### 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."

### Chapter 6

I was packing the remnants of the wedding dress into my suitcase when it started to rain.

Good.

That way, no one would see my tears.

I didn't remember how I got from the bridal shop to the hotel.

My father called to tell me the full withdrawal of investments was underway.

Six months at most, and Delgado Corp would cease to exist.

When he saw the gauze on my head and the rainwater still dripping from my hair, my father's eyes filled with tears.

"I'll make that bastard crawl to you on his knees right now!"

I shook my head weakly, but my voice was steel.

"No, Dad. It's not time yet."

Just a few months ago, doctors had discovered that Stewart's sperm was abnormal, making it nearly impossible for him to father a child.

Was Vivian really carrying Stewart's baby?

After that, the fever hit.

I drifted in and out of a haze, but my phone kept buzzing with Stewart's calls, one after another.

I didn't have the strength to deal with him. I turned my phone off.

But then came the sound of fists hammering the door. "Leonora! Don't think I don't know you're in there. Get out here!"

The next second, the hotel room door was kicked open.

Stewart's eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed me off the bed and dragged me toward the door.

"Happy now? Vivian lost the baby, you vicious bitch!"

I struggled in his grip, shouting back.

"She threw herself at the wall on purpose! I didn't do anything!"

Stewart shoved me into the car.

"I saw you push her with my own eyes. Do you think I'm blind?"

He ran every red light on the way to the hospital and dragged me into Vivian's room.

Then he kicked me behind the knees.

Searing pain shot through me as I crashed onto the cold tile floor.

"Bow your head to Vivian. Apologize!"

I clenched my teeth so hard they ached. "I didn't do it. If you don't believe me, check the security cameras at the bridal shop yourself!"

Stewart stared down at me, his gaze a mixture of disappointment and hatred.

"Leonora, do you have any idea what your little shove did? Vivian didn't just lose the baby. The doctors say she can never get pregnant again."

"How are you going to make that right?!"

On the hospital bed, Vivian's face was a mess of tears.

"Stewart, my biggest dream was to have a baby. But now I'll never be able to. Blaming someone else won't change that."

Stewart's gaze locked onto me, cold and unblinking.

"Since you're the one who took away Vivian's chance to be a mother, you're going to have a child and give it to her."

My eyes went wide. "Stewart, do you hear how insane you sound?"

"You owe a debt, you pay it back. Simple as that!"

For her, he'd lost all reason. He truly was desperate in his love for this woman.

A laugh tore out of me, so violent my whole body shook.

Then, quietly, I lowered my eyes. "Fine. You got what you wanted."

I didn't miss the flash of triumph that crossed Vivian's face.

Stewart scoffed and produced a surrogacy contract.

It wasn't even legally enforceable. He actually thought my signature would make it binding.

Black ink on white paper.

"Can I go now?"

Stewart took the signed contract, then flicked a glance to the side. His bodyguards closed in around me.

My heart dropped. "Stewart, what else do you want?!"

"Vivian's been waiting for this wedding for a long time. Nothing is going to go wrong." He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "After the ceremony tomorrow, I'll let you go."

I was thrown into the Delgado family's basement. My head struck the concrete floor, and everything went black.

When I came to in the darkness, I found the livestream on my phone. The wedding was about to begin.

Stewart and Vivian's wedding was every bit as extravagant as I'd expected.

Dozens of A-list celebrities filled the guest list, and the ceremony was streaming worldwide, broadcasting their so-called love story for all to see.

That was when a Rolls-Royce Phantom pulled up to the entrance.

A middle-aged man stepped out of the car.

I whispered, "Dad."

Stewart and Vivian rushed forward with welcoming smiles.

"Chairman Hughes, you're too kind! You didn't have to bring a gift. Your presence alone is more than enough."

When my father's assistant handed over a document envelope, both their eyes lit up.

"What's the gift? Honey, open it, quick!"

Stewart couldn't tear it open fast enough. He pulled out the papers inside.

He must have been expecting shares, assets, something of that nature.

Instead, his gaze froze on a single line of red text.

"'Confirmed: Patient was born without a uterus. Permanent infertility. Patient name: Vivian Porter'?!"