Chapter 2

Sydney

I remembered the exact moment the accident happened.

One moment I was driving home, and the next, I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.

I still remember the nurse’s face when she told me my husband hadn’t come to visit. After two weeks, I’m pretty sure he ended my treatments… cut me off.

He had killed me too.

Or, at the very least, let me die.

His mistress had been there, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “He never really loved you. You were just convenient.”

My heart rate went haywire, and the machines beeped wildly as she delivered the final blow.

“And finally get to raise my child as my own.”

Lying there, my body too weak to fight back and my mind slipping into oblivion, I thought of my father. The kind of man who had given everything for me, his only child. Prestige Global Enterprises was his legacy, and I was his world after my mother passed away.

He poured his love into me and his work, and I felt foolish now that I didn’t heed his warnings.

“Don’t let anyone take advantage of you, Sydney,” he’d say, his eyes full of concern.

But I hadn’t listened. I’d been too blinded by love, by Eric, to see the truth. My father hadn’t trusted him, but he gave Eric everything simply because I asked, and he loved me too much to say no. So my father gave him everything—mentorship, promotions, a seat at the table—all because I believed in him.

And what did Eric do? He played his part perfectly. Sweet, attentive, always making me feel like I was the center of his universe. But it was all a facade. Once he’d climbed to the top, leveled the playing field with my father, he discarded me like yesterday’s news.

Then my father’s “heart attack” happened.

I scoffed at the memory. Heart attack, my ass.

Eric didn’t need to get his hands dirty; he’d already set everything up. My father’s sudden death was too convenient, too perfectly timed to be a coincidence. And the worst part? I had let it happen.

I blinked away the memory, pushing down the bitterness that rose like bile in my throat. This time would be different. I wasn’t the naive woman I used to be. I wasn’t going to fall for the same lies, the same manipulations.

The sound of silverware clinking against plates snapped me back to the present.

“Well, whatever, Eric,” Yanique said, her voice dripping with venom. “If that’s what you want to settle for.”

Eric’s tone was clipped. “Yan, stop. If you’re not supporting us, you’re not speaking. End of discussion.”

She rolled her eyes. I looked at her, my face carefully blank, though my mind reeled with what I now knew.

Yanique’s disdain wasn’t just cruelty for cruelty’s sake. She hated me because she was close with Eric’s mistress, and she was in on it—all of them were.

The entire Stanley family knew the child Eric wanted to adopt was his bastard with his mistress. They were all part of the sick game to bait me into accepting it. The attacks, the humiliation, the constant digs at my worth as a wife—it was all orchestrated to make me feel so small, so unworthy, that I’d agree just to earn their approval.

“You’re the head of this family, Eric. I must say, I’m disappointed that this is what you’ve had to settle for,” Chairman Stanley said, his glare cutting into me. “You deserve better than this.” He sighed dramatically. “Do what you must because you’ve already doomed yourself with this marriage. At least let the child have some of your features and lock her away for nine months so it’s believable.”

His words were calculated, designed to twist the knife. But I didn’t flinch. Not this time. Instead, I leaned back in my chair, letting the tension roll off me like water. I knew the truth now.

The child would have Eric’s features because it was his child. And they were all just waiting for me to accept it, to play the obedient wife who forgave and forgot.

“Are you not hungry?” Eric’s voice broke through my thoughts. He was watching me carefully, his expression unreadable.

I met his gaze, the mask of calm still firmly in place. “Not particularly,” I said, my tone light.

“I’ll talk to them,” he said, as if that would fix anything. “Make sure they don’t bother you again.”

I almost laughed. Instead, I gave him a small, polite smile. “Sure.”

In my past life, I had let moments like this fool me. I had let myself believe that his carefully chosen words, his calculated gestures of concern, were genuine. I had thought that he cared. That this was the start of something better.

But not this time.

“We’re just trying to help you, Sydney,” my mother-in-law said softly, her voice trembling as if she were caught in some great moral dilemma. She glanced at Eric, then at Chairman Stanley, before finally looking at me. “You’ve been so unhappy lately. Maybe this will bring some joy back into your life.”

Her pitying smile made my skin crawl. I knew she was in on it too, playing her part in this twisted charade. In my past life, I had been so moved by her “support” that I’d actually thanked her for understanding. I had been such a fool.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” I said, my voice as sweet as sugar.

Eric cleared his throat, clearly eager to steer the conversation back on track. “Sydney,” he began, his tone gentle but firm, “I know this has been hard for you. That’s why I’ve made a decision. We’re going to adopt. The child will carry my name, and he will call you Mom.”

The room fell silent, all eyes on me.

I let the silence stretch, watching as Eric shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Chairman Stanley’s glare deepened, and Yanique’s smirk grew wider. They thought they had won, that I would fold like I had before.

But not this time.

I straightened in my chair, folding my hands neatly in my lap. Then, with a calmness that belied the storm raging inside me, I looked directly at Eric.

“Eric,” I said, my voice steady, “I don’t want an adoption.”

His brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face. “What do you mean?”

I let a slow, calculated smirk spread across my lips. The kind of smirk that said I was done playing their game.

“I mean I want a divorce.”

And then chaos descended in the room.