The Bitter Truth

After a moment of hesitation, Lucy stepped into the master bedroom. Marcus and Clara were nowhere in sight, but the sound of running water echoed from the bathroom. She forced herself to ignore the unsettling possibilities swirling in her mind and quickly searched for her first aid kit.

Once she found it, she paused beside the baby’s crib, gazing at the infant’s peaceful, innocent face. She couldn’t help noticing how strikingly similar the baby looked to Jaycee as a newborn. As she turned to leave, a sound from the bathroom stopped her cold.

Groans and moans drifted through the air — clearly coming from two people. With her heart hammering in her chest, Lucy slowly approached the bathroom door and pressed her ear against it.

“Oh, Marcus… Right there,” Clara’s breathless, pleasure-filled voice moaned.

“Shh. Somebody might hear you,” Marcus replied in a low, husky tone.

Lucy recoiled in shock, her hand clamping over her mouth to stifle the scream threatening to escape. Before she could fully process the horrifying reality, the shower water stopped running. Realizing they would be coming out any second, she quickly hid inside the large walk-in closet.

She didn’t even understand why her first instinct was to hide rather than confront them.

“Gosh, that was so good,” Clara purred with satisfaction.

Lucy shifted slightly, peering through a small gap in the closet door. She gasped silently at the sight of them — naked, bodies still intertwined and glistening with water. So this was what they had been doing behind her back. Ashley had been right all along. The baby had never been conceived through IVF.

“I can’t believe Lucy has been enjoying all of this,” Clara said, running her hands greedily over Marcus’s sculpted abs.

“She’s nowhere near as good as you,” Marcus replied.

Clara threw her head back and laughed loudly. “Lucy is so stupid,” she said, jumping onto the bed. “I still can’t believe she actually bought that ridiculous IVF story.”

Marcus’s deep laughter boomed through the room. “She’s so dumb.”

As they continued talking and laughing, they casually revealed the full extent of their betrayal. Lucy stood frozen in the closet, completely dumbfounded as the devastating truth unfolded.

Everything had changed when Marcus’s father died in a car accident and Karl was left crippled, later sent abroad for treatment. Stella fell into depression and allowed the companies to collapse. They lost all their wealth and sank into crushing debt after selling everything they owned. Lucy already knew this part, but the story only grew darker.

With Lucy and Clara by his side, Marcus pushed forward, taking whatever work he could find. Then Clara revealed she was pregnant with his child. When he suggested abortion due to their desperate financial situation, she firmly refused, saying, “I can’t put my life at stake. Do you know how many girls die during abortions?”

On the verge of despair, Stella proposed a ruthless plan: “Use Lucy. She inherited a fortune from her parents. Convince her to marry you, gain access to the inheritance, and use it to start a business.”

He and Clara crafted the perfect scheme. Clara would break up with him and disappear. After giving birth, she would secretly leave the baby on his doorstep. They would manipulate Lucy into marriage using the child.

The plan worked flawlessly. Lucy believed the fabricated one-night-stand story. She married him to give the baby a complete family and successfully claimed her inheritance. Marcus then begged her for money to start a business, which she willingly provided.

Lucy stood by his side through every struggle and triumph, but he secretly funneled money to Clara the entire time. When the first business collapsed, Lucy gave him the rest of her funds. This time, the company flourished, turning him into a millionaire.

Stella quickly advised him to remove Lucy from the company to prevent her from gaining too much power. Marcus followed her advice and successfully convinced Lucy to become a full-time housewife.

Throughout it all, he sponsored Clara’s college education and provided for her every need. When she graduated, he took four-year-old Jaycee on a so-called “father-son vacation” that conveniently included visiting Clara. Jaycee soon learned that Clara was his real mother.

They kept the entire truth hidden from Lucy. In Marcus’s mind, marrying her was repayment enough. After all, who would want a jobless, uneducated woman who couldn’t even give birth to a child?