are you going to make that right?!"

"Apologize to Vivian. Now."

### Chapter 5

"She destroyed my wedding dress!" I screamed through my tears. "Why the hell should I apologize to her?!"

"It's a piece of junk worth a few hundred bucks! Didn't I already say I'd pay extra for it?!"

Then his gaze dropped to the back of my hand.

"Why are you bleeding so much?"

His expression shifted instantly, and he ran out to find a staff member with a first-aid kit.

The second Stewart turned his back, Vivian's tears vanished like a magic trick.

She curled her lips into a mocking smile:

"All these years you clung to Stewart like a shameless little leech, throwing yourself at him without a shred of dignity."

"Now he and I are legally married, and you still think he's going to walk down the aisle with you? That's hilarious. Stop dreaming that he'll divorce me in two years and come running back, because..."

She placed one hand lightly over her flat stomach, leaned close to my ear, and smiled with pure venom:

"The baby I'm carrying is his."

The room tilted around me.

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached, forcing back the tears that burned behind my eyes.

So he really had betrayed me, and still had the nerve to string me along for two more years.

Her smile twisted darker:

"Valentine's Day. You waited up for him all night, didn't you? He spent every single hour of it with me in a hotel room, making this baby."

That Valentine's night, I'd waited until the food went cold and the candles burned down to nothing.

I called Stewart ninety-nine times. He didn't pick up once.

The next morning he came home full of apologies, saying he'd been entertaining an important client all night.

I hadn't doubted him for a second, especially after he told me he'd already started planning our wedding. The joy of it washed away every question I might have asked.

But later, while getting into the car for work, I found a used condom.

When I confronted him, he said he'd looked into it and it was the driver who'd picked up a prostitute. He fired the man on the spot.

I chose to believe him again.

But all those late nights at the office, all those business trips over the past two months, every single one had been spent with Vivian.

And here she was, gloating over each encounter like a trophy.

When I lifted my head again, my face was perfectly still.

"You love him that much? Then I hope you two are chained together for life."

Especially through the hard times.

I shoved past her shoulder. All I wanted was out of this suffocating room.

Stewart was already coming back with the first-aid kit.

A sharp glint flickered through Vivian's eyes.

"Ahh!"

She threw herself backward, slamming hard into the wall behind her.

I watched, stunned, as she clutched her stomach and wailed: "It hurts! My baby, the baby!"

"Leonora, even if you hate me, the child is innocent!"

The first-aid kit slipped from Stewart's hands and cracked against the floor.

He lunged forward and scooped Vivian into his arms as she sobbed.

"Vivian, don't be scared. I'm here!"

Then he turned on me, eyes savage:

"Leonora, how can you be this vicious? Attacking a pregnant woman?!"

I shook my head hard. "I barely pushed her! I didn't touch her!"

But Stewart didn't believe a word of it. He jerked his chin toward the dress:

"You hurt Vivian. That piece of trash doesn't deserve to exist anymore either."

One of his bodyguards stepped forward immediately, scissors raised.

"What are you doing?!"

"Please, I'm begging you, that was my mother's! It's all I have left of her!"

The bodyguard shoved me aside. The scissors came down, cut after cut after cut.

My wedding dress, destroyed beyond repair.

Only then did Stewart look satisfied. He cast a cold glance my way. "Remember, this time it was just a dress. Touch Vivian again, and don't ever expect me to marry you."

He gathered Vivian gently into his arms and carried her to the car, heading for the hospital.

I knelt on the floor, cradling the shredded remains of the dress, watching his silhouette disappear. No tears left to cry.

"There is no 'ever' for us anymore, Stewart."

I pulled out my phone. My gaze was ice.

"Dad, I need you to run a DNA test on Vivian's baby. Immediately. I think I have one last gift to give Stewart Delgado."