Auctioned While Pregnant: 99 Nights Of My Husband’s Betrayal Chapter 09
What happened in that month after the masquerade, I pieced together later.
From Julian’s own mouth, when he knelt in front of me with nothing left to hide behind.
He told me they’d spent a month together. Him and the girl in the red dress.
Every day. Every night. A month of something he’d never had before or since.
At the end of it, he’d reached for her hand and asked her name.
But the girl had frozen. Her eyes locked on something behind him—or someone—and she’d ripped her hand free and run.
He searched for years. The red dress. The mask. The way she moved. He couldn’t find her.
Then his parents brought me to him.
He told me he’d known instantly. That I was her. The girl from the masquerade. Every instinct he had confirmed it.
Until Claire walked into his office one afternoon wearing a red dress.
The same shade. The same cut. She put on a mask—gold filigree, identical to the one from that night—and smiled at him.
And he threw away everything he knew.
Mrs. Sterling told me the rest.
On the phone, weeks later. Her voice breaking over every other word.
“That woman—Claire—she’s the illegitimate daughter. She and her mother drove you and your mother out of your own home when you were a child.”
“We thought marrying you to Julian would give you safety. A real home. And then that animal—”
Her breath caught.
“He fell for the same woman who destroyed your childhood.”
Julian told his parents none of this made sense.
He told them Claire was the victim. That I was the illegitimate daughter.
That I was the one who’d tormented Claire’s family.
That everything I’d said was a lie designed to compete with Claire.
His father hit him so hard his head snapped sideways.
“You can find out anything in twenty-four hours. You’ve toppled companies overnight. But this—this one thing—you couldn’t be bothered to check?”
Julian stood there. His hand on his cheek.
And somewhere beneath the sting, a memory surfaced.
Six months ago. The one night he’d been drunk enough to lose control.
He’d seen her again that night. The girl from the masquerade. In his bed. In his arms. He’d held her so tight he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
He’d thought it was a dream.
His hands shook when he picked up the paternity report again.
“It’s… my child.”
In the fog of that night, he’d seen clearly after all. The girl he’d been searching for had been sleeping beside him for a year.
“But that’s impossible—”
He looked up at his parents. His face was gray.
“Claire is pregnant too. There has to be a mistake. Lena’s child can’t be mine.”
He ran.
What he found, I learned from Mr. Pearce. Who learned it from Julian’s security detail. Who filed the report two days later.
Julian drove to Claire’s villa. He didn’t go inside.
He heard them through the open window.
Claire’s mother, laughing: “That’s my girl! Look at Julian Sterling—wrapped around your finger. “
“When you deliver someone else’s baby, he’ll raise it like a prince!”
Claire’s voice. Light. Careless. A cruelty so casual it barely registered as cruelty at all.
“Mom, you have no idea how stupid he is. I just set up the scene after he passed out drunk. A few props. A little staging. And he actually believed we slept together.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Mommy didn’t raise you for nothing. One billionaire thinking the baby’s his, the real father in your other pocket—two men, both under your thumb. My brilliant girl.”
“Is that so?”
The door opened from the outside.
Julian stood in the frame.
“Julian?!”
“Mr. Sterling?!”
He found me two months later.
I was still recovering. Back in the States. A rented apartment with nothing on the walls.
I opened the door and he was standing there. I hadn’t expected him.
“This is the U.S. Think carefully about what you’re about to do.”
“Lena.”
His voice was gravel. His face was hollowed out—dark circles like bruises, cheekbones too sharp. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks.
“I know. I know everything now.”
“Know what?”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes went red. Not tears—just the blood rising behind them, filling every vessel at once.
“Claire is the illegitimate daughter. You were the one at the masquerade. You were the one they hurt. That’s why you ran when you saw her—”
“I know everything. I’m sorry.”
I stared at him.