### Chapter 5
"She destroyed my wedding dress!" I screamed through my tears. "Why the hell should I apologize to her?!"
"It's a piece of junk worth a few hundred bucks! Didn't I already say I'd pay extra for it?!"
Then his gaze dropped to the back of my hand.
"Why are you bleeding so much?"
His expression shifted instantly, and he ran out to find a staff member with a first-aid kit.
The second Stewart turned his back, Vivian's tears vanished like a magic trick.
She curled her lips into a mocking smile:
"All these years you clung to Stewart like a shameless little leech, throwing yourself at him without a shred of dignity."
"Now he and I are legally married, and you still think he's going to walk down the aisle with you? That's hilarious. Stop dreaming that he'll divorce me in two years and come running back, because..."
She placed one hand lightly over her flat stomach, leaned close to my ear, and smiled with pure venom:
"The baby I'm carrying is his."
The room tilted around me.
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached, forcing back the tears that burned behind my eyes.
So he really had betrayed me, and still had the nerve to string me along for two more years.
Her smile twisted darker:
"Valentine's Day. You waited up for him all night, didn't you? He spent every single hour of it with me in a hotel room, making this baby."
That Valentine's night, I'd waited until the food went cold and the candles burned down to nothing.
I called Stewart ninety-nine times. He didn't pick up once.
The next morning he came home full of apologies, saying he'd been entertaining an important client all night.
I hadn't doubted him for a second, especially after he told me he'd already started planning our wedding. The joy of it washed away every question I might have asked.
But later, while getting into the car for work, I found a used condom.
When I confronted him, he said he'd looked into it and it was the driver who'd picked up a prostitute. He fired the man on the spot.
I chose to believe him again.
But all those late nights at the office, all those business trips over the past two months, every single one had been spent with Vivian.
And here she was, gloating over each encounter like a trophy.
When I lifted my head again, my face was perfectly still.
"You love him that much? Then I hope you two are chained together for life."
Especially through the hard times.
I shoved past her shoulder. All I wanted was out of this suffocating room.
Stewart was already coming back with the first-aid kit.
A sharp glint flickered through Vivian's eyes.
"Ahh!"
She threw herself backward, slamming hard into the wall behind her.
I watched, stunned, as she clutched her stomach and wailed: "It hurts! My baby, the baby!"
"Leonora, even if you hate me, the child is innocent!"
The first-aid kit slipped from Stewart's hands and cracked against the floor.
He lunged forward and scooped Vivian into his arms as she sobbed.
"Vivian, don't be scared. I'm here!"
Then he turned on me, eyes savage:
"Leonora, how can you be this vicious? Attacking a pregnant woman?!"
I shook my head hard. "I barely pushed her! I didn't touch her!"
But Stewart didn't believe a word of it. He jerked his chin toward the dress:
"You hurt Vivian. That piece of trash doesn't deserve to exist anymore either."
One of his bodyguards stepped forward immediately, scissors raised.
"What are you doing?!"
"Please, I'm begging you, that was my mother's! It's all I have left of her!"
The bodyguard shoved me aside. The scissors came down, cut after cut after cut.
My wedding dress, destroyed beyond repair.
Only then did Stewart look satisfied. He cast a cold glance my way. "Remember, this time it was just a dress. Touch Vivian again, and don't ever expect me to marry you."
He gathered Vivian gently into his arms and carried her to the car, heading for the hospital.
I knelt on the floor, cradling the shredded remains of the dress, watching his silhouette disappear. No tears left to cry.
"There is no 'ever' for us anymore, Stewart."
I pulled out my phone. My gaze was ice.
"Dad, I need you to run a DNA test on Vivian's baby. Immediately. I think I have one last gift to give Stewart Delgado."
