His Ruin

The day I signed the divorce papers, I lounged in the VIP suite of an ultraexclusive club, swirling vintage champagne in my crystal flute.

I looked at my best friend and let out a cold sneer. "That pretentious bastard isn't even fit to shine my shoes anymore." Too bad it took less than ten days for me to run into Alaric at a private gala.

But that is just how our suffocating little elite circle works. I was stonecold sober this time.

When our eyes met across the chandelierlit room, we exchanged a perfectly curated, plastic smile and a brief nod. We played our parts flawlessly.

Anyone watching the exchange would have applauded us for having the most amicable, dignified divorce of the season. Chapter 1 We were having an amicable divorce. Just how amicable?

Ten minutes before Alaric dropped the divorce bomb, I was still going over our Thanksgiving itinerary.

I had prepared absurdly expensive, custom gift baskets, meticulously tailored to the picky tastes of everyone in his family.

I outlined the schedule for him. "Your mother called yesterday. There's a private dinner at the Long Island estate on Thanksgiving night.

You know how strict the rules are there; you won't be able to slip away easily." "So, we'll head to my parents' villa in the morning, grab lunch, and then take the helicopter over.

We'll spend the night at the estate." I always covered all my bases.

After the wedding, I navigated the massive, tangled web of Alaric's elite family with ruthless efficiency, quickly securing my position. Everyone praised my social grace.

Even his impossibly demanding, hypercritical mother was satisfied with the daughterinlaw she had so carefully selected. That was the beauty of a marriage between equals.

We both grew up in oldmoney dynasties. We both knew exactly how to play the game of power and connections. It was effortless. But for once, he was entirely zoned out.

I picked up on his distraction immediately, cutting my sentence short.

I picked up the cup from the coffee table, taking a slow sip. "Did something happen?" He weighed his words for a long moment.

When he finally spoke, his tone was flat, like he was negotiating a corporate merger. "Let's get a divorce." I stared at him.

For a fraction of a second, my vision blurred—the sheer force of the impact scrambling my brain. But I didn't let a single muscle in my face twitch. I recovered instantly.

I didn't even bother asking if it was a joke. I just let my eyes slowly drag across his face, assessing every microexpression to confirm he was dead serious.

I leaned back lazily against the leather sofa, crossing my arms. I looked him up and down like he was a piece of defective merchandise. "Spit it out.

Are you bankrupt, or did you knock up some mistress?" His throat worked as he swallowed hard. His jaw tightened. "I'm sorry." "There was… someone I cared about deeply in the past.

My family didn't approve. A few days ago, I ran into her…" I let out a sharp sneer.

I slammed my priceless bone china cup onto the table, the sharp crack echoing through the room. "So, you didn't just betray our marriage, but you've been hiding a fiveyearold bastard?" He froze, visibly taken aback. "No… I didn't.

I only just saw her two days ago." The words seemed to scrape against his throat. My tense shoulders relaxed just a fraction as he kept going. "But Genevieve… I didn't know.

Six years ago… when she left me, she was already pregnant." The shattered pieces of bone china lay on the table, the liquid dripping silently onto the thick custom rug I had personally handpicked after our wedding.

It soaked into the expensive fibers, leaving a dark, spreading stain.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Alaric's voice. "The kid… the kid is five years old this year." "You created this mess," I stated coldly. "Your mother—" I paused, recalibrating my tone. "You can explain this to your mother yourself.

My parents are going to make your life hell, and I won't lift a finger to stop them. You better brace yourself." "We don't share much in joint assets.

We have two properties under both our names. I'm keeping this one." "The penthouse in the city is closer to your corporate headquarters; you can have that.

I'll have the staff pack up every trace of your belongings by tonight and dump them with your assistant." Alaric had been listening in silence.

He finally interrupted. "I'm the one who wronged you." "You keep the city penthouse too.

Plus, all the bond funds we hold, I'll transfer them all to you." I stood up, towering over him.

I grabbed the asset portfolio from the side table and slammed it directly into his face. "Keep your pathetic handouts, Alaric. Every single cent of my shares will remain mine.

As for those garbage bonds? Save them to buy diapers for your pathetic little first love." Chapter 2 I gave a silent, curt nod.

I rubbed my temples, the exhaustion finally catching up to me. "My lawyer will slam the divorce papers on your desk by tomorrow morning. Sign them and get the hell out.

Don't dirty my rugs." He stood there, visibly tense, likely anticipating a screaming match. But I didn't give him the satisfaction.

I flashed him a terrifyingly polite, hollow smile. "It's getting late, Alaric. You must be busy. Oh, and leave your keys on the counter." He turned toward the door.

Just as his hand grazed the brass handle, I called out. "Mr.

Song—don't forget to take those custom gift baskets meant to suck up to your family." My smile widened into a brittle, razorsharp line. "I'll be skipping the Thanksgiving dinner." The heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind him.

The deadbolt engaged. I collapsed back against the leather cushions. My hands clamped over my face. The shivering started in my chest and racked my body.

I dug my perfectly manicured nails into my scalp, gasping for air that refused to reach my lungs. I heard his footsteps hesitate on the porch for a fraction of a second.

Then, they faded down the driveway. The fallout was spectacular. My socialites fed me the gossip over martinis: Alaric's mother had gone utterly ballistic.

He showed up to board meetings with a red handprint branded across his cheek.

The matriarch even called me once, her voice dripping with sheer exasperation. "He wants a divorce, and you just let him?

Since when do you play fair, Genevieve?" She scoffed. "A kid? Fine, the kid belongs to the family.

But Eden?" "I'll accept the child walking through my doors, but that trashy little homewrecker? Is she worthy?" "Genevieve, honey, I know you're hurting. Let me handle this.

You just—" "Mrs. Song," I cut her off. The dead silence on the other end of the line was deafening. "Mrs.

Song, the papers are already being drawn up." The formal title was a slap to the face. She had treated me like her own flesh and blood for years.

After a long, heavy pause, she let out a weary sigh and the line went dead. But blood is thicker than water, especially in oldmoney dynasties.

It barely took a month for the fortress to crack.

No matter how furious his mother was, she couldn't hold her ground against a tiny, wideeyed fiveyearold tugging at her Chanel skirt, timidly calling her Grandma.

Alaric delivered the signed divorce papers to my family's estate personally. My parents were tenured professors at an Ivy League university.

They held themselves to an impossibly high standard of decorum; screaming matches or throwing punches simply wasn't in their DNA.

But Alaric stood outside our gates in the freezing, torrential rain for an entire night before my mother finally called me, her voice pure ice, telling me to come home.

Alaric had always been the golden boy of Manhattan. When I pulled up the driveway, I saw him standing under the massive, ancient oak tree in the front yard.

He looked drained, his immaculate tailored suit soaked and ruined. But what did it matter? He was about to get his happily ever after. I stepped out of the car.

I stopped a few feet behind him. "Alaric." He turned around.

I forced a polite, empty smile. "I thought I told your lawyer to mail these to my desk?" He stayed silent for a moment. "I had to apologize to your parents in person." His dark eyes locked onto mine, heavy with something I refused to decipher. "And I owe you an apology, too." I snapped my gaze away, staring hard at the manicured lawn.

I dug my fingernails into my palms until the sharp pain grounded me. I thrust my hand out toward him. "Enough.

Give me the papers." Chapter 3 I signed the papers and couriered them to Alaric's assistant. Not long after, my phone buzzed with a text from him.

The finalized divorce decree was sitting on the foyer console of the city penthouse. I could pick it up whenever I needed it. I typed back a cold, sterile reply: Received. Thanks.

Our social circles overlapped so heavily that running into each other was inevitable, no matter how hard I tried to dodge him. Like at that private gala.

With the eyes of Manhattan's elite burning into our backs, we exchanged those stiff nods and plastic smiles.

Alaric had even offered a sickeningly polite, "How have you been lately?" "Never better. You?" "Same." Just like that.

Like we hadn't shared a bed for over three years—three years, five months, and six days, to be exact. But three years of marriage doesn't just vanish without a trace.

Right around the time we filed, I felt physically off. In the weeks after the divorce, the insomnia hit hard.

Then came the complete loss of appetite, followed by brutal bouts of nausea. I wrote it off as stressinduced gastritis from the sleepless nights.

When I couldn't keep water down for over half a month, I finally drove to the hospital.

I sat on a concrete bench in the hospital courtyard for the entire afternoon, my fingers crushing the lab results.

The latesummer sun was blistering, beating down directly on my skin, but I couldn't stop shivering. I wrapped my arms tightly around my waist. How utterly cliché.

A bitter scoff caught in my throat, but my lips involuntarily pulled into a strained, hollow smile. I saw Alaric when I went downstairs to grab my takeout.

I had been hiding out in a highrise condo I bought under an LLC after the split. He had probably exhausted every contact he had to track me down.

I was in my slippers, carrying a bag of paella, when I spotted his custom black Maybach parked by the curb. He was leaning against the door, dragging hard on a cigarette.

Three crushed butts littered the pavement at his Italian leather shoes. It hit me immediately.

The hospital I went to was heavily backed by his family's venture capital firm; they were the majority shareholders. I used to have my routine checkups there when we were married.

In my brain fog, I had forgotten to cover my tracks. Of course he got the alert. The sheer volume of nicotine he'd burned through in such a short time hit me like a physical wave.

I stopped dead in my tracks. He snapped his head up, locking eyes with me. He immediately crushed the cigarette under his heel and waved away the smoke.

We stood there, separated by a few yards of concrete, locked in a dead, suffocating standoff.

After an agonizing silence, his voice cracked through the air. "What are you going to do about the baby?" Three years of marriage.

We were barely in the same time zone half the time. He was, to his core, a man driven by ruthless obligation.

If he hadn't dropped the divorce bomb, I would never have guessed there was a ghost in his heart.

He played the role of the perfect husband flawlessly—accommodating, attentive, stable. He remembered every anniversary, my exact coffee order, my favorite designers.

Except for the fact that he never loved me, he was the pictureperfect partner.

Now, he stood in front of me, forcing every word out through clenched teeth. "You're not planning to keep it, are you?" I didn't even know what expression to paste on my face.

My grip on the takeout bag tightened until the plastic handles cut off my circulation. I tilted my chin up, keeping my voice terrifyingly flat. "We're divorced, aren't we?

This is none of your business, Mr. Song." He looked down at me. He was tall enough that the angle naturally carried a crushing, dominant weight.

The harsh glare of the streetlights caught in his dark eyes, illuminating a volatile, swirling storm just beneath the surface.

But a breath later, he shoved it all back down behind a wall of ice.

Chapter 4 Looking back, the only thing that kept me from completely losing my mind was the raw, broken gravel in his voice. His throat bobbed. "You know how it is, Genevieve.

This baby… if our families find out about this pregnancy…" He cut himself off, but I didn't need him to finish.

If the dynasties found out I was pregnant, they would drag us to the courthouse and force a remarriage before the sun set. And his tragic little first love, Eden?

Along with her bastard kid? They would never be allowed to step foot into the estate. The scales were perfectly balanced, the choice brutally simple.

He didn't even need to think about it. That was why he floored his Maybach to find me the second he got the alert. I didn't hesitate.

I raised my hand and slapped Alaric hard across his hypocritical face.

The sharp crack echoed in the dead silence of the night, instantly drawing a line of blood from the corner of his mouth. He took the hit in dead silence.

I took a private jet to a toptier, ultraconfidential medical center out of state for the procedure. The eyes of the oldmoney syndicates were everywhere.

If I walked into any local VIP clinic, it would be plastered across the tabloids before I woke up. I had to leave the state in absolute secrecy.

Lying in the VIP suite, I stared out at the towering skyscrapers. As the anesthesia pushed through my IV, one thought crystalized.

Starting today, I was slicing every last tie to that bastard. I was going to rise from the ashes and take back everything that belonged to me.

Before making the trip, I had sat on the floor of my condo, pressing my hands against my flat stomach.

I had forced myself to order my first actual meal since signing the divorce papers.

My only shattered, irrational thought had been: If the baby is born malnourished, it wouldn't be good. I couldn't tell a single soul about the abortion.

Pressing my hand against my cramping abdomen, I walked out of the recovery room. A tall figure leaned heavily against the pristine white wall.

Of course Alaric knew exactly when and where.

I was the one who just went under the knife, but his knuckles were white as he pressed his fist hard against his temple, his eyes clamped shut. A tremor racked my body.

The sterile white hallway blurred. He stepped forward, his hands shaking as he reached out to support me. I shoved him away.

I had no strength left, but he stumbled backward, hitting the wall to steady himself. His face was ghostly pale as a hoarse apology scraped past his lips.

The physical pain had already left me hollow. I walked right past him, keeping my eyes locked straight ahead. Alaric finally got his happily ever after. It took him an entire year.

I was lounging at a private villa in the Maldives. My inner circle had heavily shielded me from the fallout.

But I was scrolling through my social feed when I spotted a post from a mutual acquaintance. It was a blurry photo of a wedding invitation.

White silk tablecloths, extravagant floral arrangements. At the top, two names were inscribed in looping calligraphy: Alaric & Eden. My thumb hovered over the screen.

I refreshed the page. A comment from a close friend sat at the bottom: [Are you insane? Why would you post this?] They were terrified I would see it.

The post vanished a second later—they probably blocked me and reuploaded it. That night, my phone buzzed.

I was stretched out on a sun lounger on my balcony, staring up at the starlit sky. My friend stammered and dodged around the topic for two agonizing minutes.

I couldn't take it anymore. I cut right to the chase. "So, Alaric finally tied the knot with his precious first love?" My voice was perfectly flat. No rage. No heartbreak.

My friend exhaled a massive sigh of relief through the receiver. They probably all thought the same thing. Alaric dumping me for some nobody was just a blow to my ego.

It was a marriage of convenience between two heirs. Why would there be any real feelings involved?

Chapter 5 My friend's initial shock instantly morphed into a sharp, mocking laugh as she spilled the gossip. "How could the oldmoney family ever accept that kind of unpresentable trash?

The heir to a multibilliondollar empire getting married, and they didn't even send out a single PR blast to the tabloids.

They just threw a pathetic, cheap little private gathering on some remote estate lawn." When Alaric and I got married, our two families practically bought out an entire private island for an eightday, noexpensespared extravaganza.

My friend was clearly relishing the massive downgrade.

Her voice dripped with schadenfreude. "Rumor has it the Matriarch explicitly said that letting some nobody slip through the back door without a media frenzy was already giving Alaric too much grace.

Did she really expect a royal wedding?" It was a calculated move to preserve my family's dignity. I didn't say a word.

I just let out a dry exhale, tapped the red button to end the call, and tossed my phone onto the glass patio table. My mind was blank.

I closed my eyes against the glaring sun, letting the rhythmic crash of the waves pull me under. I drifted into a hazy sleep and fell straight into a dream.

It was a flashback to right after I married Alaric. We flew to Delphi for our honeymoon. I picked the location.

It wasn't your typical billionaire honeymoon destination, but I had a fixation on it.

In Greek mythology, Zeus wanted to find the center of the world, so he released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth.

They finally met at Delphi, landing on the same sacred stone. A romantic concept.

But a honeymoon between two people who married entirely for corporate synergy had zero room for romance.

From the moment we boarded the jet to the second the bellhop dropped our luggage in the villa, Alaric never took his eyes off his laptop.

Our union was a boardroom merger orchestrated by our parents. Neither of us had ever factored love into the equation.

I was a twentythreeyearold newlywed, trained to maintain perfect poise, but even I had my limits.

Watching him aggressively tap his keyboard without sparing me a single glance, I grabbed my sunglasses. "Keep marrying your spreadsheets," I snapped. "I'm going out." I wandered off and completely lost my bearings.

I ended up stranded at the foothills of Kalambaka. The ancient stone ruins towered around me. During the day, the landscape was breathtaking.

But as the sun dipped below the horizon, the jagged monuments cast long, distorted shadows across the desolate ground. The absolute silence was deafening.

A sudden, sharp chill raced up my arms. My pulse began to hammer against my ribs. I called Alaric. I bit the inside of my cheek hard to stop my chin from trembling.

Over the static of the receiver, his deep, corporatenegotiation voice carried a strange, anchoring weight. "Where are you?

Give me a landmark." I choked out a description of the ruins. "Stay exactly where you are," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I'm on my way." A brief pause followed. "Don't panic." He got there incredibly fast.

A tall silhouette cut through the heavy dusk, pushing past the ancient stone pillars. His immaculate suit jacket was gone, his tie yanked loose.

His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek, his dark eyes darting frantically across the ruins. A loud buzzing rang in my ears.

Without thinking, I threw my hand in the air. "Alaric!" His head snapped toward my voice.

The instant his eyes locked onto mine, the rigid, impenetrable billionaire facade shattered. His broad shoulders dropped as he let out a massive, ragged exhale.

It was painfully obvious how panicked he had been. My breath hitched in my throat.

I stood there, watching him close the distance, and a ridiculous thought flashed through my mind: Maybe this really is a romantic city.

Alaric and I were like those two eagles, launched from opposite ends of the world, flying on entirely different trajectories. But somehow, we collided here in Delphi.

Could this actually be the start of something real? Even a doomed, shortlived marriage leaves behind its ghosts. And undeniably, we had our moments.

Chapter 6 Alaric was a man built on ruthless obligation. Mature, steady, and entirely flawless—except for the fact that he was married to his empire.

After the wedding, we rarely stayed at the Long Island estate. For convenience, we lived in the city penthouse.

We were both insanely territorial about our private space, so we fired the livein staff. No housekeepers, no strangers breathing down our necks.

I organized everything in that massive apartment. Right after we moved in, I had this terrible habit of putting things away and immediately forgetting where they were.

One morning, after we had both stayed up ridiculously late, Alaric overslept. He had a brutal board meeting.

I was dead to the world, buried under the silk sheets, when I felt his hands gently shaking my shoulder. His deep voice rumbled right against my ear. "Genevieve.

Where did you put my charcoal Brioni suit? And the navy silk tie?" My eyelids felt like they were glued shut.

I swatted blindly at his hands and curled tighter into a ball, trying to drag the duvet over my head. I heard a low, raspy chuckle. He was stressed, but still amused.

He leaned in closer, his warm breath ghosting over the shell of my ear. "Come on, Genevieve. I'm actually going to be late." I was hypersensitive there.

A shiver shot down my spine, jolting me awake. "I'm serious," he murmured. "The entire board of directors is waiting. Just find the tie, and you can go right back to sleep.

Be good." I dragged myself out of bed, stumbling blindly into the walkin closet to dig out his clothes. I shoved the wooden hangers into his chest.

By the time he finished buttoning his shirt and turned around, I was leaning heavily against the custom cabinetry in my silk slip, head nodding, already halfasleep standing up.

Without a word, he scooped me up in his arms, carried me back to the kingsized bed, and tucked the covers tightly around my shoulders. It was never some grand, cinematic romance.

It was just this quiet, domestic gravity. The kind of mundane routine that slowly tricked your brain into feeling like you actually had a home.

I was never your typical, useless trustfund heiress who didn't know how to boil water.

I was fiercely independent, with an Ivy League degree and enough social tact to navigate a room full of corporate sharks without breaking a sweat.

During my years studying abroad, I kept myself perfectly alive. More shockingly, I could actually cook.

The first time I made dinner after the wedding, Alaric looked genuinely stunned.

He took one bite of the seared scallops, raised an eyebrow, and let out a dry laugh. "As a dutiful husband, I was fully prepared to force this down and lie through my teeth about how great it was.

I didn't expect it to actually be edible. It's incredible." I couldn't help it. A genuine smile broke across my face, crinkling the corners of my eyes.

Surprisingly, Alaric knew his way around a kitchen, too.

On the rare nights I was stuck late at the firm and he beat me home, I'd walk into the penthouse to find a hot meal waiting on the marble island.

If we ever got a day off together, we’d pull out all the stops and cook an absolute feast. There was just one massive flaw in the system. Neither of us would touch the dirty dishes.

In the beginning, we were painfully polite. If I cooked, he cleaned. A perfectly balanced, heavily negotiated corporate transaction.

But as the months dragged on and the invisible walls broke down, we devolved into petty, childish warfare over the sink. It started with rockpaperscissors.

There was this one night, the atmosphere was dangerously soft. A massive thunderstorm was tearing through the city, rain lashing against the floortoceiling windows.

Inside, it was warm and quiet. We finished a heavy dinner, played our usual round of rockpaperscissors, and I lost.

Instead of heading to the kitchen, I collapsed onto the velvet sofa, clutching a throw pillow to my chest like a shield, refusing to move.

Alaric walked over, reaching down to pull me up. I dodged his grip, laughing and twisting away. Without thinking, the words just slipped out of my mouth. "I'm not doing it.

Other husbands actually let their wives win.

You're the ruthless CEO of a multibilliondollar empire, and you're really going to fight your wife over dirty plates?" The second the words hung in the air, we both froze.

A sudden rush of heat hit my cheeks, spreading rapidly down my neck like a wildfire.

I scrambled off the sofa, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I'll go wash the dishes." Chapter 7 Alaric braced his hands on either side of me, trapping me against the velvet cushions.

A lazy, amused smirk played on his lips as he let out a dramatic sigh. "Fine.

I suppose the ruthless billionaire CEO shouldn't be declaring war on his own wife over a sink full of dirty plates.

I surrender." It was the first time he had ever called me his wife.

Even though he threw it out there as a casual joke, a sudden flush of heat burned all the way up my neck and to the tips of my ears.

The real turning point—the moment the invisible wall between us completely shattered—happened by pure accident.

Before the wedding, we both held onto our own private real estate portfolios.

One afternoon, his overbearing mother gave me an access code to a penthouse in Tribeca to retrieve some legal documents.

When I pushed the heavy mahogany door open, Alaric was already standing inside. We locked eyes. For the first time in my life, my socialite mask slipped.

Alaric looked downright mortified. The massive, multimilliondollar loft had zero furniture. Instead, it was lined with floortoceiling custom glass display cases.

One half was packed with limitededition comic collectibles; the other half was a sprawling, meticulously built empire of Lego models.

The ruthless corporate shark was sitting crosslegged on the hardwood floor. His crisp dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms.

His usually immaculate, slickedback hair fell loosely into his eyes, stripping away his billionaire armor and making him look like a college kid.

Hundreds of plastic bricks were scattered around him, and a massive, halffinished Star Wars Millennium Falcon rested in his lap.

I blinked, thrown off. "Weren't you supposed to be in a board meeting?" The always composed, unshakable Alaric actually flushed, a suspicious red creeping up his neck.

He cleared his throat defensively. "The meeting ended early. I just… dropped by to check on the property." I couldn't hold it back.

I burst into genuine, breathless laughter until my sides physically ached. I walked over, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him up. "Come with me.

I need to show you something." I dragged him straight to my premarriage luxury condo.

My collection wasn't quite as psychotic as his, but an entire guest bedroom was still dedicated to massive, intricate Lego builds.

The second he stepped inside, Alaric's dark eyes completely lit up.

He pointed directly at the fully assembled Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl sitting on my desk. "I have the exact same one." A massive grin broke across my face. "I know.

I saw it." We locked eyes, and in that split second, the sterile corporate synergy morphed into a genuine, unshakeable camaraderie.

From that day on, our dishwashing disputes were settled with a stopwatch. We would buy two identical microLego sets, set a timer, and race. The loser got sink duty.

Alaric never had a real childhood. His father passed away early, and his mother's obsession with control bordered on clinical psychopathy.

From the fragmented stories he occasionally let slip, I knew he never had time for toys.

His entire youth was suffocated by brutal Wall Street financial bootcamps, stock market analytics, and corporate strategy courses.

To the Matriarch, anything that didn't generate millions in revenue was a pathetic waste of oxygen. So, this became our secret.

It was a silent rebellion that forged a bond tighter than any signed contract. We were flawlessly in sync.

Our marriage operated smoother than couples who had been desperately in love for a decade. We were partners, friends, coconspirators.

We operated on the exact same frequency, shared the same ruthless elite background, the same ambitions, the same hidden quirks.

Even our inner circle couldn't help but ask, "How the hell are you two so perfect for each other?" We were two halves of the same predatory coin, clicking together to form an impenetrable whole.

So how did it all burn down to ashes? Running into his perfect little family of three was a complete, nauseating accident. The First Class VIP lounge at JFK was only so big.

I was casually flipping through a financial magazine, nursing a glass of sparkling water. A sudden, piercing child's giggle shattered the quiet atmosphere.

I instinctively looked up. My blood instantly ran cold. Chapter 8 Fate was a cruel, twisted joke, trapping us in the same confined space with absolutely nowhere to run.

Alaric was holding a little boy in one arm, a plastic toy gripped in his other hand. Trailing right beside him was the woman. Eden.

I had only seen her name on that blurred wedding invitation once, but it was permanently branded into my memory.

She leaned intimately against Alaric’s arm, laughing as she reached over to tickle the kid. The pictureperfect, sickeningly happy family. The air vanished from my lungs.

When Alaric’s gaze flicked up and locked onto mine, his jaw tightened and his shoulders went rigid. The woman beside him instantly picked up on the shift in the atmosphere.

Her eyes darted suspiciously between us. I slowly took off my designer sunglasses.

A cold, predatory smirk curved my lips as my gaze swept over the pathetic couple. "Well, Alaric," I drawled, my voice dripping with condescension. "Brought your cheap knockoff to mooch off the First Class lounge perks?" Alaric’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked under his skin.

He set the boy down on the plush carpet. His Adam's apple bobbed before he managed to force out a single, gravelly word. "Yes." The silence that followed was suffocating.

We stood there like absolute strangers. I looked down, pretending to flip through the pages of my financial magazine, but I had to slam it onto the glass table immediately.

My hands were shaking so hard the glossy paper rattled. I clamped my hands together under the table, digging my manicured nails into my palms. I refused to let them see me bleed.

Breathe, Genevieve. Breathe. I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, forcing the racing pulse in my throat to slow down. It’s just a random encounter. Lock it down.

But Eden wasn't going to let it go.

Her face flushed at my insult, but she forced a sickly sweet, oblivious smile, clinging tighter to Alaric's arm to mark her territory. "Do you know Alaric? I'm Eden.

What's your name? What a coincidence running into you here." Her pathetic attempt at playing dumb was almost insulting.

I let out a dark, cynical laugh, staring her dead in the eye. "I'm Genevieve." I watched the blood instantly drain from her face.

Even if she had never seen my photo, that name was definitely branded into her nightmares.

Before she could stutter out a response, I stood up, my heels clicking sharply against the marble floor.

I looked down at her. "Just an old acquaintance." I grabbed my bag. "I need to use the restroom.

Enjoy your pathetic little family trip." I kept my chin high, my posture perfectly straight, refusing to spare Alaric a single glance as I walked out.

It wasn't until the jet took off and I pulled my silk sleep mask tightly over my eyes that the physical control snapped. Shivers racked my spine.

In that splitsecond glance in the VIP lounge, the details had burned into my retinas. The kid was a carbon copy of Alaric. The same dark eyes. The same straight nose.

A phantom cramp twisted violently in my lower stomach. I dug my fingernails into the leather armrest until my knuckles turned white. I used to wonder what it would be like.

Would our baby be a boy or a girl? Would they have his eyes or my smile? What kind of father would Alaric be?

I used to convince myself that even if our marriage was just a corporate transaction, his relentless sense of duty would make him a flawless dad.

We would have given that child the world. I never saw the reality coming.

The reality where he stood in front of me, his voice cracking, practically demanding I scrape our baby out of my body. My throat closed up.

I swallowed hard against the suffocating lump, gasping for the recycled cabin air. If I hadn't gone to that clinic… my baby would have been a year old now. Would it have been a boy?

A girl? Who would they look like? What if… what if… The most sickening part was that my logical brain understood his choice. I knew exactly how he operated.

He grew up suffocated by the ghost of a dead father. He knew the brutal void of growing up without one.

Combine that with his pathological need to fulfill his obligations, and there was zero chance he would ever abandon that woman and his firstborn son.

Chapter 9 Sometimes, a dark, vicious thought would claw at the back of my mind. If I had been just a little more selfish… if I had kept the baby, who would Alaric have chosen?

How would the ruthless billionaire have balanced that equation? But the thought immediately made my stomach churn.

How utterly pathetic would it be to force my child into a lifelong bloodbath, begging for scraps of affection from a man who didn't even want them?

I refused to degrade myself into one of those miserable, scorned socialite wives fighting over a cheating husband