From Abandoned Wife To Powerful Heiress

My marriage ended at a charity gala I organized. One moment, I was the pregnant, happy wife of tech mogul Gabe Sullivan; the next, a reporter' s phone screen announced to the world that he and his childhood sweetheart, Harper, were expecting a child.

Across the room, I saw them together, his hand resting on her stomach. This wasn't just an affair; it was a public declaration that erased me and our unborn baby.

To protect his company's billion-dollar IPO, Gabe, his mother, and even my own adoptive parents conspired against me. They moved Harper into our home, into my bed, treating her like royalty while I became a prisoner.

They painted me as unstable, a threat to the family's image. They accused me of cheating and claimed my child wasn't his.

The final command was unthinkable: terminate my pregnancy. They locked me in a room and scheduled the procedure, promising to drag me there if I refused.

But they made a mistake. They gave me back my phone to keep me quiet. Feigning surrender, I made one last, desperate call to a number I had kept hidden for years-a number belonging to my biological father, Antony Dean, the head of a family so powerful, they could make my husband's world burn.

Chapter 1

Charlotte Jennings POV:

I learned my marriage was ending the same way the rest of the world did: in a blinding flash of a camera at a charity gala I had organized.

One moment, I was smiling, a glass of sparkling water held delicately in my hand, my mind on the baby growing inside me-our secret, our joy. The next, a reporter shoved a phone in my face, the screen glowing with a breaking news alert.

"Mrs. Sullivan, any comment on your husband' s big announcement?"

The headline was stark, brutal. Tech Mogul Gabe Sullivan and Childhood Sweetheart Harper Nicholson Expecting First Child.

The air in my lungs turned to ice. My smile froze on my face, a brittle mask that felt like it might crack and shatter. I could feel hundreds of eyes on me, the whispers starting to ripple through the opulent ballroom like a wave of poison.

I turned, my movements slow, robotic. And there he was. My husband, Gabe. He was standing across the room with Harper Nicholson, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back. She was looking up at him with tear-filled, adoring eyes, her own hand protectively cradling a barely-there bump on her stomach.

They were a perfect picture. A loving couple sharing a beautiful secret with the world.

A secret that was supposed to be mine.

The reporter, a vulture sensing a kill, moved closer. "Is it true you and Mr. Sullivan have been living separately?"

Panic flared in Gabe' s eyes as he finally saw me. He saw the reporter, the phone, the crumbling expression on my face. His grip on Harper tightened for a split second before he let go, his face paling.

Our eyes met across the crowded room. In that single, suspended moment, the seven years of our life together played out and died. The late nights when I' d helped him brainstorm the code for his first app, the way he' d held me when my adoptive parents criticized my career choice, the whispered promise last week that our baby, our son, would have the love neither of us ever truly had.

It all turned to ash.

A cold, quiet rage began to build in my chest, a glacial force pushing aside the shock. I started walking toward him. The murmurs in the room fell silent, the crowd parting before me like the Red Sea. The only sound was the steady, deliberate click of my heels on the marble floor. Each step was a hammer blow against the foundation of our marriage.

I stopped directly in front of him. I didn't look at Harper. My entire world had narrowed to Gabe' s handsome, treacherous face.

"You have a sixty-second head start to come up with a lie that I might actually believe," I said, my voice dangerously low, stripped of all warmth.

He opened his mouth, his charismatic charm already kicking in. "Lottie, baby, it' s not what it looks like. Let' s go home and I can explain everything."

I didn' t let him finish. My hand moved on its own, a blur of motion. The crack of my palm against his cheek echoed in the cavernous silence of the ballroom. A collective gasp rippled through our audience.

Gabe stood there, stunned, the red imprint of my hand blooming on his skin. He didn' t look angry. He just looked... caught.

"Please, don' t blame Gabe!" Harper' s voice was a saccharine whisper, laced with faux fragility as she stepped between us, placing a hand on his chest. "It was all my fault. I... I was lonely. He was just being kind."

Her eyes, glistening with perfectly timed tears, locked onto mine. There was no apology in them. Only triumph.

The rage inside me finally broke through the ice, and a single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down my cold cheek. I felt the last of my composure shattering.

Gabe reached for me, his voice a desperate rasp. "Lottie, please."

He tried to pull me into his arms, but I flinched away from his touch as if burned.

"Don' t touch me," I choked out.

His publicist materialized at his side, whispering urgently in his ear. Gabe' s jaw tightened. He looked from the publicist, to the sea of watching faces, to Harper' s pleading expression, and finally, back to me. The calculation in his eyes was sickening.

"The baby is mine," he said, his voice now clear and firm, not for me, but for everyone listening. "Harper and I have a long history. We' re going to get through this together."

Harper let out a soft sob and leaned into him, burying her face in his expensive suit. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. A protective gesture. A gesture he hadn' t offered me, his pregnant wife, standing alone in the wreckage he' d created.

"Gabe, what are you saying?" I whispered, the words catching in my throat. "What about our baby?"

He finally looked at me, his eyes dark with a pain that I knew wasn't for me, but for himself. For the inconvenience I represented.

"We' ll talk at home," he muttered, his voice low and tight. He began to steer a weeping Harper toward the exit, his team closing ranks around them like a royal guard.

He was leaving me. He was leaving me here, alone, to face the humiliation.

I stood frozen as they walked away. The weight of his public declaration settled over me, a suffocating shroud. He hadn't just admitted to an affair. He had publicly claimed another woman's child and, in doing so, had erased ours.

My legs gave out and I stumbled back, catching myself on a table laden with untouched champagne glasses. The room started to spin.

His company, Sullivan Tech, was on the verge of the biggest IPO in a decade. A scandal, a messy divorce, an illegitimate child-it would have been a disaster. But a tech mogul standing by his pregnant childhood friend? That was a story of loyalty. It was noble.

It was a lie that sacrificed me and our unborn child on the altar of his ambition.

As one of his security guards approached to escort me out a side door, away from the prying eyes and flashing cameras, a sickening realization dawned. Gabe hadn't just made a mistake.

He had made a choice. And he hadn't chosen me.

He had chosen her.