Chapter 1He Wanted Heirs I Gave Him Ruin

Fifteen years of being child-free by choice, and my husband has a secret son.

More than one, it turns out.

The other woman isn’t in a rush to get a ring. She’s played her cards perfectly. She knows I don’t have children, and in the eyes of the law, his children have a right to his inheritance. She doesn’t need to be his wife. Her kids will still inherit the empire my husband and I bled for, the one we spent half our lives building.

I thought about this for a long time. If I divorce him, I can walk away with the majority of our assets, but what’s left would be more than enough for them to live on for generations. It would be letting them off too easy.

If that’s the case, then bankruptcy it is.

I’m on my own. As long as I don’t starve, I’ll be fine. Let’s just see how they manage to raise his precious children when the money runs out.

* * *

By the time I found out about my husband Trevor’s affair, his son was about to start preschool, and a second pregnancy was already in the works.

The reason it took me so long to discover the truth is that not a single person in Trevor's family is a decent human being. For years, they’ve all conspired to help him cover his tracks. The only reason I found out at all was because the other woman was pregnant again—this time, with twins—and Trevor accompanied her to a doctor's appointment.

Someone sent me a photo. An anonymous text from a number I didn’t recognize. It was a picture of Trevor walking into the maternity ward of a downtown hospital.

When I saw it, I just stared at my phone for two full minutes. The anger was there, a hot coil in my stomach, but before it could spring, a cold, hard rationality clamped down on it. After all these years clawing my way up in the business world, I was long past the age of impulsive reactions. I wouldn't confront him without knowing the full story.

I paid a top-tier private investigator a small fortune. In just two days, every secret Trevor had hidden from me was laid bare.

Four years ago, he had started seeing a recent college graduate.

Three years ago, she gave birth to their son.

And now, she was pregnant again. Twins.

It suddenly made sense why Trevor’s mother had stopped her passive-aggressive nagging about grandchildren these past few years. I’d assumed she’d finally given up, accepting that we were getting older. The truth was, she already had the grandchild she so desperately wanted.