He Deceived Me So I Destroyed His Family’s Legacy Chapter 01
After I found out I was pregnant, my husband, Adrian Blackwood, had his bodyguards drag his younger brother Julian out of a private club and back to the family townhouse in Manhattan. Then he told him coldly,
“Name the child she’s carrying.”
Julian lounged on the sofa, a careless grin on his face.
“Let’s call it Little Bastard. The cheap ones are always hardier.”
Vanessa Reed laughed.
“Julian, that’s awful. Who names their own child something like that?”
My heart stopped.
“What do you mean by that?”
Only then did Adrian turn to me.
“On our wedding day, I was with Vanessa. Julian was the one who went to the bridal suite, pretending to be me.”
“Every time after that, it was him.”
“The child you’re carrying is his.”
A violent buzzing filled my ears.
…
The butler and maids in the living room lowered their heads, none of them daring to meet my eyes.
I covered my stomach, my voice shaking.
“Why?”
Adrian frowned. “Because I made Vanessa a promise.”
“Until I gave her a public wedding—a ceremony, nothing legal—I wouldn’t touch another woman.”
I stared at him, my mind blank.
“What about me?”
“I’m your legal wife.”
His expression remained cool.
“I know.”
“That’s why I sent Julian.”
He said it as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.
“If you’d spent your wedding night alone, all of New York society would have laughed at you.”
“The Hale family is bankrupt. You don’t have a name to protect you anymore.”
“I didn’t want you to become a joke on your first day of marriage.”
A chill washed over my entire body.
“So I’m supposed to thank you?”
Adrian knit his brows, a flicker of confusion in his eyes, as if he genuinely couldn’t comprehend my ingratitude.
“Nora, I preserved your dignity.”
Dazed, I turned to Julian.
He gave me a flippant smile.
“Don’t look at me like that, Nora.”
“It was pitch-black in that room. You’re the one who couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Who’s there to blame?”
Vanessa tilted her head, asking him with faux curiosity,
“Julian, she always seems so proper.”
“Is she still that stiff in bed?”
Julian laughed, loud and unrestrained.
“At night, she’s a lot sweeter than she is during the day.”
“Better than the girls at the clubs, to be honest.”
My mind went blank.
It felt like I’d been slapped across the face.
I instinctively looked to Adrian.
But I saw a flicker of disgust in his eyes.
Vanessa saw it, too.
The corners of her lips lifted before she quickly arranged her features into a flustered expression.
“Adrian, should I not have asked that?”
“It must be hard for you to hear.”
She bit her lip lightly.
“Still, Nora is a real disappointment.”
“How could she not recognize her own husband?”
Julian raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe she did recognize me.”
“She just didn’t want to let go.”
I raised my hand to slap him, but Adrian caught my wrist in a hard grip.
“That’s enough.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“He humiliates me like this, and you’re telling me to stop?”
Adrian said coldly, “You’re the one who insisted on asking.”
The last of my hope shattered.
“I want a divorce.”
“I’m going to the police. I’m reporting all of you for conspiracy, fraud, and sexual assault.”
Adrian’s face turned to ice.
“Nora Hale, don’t you want to save your sister?”
My body went rigid.
He slowly released my wrist.
“The specialist treating her, the medications, the private nursing suite she’s in—which part of that isn’t being paid for by the Blackwoods?”
“If you behave, she lives.”
“If you make trouble, I’ll cut off her treatment tomorrow.”
I looked at him, feeling as though I was seeing him for the very first time.
When the Hale family collapsed, my father died of a sudden illness, and my younger sister, Lily, had been sick for years.
Everyone in New York’s elite circles said my future was over.
The Blackwood Group, meanwhile, was at the height of its power. He could have chosen anyone.
But he had still honored the engagement our families had arranged when we were children.
He gave me a grand wedding and made me his legal wife.
I thought it was love.
Now I knew the truth.
It was because I was easy to control.
I closed my eyes.
“All right.”
“I won’t go to the police.”
The coldness in Adrian’s eyes eased slightly.
I rested a hand on my belly and said softly,
“But this child—I’m getting an abortion.”