He Wanted Heirs I Gave Him Ruin

Fifteen years of being child-free by choice, and my husband has a secret son.

More than one, it turns out.

The other woman isnt in a rush to get a ring. Shes played her cards perfectly. She knows I dont have children, and in the eyes of the law, his children have a right to his inheritance. She doesnt need to be his wife. Her kids will still inherit the empire my husband and I bled for, the one we spent half our lives building.

I thought about this for a long time. If I divorce him, I can walk away with the majority of our assets, but whats left would be more than enough for them to live on for generations. It would be letting them off too easy.

If thats the case, then bankruptcy it is.

Im on my own. As long as I dont starve, Ill be fine. Lets just see how they manage to raise his precious children when the money runs out.

1

By the time I found out about my husband Trevors affair, his son was about to start preschool, and a second pregnancy was already in the works.

The reason it took me so long to discover the truth is that not a single person in Trevor's family is a decent human being. For years, theyve all conspired to help him cover his tracks. The only reason I found out at all was because the other woman was pregnant againthis time, with twinsand Trevor accompanied her to a doctor's appointment.

Someone sent me a photo. An anonymous text from a number I didnt recognize. It was a picture of Trevor walking into the maternity ward of a downtown hospital.

When I saw it, I just stared at my phone for two full minutes. The anger was there, a hot coil in my stomach, but before it could spring, a cold, hard rationality clamped down on it. After all these years clawing my way up in the business world, I was long past the age of impulsive reactions. I wouldn't confront him without knowing the full story.

I paid a top-tier private investigator a small fortune. In just two days, every secret Trevor had hidden from me was laid bare.

Four years ago, he had started seeing a recent college graduate.

Three years ago, she gave birth to their son.

And now, she was pregnant again. Twins.

It suddenly made sense why Trevors mother had stopped her passive-aggressive nagging about grandchildren these past few years. Id assumed shed finally given up, accepting that we were getting older. The truth was, she already had the grandchild she so desperately wanted.

2

Once the affair was confirmed, I suppressed the volcano of rage inside me and didnt say a word to Trevor. His infidelity was a fact. Screaming, crying, throwing thingsnone of it would change what he had done. What I needed to figure out now was how to maximize my own interests in the coming divorce. In the world of adults, self-interest has to come first.

I found a quiet hotel bar downtown and spent the entire afternoon replaying the fifteen years of our marriage in my head.

It was Trevor who had wanted to be child-free in the first place. I found it grimly ironic that he was the one to regret it.

In the early years, when we were starting our company, we had nothing. No foundation, no connections. Even our families were less than supportive. To say we struggled would be an understatement. We ate, slept, and breathed that business, pouring every ounce of ourselves into it. And now, after all that sacrifice, the moment we could finally breathe, the first thing he does is find a younger woman to give him the children he told me he never wanted.

The bitterness of it was like acid in my throat.

I spent that afternoon on the phone with three different lawyers. The consensus was bleak. We never signed a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Even though Trevor was the one who cheated, forcing him to walk away with nothing would be nearly impossible unless he agreed to it.

That path was a dead end. I needed another plan.

Just then, my phone buzzed. It was Trevor. He was asking why I wasn't home yet.

I glanced at the time. It was after ten. For the past few years, despite having a secret second family, he had maintained a flawless facade. Aside from the occasional late night for a "client dinner," he was always home by ten. That was one of the main reasons I'd never suspected a thing.

Id forgotten a simple truth: a man who truly wants to cheat doesn't need much time.

By the time I got home, it was almost eleven. Trevor was on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. When he heard the door open, he looked up. For a man in his forties, he was in good shapeno gut, no bald spot. He had that mature, steady look that time can bestow. But I saw it. The flicker of his thumb as he instinctively locked his phone and placed it face down on the coffee table.

It was a tiny detail I would have never noticed before. Now, it was magnified, glaring at me under a spotlight.

Once suspicion takes root, every shadow looks like a monster.

He walked over to me, his expression as normal as ever. He took my purse from my hand, his smile gentle. "Hey, you're late. Long day?"

For a second, I was stunned. How could a person do something so fundamentally destructive to a marriage and still not show a single flicker of guilt? For four, almost five years, he had hidden this from me. The man I shared a bed with had a mind so meticulous, so duplicitous, it made my teeth ache.

He must have noticed my silence, because his expression shifted to one of concern. "What's wrong?"

I looked away, forcing myself to remain calm. I shook my head. "Nothing. Just tired."

After more than twenty years together, Trevor knew me too well. He could read the slightest shift in my posture, the smallest change in my tone.

But the same was true for me.

I knew this wasn't an accident, him getting caught. It wasnt a moment of carelessness. He was simply done hiding. Our company was stable, a well-oiled machine. I had weathered all the storms of our startup years with him, and now, someone else was ready to step in and enjoy the calm seas and sunny skies.

On what grounds?

I managed a few more noncommittal responses, careful not to betray any of the turmoil inside me. Trevor, likely still unaware of what I knew, acted completely normal, though his glances at his phone were a little too frequent.

For a middle-aged couple, a quiet, predictable life can be a blessing. But some people can't stand the quiet.

A wave of raw impulse surged through me. I wanted to scream, to throw a lamp, to rake my nails across his handsome, lying face. I wanted to demand, hysterically, why he had betrayed me, betrayed us. For a fleeting, ugly moment, I even wanted to hurt him back in the same way, to have an affair of my own.

And then, just as quickly, the wave receded, leaving me cold. The person I had been in that moment felt terrifyingly unfamiliar.

Betrayal deserves punishment, but you don't punish someone else by setting yourself on fire.

Trevor was already rotten. I refused to become rotten too.

3

I knew I couldn't keep up the charade for long, but moving assets takes time.

A man who cheats is like a used tissue in a public restroomdisgusting and worthless. The two decades of shared history, the hardships we endured together all of it became a sunk cost the moment I learned there was a third person in our marriage.

And the sunk cost of my marriage to Trevor was devastatingly high. I was nowhere near as composed as I appeared. But the sharp, stabbing pain of the emotional impact was forcing me to become more and more rational.

Trevor was a wreck. Our marriage was a wreck. But our company wasn't. Not yet.

Our lives were too deeply intertwined. Pulling one thread would unravel everything. This was far more complicated than simply filing for divorce.

About two weeks after I learned the truth, Trevor finally noticed something was wrong.

He stood in the doorway of my home office for a long time before finally asking, "Ava whats going on with you?"

No matter how much I told myself to stay rational, I couldn't bring myself to sleep next to him. Citing some minor, insignificant disagreement, I had banished him to the guest room for the past fifteen nights. My replies to his texts were clipped and perfunctory. He was a naturally suspicious man; he had probably already guessed the reason for my coldness. But since I hadn't made a scene, hadn't screamed at him or gone after the other woman, he couldn't bring himself to ask the question directly.

I rubbed my temples, trying to soothe a dull ache. I decided to go on the offensive. "I was looking over the financials. There are some irregularities. A few large expenditures don't add up."

I knew exactly where that money had gone. And as the one who had spent it, Trevor certainly knew better than I did. His mistress, with one child and two more on the way, needed to be well taken care of. And Trevor, now a successful entrepreneur in his forties, had the capital to keep her satisfied.

He froze for a fraction of a second. I saw his right hand, hanging by his side, clench into a tight fist. But he recovered quickly. "That was me," he said, his voice calm.

I lifted my head and met his eyes.

He looked away, his explanation laced with guilt. "Mark and I have been making some small private investments over the past couple of years. I didn't want you to worry, so I didn't mention it."

Mark was his childhood friend. He would cover for Trevor without hesitation.

I didn't press for details about the "investments." He didn't offer any more explanations. He simply closed the door and left.

He suspected I knew about his other family, but there was no panic in him. It was as if he was certain I would endure it. And if I didn't, what could I do? If I filed for divorce now, it would be a gift to him. He would have everything: immense wealth, a loving family, perhaps soon to be three sons. And me? Id be approaching forty, alone.

Even so, there was no point in wasting another second of my life on a man this broken.

4

I found it increasingly unbearable to have Trevor play the role of husband in my life, but the transfer of assets wasn't complete. The cold war between us had to continue.

Maybe he was waiting for me to come to my senses. Maybe he was waiting for me to ask for a divorce. Either way, I had no intention of letting him off easy.

Twenty days after I discovered the affair, I met the woman he was keeping.

She must have heard something from Trevor, because she decided to provoke me directly, staging a "chance encounter" at the coffee shop I frequented. She was even sitting at my usual table by the window.

The P.I. I hired had sent me dozens of photos and videos of her. I recognized her instantly.

She was young, probably no older than twenty-five or twenty-six. The clothes she wore, the designer bag at her sidenone of it was cheap. Trevor must have sheltered her well; she had a vibrant, almost naive energy about her. Her eyes held a sort of clear-eyed stupidity.

For a moment, I thought of myself at twenty-five. Trevor and I had been married for just over a year, living in a cramped, second-floor walk-up on a meager salary. Our clothes were worn for years, faded from countless washes. It was during those years that we scraped together every penny to fund our startup. Late at night, overcome with emotion, he would sometimes swear he would never betray me. I believe, back then, some part of him meant it.

What a pity that sincerity has such a short shelf life.

I acted as if I didn't know her. I ordered my usual coffee and sat at a table diagonally across from hers. I didn't give her so much as a sideways glance.

My initial assessment of her was quickly proven wrong. She moved to the seat directly opposite me, a provocative smile on her face. "Mrs. Hayes," she said.

So, she knew exactly who I was. This wasn't a case of being manipulated or lied to. She was a willing participant. And now, she was trying to challenge me, openly and brazenly.

Tsk. Did she have any idea that half of everything she ate, everything she wore, belonged to me?

I took a sip of my coffee, my gaze drifting over her slightly swelling belly. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

In the end, she didn't have the courage to admit her sordid role in all this. She stammered out a flimsy, ridiculous explanation of how she knew of me.

I said nothing, simply watching her with a half-smile. I wanted her to know that I saw right through her pathetic little game. A vine that spends its life clinging to a tree forgets how to withstand the wind and rain on its own. She didn't last thirty seconds under my gaze before she scrambled away, her hasty retreat a picture of utter humiliation.

I felt a pang of something like pity. For her, and for the state of the world. So young, with a whole life ahead of her, and this was the path she chose: to be someones broodmare.

5

Whether Trevor knew about this little stunt or not, the fact that the woman he was keeping had the audacity to confront me was his problem. I decided it was time to move the divorce proceedings to the top of my agenda.

Before I could act, my phone lit up with a series of texts from my best friend, Jenna. She was sending me screenshots of the other woman's Instagram storiesa constant stream of her flaunting her lavish lifestyle. This was nothing new, but today's screenshots were different. Jenna added a message: She's provoking you.

Everyone needs a few trusted friends. Id had Jenna follow the womans account months ago. If she so much as breathed in the wrong direction, I knew about it immediately.

I opened the last screenshot. It was her latest post. The picture was of a child, laughing so hard he was practically rolling on the floor. Above it was a caption.

The gist of it was: What does it matter how arrogant you are now? Everything you're working so hard for will belong to my children one day.

Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten. She has a child. I do not. And her child with my husband, though born out of wedlock, still has inheritance rights.

This world is a real piece of work.

I looked at the divorce papers I had drafted on my laptop. No matter how hard I fought, the most I could hope for was 70% of the assets. The remaining 30%, combined with the company's annual profits, would be more than enough to support their family of five for the rest of their lives.

I have her Instagram post to thank. It was the final push I needed to realize that this was not enough. It was far too easy for them.

I clawed my way through hell to build this life. No one was going to walk on the path I paved without my permission.

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