Married the Prince While Pregnant

My husband came home overjoyed to announce that we finally had a son.

But the mother of the child was his late brother's widow.

He claimed it was a noble sacrifice, using his dead brother's frozen samples to carry on the family line. But I had already seen the anonymous photos of them passionately embracing on a hotel balcony. The baby wasn't a clinical procedure; it was the product of their sordid, ongoing affair.

When I went to the hospital, I walked in on a picture-perfect family. My mother-in-law swept into the room and pinned the family's priceless Legacy Diamond-a jewel meant only for the rightful wife-onto the illegitimate baby's blanket. She glared at me, mocking my two years of barrenness, and ordered me to wipe the jealous look off my face.

A wave of profound disgust washed over me. The entire family had conspired to make a fool out of me. The cruelest irony was the medical report hidden in my purse: my IVF had just succeeded. I was pregnant with his child.

But I refused to let my baby become a pawn in their twisted dynastic war.

I quietly tore the ultrasound picture into pieces and flushed it down the toilet.

Returning home, I put on a mask of heartbreaking disappointment and looked at my cheating husband.

"I just want a place to go, in case I'm not welcome here anymore," I whispered.

Blinded by guilt, he immediately signed over a multi-million-dollar penthouse solely into my name.

He thought he was buying my silence. He didn't know I was building my fortress to ruin him.