The Secret Heiress Returns: Ruining My Cheating Husband

I stood in the middle of the gala I had spent months curating, waiting for the perfect moment to tell my husband, Gabe, that he was going to be a father.

Instead, I watched him place a possessive hand on the stomach of my best friend, Harper. A reporter nearby whispered the truth that stopped my heart: Harper was pregnant with Gabe's child, and they were announcing it after the IPO.

When I confronted him, Gabe didn't apologize. He looked at me with cold calculation and told me a scandal would ruin the company. Then came the ultimatum that shattered my soul. He wanted me to hide in the countryside, give birth in secret, and hand my baby over to his mistress to raise.

"Don't be selfish," he said. "She needs this baby more than you do."

When I refused, his mother had me dragged away and locked in my bedroom. My windows were sealed, and my own parents sold me out, releasing a statement that I had suffered a mental breakdown. I was trapped, starving, and waiting for them to induce labor so they could steal my child.

But they made one fatal mistake. To keep me "calm," Gabe handed me my phone for five minutes.

I didn't call the police; the Sullivans owned them. I dialed a number I had found in my adoption papers years ago. A number belonging to Anthony Dean, the most dangerous man on the East Coast.

"They are going to kill my baby," I whispered into the receiver.

The voice on the other end was low, terrifying, and promised absolute violence.

"I'm coming."

Chapter 1

The image on the reporter's smartphone screen was grainy, a pixelated secret captured in low light, but the timestamp in the corner was sharp enough to cut: yesterday.

I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, my fingers white-knuckling a silver tray of champagne flutes that suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. Twenty feet away stood my husband, Gabe Sullivan.

He was laughing.

Worse, his hand was anchored possessively against the small of Harper Nicholson's back. My best friend.

"Did you see this?" the reporter whispered to his colleague, angling the phone so the screen didn't catch the chandelier's glare. "Gabe Sullivan and Harper Nicholson. Source says she's six weeks along. They're announcing it after the IPO launches."

The world didn't spin. It simply ceased to exist.

I was twelve weeks pregnant.

I was standing in the middle of the charity gala I had spent three months meticulously curating, wearing a designer gown that was beginning to pinch my waist, waiting for the perfect lull in the conversation to tell Gabe he was going to be a father.

I watched, helpless, as Gabe leaned down. He whispered something against the shell of Harper's ear. She giggled-a sound that carried over the string quartet-and placed her hand over his, right atop her stomach.

It was an intimate, secret gesture. A gesture that belonged to a husband and wife.

My grip on the tray failed.

*Crash.*

The sound of shattering crystal severed the orchestral music like a gunshot. Champagne exploded across the floor, soaking the silk hem of my gown. Every head in the room swiveled toward me.

Gabe's smile vanished instantly. He looked at me not with concern, but with sharp, calculating annoyance. He muttered something to Harper, patted her hand reassuringly, and stalked toward me. His strides were heavy, aggressive.

"Charlotte," he hissed, seizing my arm. His fingers dug into my flesh hard enough to bruise. "What the hell are you doing? You're making a scene."

"Is she pregnant?" I asked. My voice was hollow, a ghost of a sound. It didn't feel like mine.

Gabe froze. He didn't ask who. He didn't deny it. He simply scanned the perimeter, eyeing the reporters swarming nearby, their phones raised like weapons.

"Not here," he muttered through gritted teeth.

He dragged me toward the VIP exit. I stumbled, my heels skidding on the champagne-slicked floor. Harper watched us go. She didn't look guilty. She raised her own glass in a silent, mocking toast and smiled.

Gabe shoved me into the private waiting room and slammed the door. The sudden silence was deafening.

"Is she pregnant?" I asked again, my voice trembling.

"Yes," Gabe said. He didn't flinch. "It happened once. It was a mistake. But she's fragile, Charlotte. She can't handle the stress of a scandal right now."

"A mistake?" I laughed, but the sound fractured into a sob. "I'm pregnant, Gabe. I'm carrying your child."

I waited for the shock to register on his face. I waited for him to fall to his knees, to apologize, to realize the magnitude of his betrayal.

Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed-a sound of pure, unadulterated inconvenience.

"That complicates things," he said. He looked at me, his eyes cold and dead. "Listen to me. The IPO is next week. If the investors find out I have a mistress and a pregnant wife, the stock tanks. We lose everything."

"We?" I stepped back, repulsed.

"Yes, we. Look, Harper... she needs this baby. She's alone. You are strong, Charlotte. You've always been the strong one." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a persuasive, sickening purr. "You can go to the countryside. Secretly. Have the baby there. When it's born, we'll say we adopted it. Harper can raise it alongside hers. It will solve everything."

My stomach lurched. Acid rose in my throat.

"You want me to give my child to your mistress?" I whispered, unable to comprehend the cruelty.

"It's the only way to save the company," he said, as casually as if he were discussing a merger. "Don't be selfish."

*Selfish.*

I looked at the man I had loved for five years. The man I had breathed for. He wasn't a man. He was a monster in a tuxedo.

"I'm leaving," I said, my resolve hardening. I turned toward the door. "I'm divorcing you, and I'm taking my baby."

"No," Gabe said. "You aren't."

The door opened. But it wasn't freedom waiting on the other side. It was his mother, Eleanor Sullivan, flanked by two large security guards.

"She's hysterical," Gabe told his mother, smoothing his lapels. "It's the hormones. She's threatening to ruin the launch."

Eleanor looked at me with pure disdain, as if I were a stain on the carpet. "Take her to the car," she ordered the guards. "And take her phone. We can't have her posting lies on the internet."

"Don't touch me!" I screamed.

The guards grabbed my arms. I wasn't a person to them; I was a liability to be removed. As they dragged me out the back exit, away from the lights and the music, I saw Gabe checking his watch.

He wasn't watching me leave.

He was checking to see if he was running late.