Chapter 2Reborn into the Fire

I offered him the file, the words “DIVORCE AGREEMENT” printed boldly across the front.

He didn’t even look at it. He swatted it from my hand, sending papers scattering across the floor.

“Lena, have you lost your mind? I just told you I wouldn’t divorce you.”

“I know you don’t want to go,” he said, his voice laced with false sympathy, “but if you don’t, my company goes under! You wouldn’t want everything I’ve worked so hard for to be ruined because of you, would you?”

I had to marvel at his skill. Such effortless moral blackmail. He made it sound as if my refusal would be a deliberate act of sabotage.

Did he really think I was the same gullible woman from our past life? This time, I already had a plan to deal with Mr. Roberts.

Seeing my silence, Tony’s face darkened.

“Lena, I’ll be honest with you. The baby in Stella’s belly… it’s mine.” He offered it like a twisted consolation prize. “If you can just get the company through this crisis… I’ll even let you be the child’s mother, in name.”

“No, thank you.” I cut him off, nudging the scattered papers with my foot. “I have no interest in being a stepmother, and even less in having some other woman’s child call me ‘mom’.”

“Lena!”

I ignored his furious shout and turned, heading back upstairs.

Watching me pack my suitcase with a calm, methodical slowness, Mrs. Gable’s eyes reddened again.

“Mrs. McKean, are you really going?” Her voice was thick with emotion. “I just don’t understand. When Mr. McKean’s parents passed, you were the one by his side day and night. You helped him through the darkest time of his life. How can all those years of devotion mean less than some gold-digger who came crawling back from overseas because she couldn’t make it on her own?”

“He swore he would only love you for the rest of his life! How did that… that thing bewitch him?”

I shook my head, my smile sad. “Don’t call me Mrs. McKean anymore, Mrs. Gable. I have nothing to do with this family now.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek. “But… ma’am… if you go to Mr. Roberts’s… they’ll skin you alive…”

My hands stilled. It seemed even she believed this was a death sentence.

Just as I was about to speak, a glass of cold water was flung in my face.

“Oh, I am so sorry, Lena! My hand slipped…”

It was Stella. She held an empty glass, her words an apology, but her face was a mask of smug triumph.

“Then again,” she continued, her voice dripping with condescension, “you probably don’t need to pack much. I’m sure Mr. Roberts’s estate has everything you could possibly need. You’re not the first woman he’s… hosted, after all.”

Mrs. Gable trembled with rage. “You’ve gone too far!”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Gable.”

Stella, assuming I was too afraid to fight back, let the provocation in her eyes intensify. Her gaze drifted mockingly to my stomach.

“I hear Mr. Roberts has… eclectic tastes. The women who visit him all come back… broken. I wonder how many days you’ll last…” She leaned in, her voice a venomous whisper. “And even if you do manage to return, I doubt that thing inside you will.”

I wiped the water from my hair, and with a speed that surprised even myself, I slapped Stella hard across the face, shoving her out of my room.

“Don’t you worry about it,” I said coldly. “I never planned on keeping it anyway.”

I was about to turn away when Stella grabbed my arm.

“Lena,” she hissed, her face close to mine, “what do you think Tony would do to you if I were to… fall down these stairs?”

Her words were pure poison. Then, with a wicked smile, she threw herself backward.

“Ah! Help me!”

Tony’s face went white. He didn’t hesitate for a second, lunging forward to catch Stella in his arms.

“Stella, are you alright?”

She put on a masterful show of benevolence. “I’m fine… Mr. McKean, don’t blame Lena. She’s just jealous that I’m carrying your child. She didn’t mean it…”

Her words only fueled Tony’s hatred for me. He stormed toward me and slapped me, the crack echoing in the hallway.

“You disgust me, Lena!” he spat. “She defends you even after what you just did! You’re not worth a single hair on her head!” His voice grew more vicious with every word. “You deserve to be used and discarded by that old man! I hope he plays you to death!”

He ordered the bodyguards to drag me to the small, dark cellar.

“Don’t give her a single drop of water without my permission!”

Mrs. Gable knelt outside, her cries muffled by the heavy door. “Mr. McKean, you can’t do this to her! You know she has claustrophobia! She’s terrified of the dark! She’ll die in there…”

Tony was deaf to her pleas.

Stella, rubbing her head as if in pain, added fuel to the fire. “Mrs. Gable, you work for the McKeans. Why are you always taking Lena’s side? What has she given you? Do you protect her like she’s your own daughter?”

Mrs. Gable snapped. She lunged at Stella, ready to tear her apart, but the guards restrained her.

She kept vigil outside the cellar door all night, her soft sobs the only sound in the darkness.

She was still there the next evening when Mr. Roberts’s men came to collect me.