Billionaire's Pregnant Wife Returns for Divorce, Unexpected Labor Reveals Hidden Baby and a Twisted Family Scheme.
The air in the study crackled with a dreadful energy. Olivia’s face was pale, Ben silent and grim. Julian’s hands clenched into fists at his side, his gaze fixed on the laptop screen. I held Nova tighter, her small, warm body a stark contrast to the icy dread seeping into my veins.
“Read it,” Julian commanded, his voice raw with barely suppressed fury. “Read it all, Liv.”
Olivia nodded, her voice trembling as she began to read from Corina’s journal, the words a chilling testament to her cousin’s escalating madness.
“Corina believes a long-lost codicil to the Reed family will exists,” Olivia narrated, her voice cracking. “She says it names *her* as the rightful inheritor of a substantial portion of the fortune, and she’s convinced Julian has deliberately hidden it.”
(Layer 1 revealed)
Julian swore under his breath, a low, guttural sound. “A codicil? That’s insane. There’s never been any mention of such a thing in the family archives.”
“She’s obsessed,” Olivia countered, pointing to another paragraph. “She thinks it was a conspiracy, a deliberate attempt to keep her from what she’s owed.”
I watched Julian, seeing the shock warring with anger in his eyes. This was deeper, more personal, than he could have imagined. Corina wasn’t just a nuisance; she was a genuine threat.
Olivia scrolled further, her eyes widening. “And here… here’s her plan to frame you, Julian. To get control.”
(Layer 2 revealed)
She continued to read, her voice growing stronger with indignation. Corina’s meticulous plan unfolded on the screen: she intended to frame Julian for financial fraud within Reed Industries. She planned to coerce *me*, after isolating me and preying on my trust issues, into signing documents that would unwittingly implicate Julian.
“She thought you’d be the perfect pawn, Elara,” Olivia explained, looking at me with a pained expression. “She believed your past trauma made you vulnerable, easy to manipulate into distrusting Julian.”
My stomach churned. The memory of my past betrayal, the one Corina had so expertly weaponized, now felt like a gaping wound. She hadn’t just stumbled upon my vulnerability; she had actively sought it out.
“Corina intended to step in after Julian was implicated,” Olivia continued, her voice filled with disgust. “She’d ‘save’ the company, exposing Julian’s supposed fraud, and gain control of the Reed empire herself. As the ‘hero,’ she’d cement her rightful place, proving her supposed claim to the inheritance.”
Julian slumped into a chair, running his hands over his face. “She wanted everything. My reputation, my company… everything.”
“And it gets worse,” Olivia whispered, her finger tracing the final, chilling entry. Her face was ashen.
(Layer 3 revealed)
“Her final entry, Julian… Elara…” Olivia began, her voice barely a whisper. “She details how she deliberately orchestrated your initial meeting years ago.”
My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the screen, then at Julian. Our love story, the chance encounter, the whirlwind romance… all of it, a lie?
“She targeted Elara *because* of her known vulnerability from her past con,” Olivia read, the words a cold, hard hammer blow. “She knew Elara would be the perfect pawn to fuel distrust and destabilize Julian’s life.”
My world tilted. The charming way Julian had approached me, the seemingly accidental meeting at that small gallery… all pre-planned? Was anything real?
“And the child,” Olivia continued, her voice breaking. “Corina wrote that Nova would be the final, irreversible wedge. The ultimate leverage to force Elara to cooperate, and to sever Julian from his family for good.”
The air left my lungs in a ragged gasp. Nova. My innocent baby, reduced to a weapon in Corina’s twisted game.
Julian sprang to his feet, his face contorted with a rage I had never seen before. “Where is she? Where is Corina?”
Ben, ever calm in a crisis, had already moved to the door. “I believe she’s in the library, Mr. Reed. She requested to use the quiet room.”
“Good,” Julian bit out. “Come on. Both of you. She’s going to face this.”
My legs felt like lead, but I followed, Nova still clutched tightly to my chest. I needed to see her face, to confront the woman who had meticulously planned to destroy my life and use my child.
We found Corina in the opulent Reed library, calmly reading a first edition. She looked up, a placid smile on her face that vanished the moment she saw our faces, and the laptop Ben carried.
Julian slammed the journal onto the polished mahogany table, the sound echoing through the vast room. “It’s over, Corina.”
Her smile faltered. Her eyes darted from Julian to Olivia, then to me and Nova.
“What are you talking about, Julian?” she asked, her voice light, but I saw the tremor in her hands.
“This,” Julian said, pointing at the open laptop screen. “Your journal. Your entire twisted scheme, laid bare.”
Corina’s face drained of color. She stared at the screen, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That’s… that’s not real. It’s a fabrication.”
“It’s very real,” Olivia countered, stepping forward. “Every nasty detail, every manipulative step. Including how you engineered Julian and Elara’s meeting.”
Corina’s facade shattered. Her eyes darted wildly. “He hid it from me! The codicil! He denied me my rightful inheritance!” she shrieked, her voice rising to a fever pitch. “I only sought what was mine!”
“There is no codicil, Corina,” Julian said, his voice cold and hard. “There never was. Just your greed and your pathological envy.”
Her shoulders sagged. She looked at me, then at Nova, a flicker of something dark and unrepentant in her eyes.
“You… you were just a means to an end,” Corina spat, her voice laced with venom. “A broken girl, easy to manipulate. And the child… a perfect tool to finally break Julian.”
My grip on Nova tightened, my entire body trembling with a protective rage.
Corina, her elaborate lies exposed, simply collapsed into a nearby armchair, her body wracked with tremors. Tears streamed down her face, not of remorse, but of bitter defeat.
“It was all supposed to be mine,” she sobbed, clutching her chest. “All of it.”
She refused to apologize, maintaining her twisted belief in her rightful inheritance, clinging to the fantasy that had fueled her destructive path. The library felt small, stifling, filled with the echoes of her exposed malice.
Julian stood over her, his chest heaving. The confrontation was over, the truth unveiled. But the consequences, I knew, were only just beginning.
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