To Abandon the Wife and Keep the Daughter
In the fallout, I chose my daughter, not my wife. I raised her with the help of my best friend.
Twenty years later, at the equity transfer ceremony, my daughter told me she had a special gift for me.
Smiling, I began to sign the contract.
Halfway through my signature, the pen ran out of ink.
I set it down, about to signal my assistant for a replacement. But my daughter, assuming I had finished, clapped her hands toward the conference room doors.
The doors swung open, and a middle-aged woman walked in.
A woman whose face haunted my nightmares, a woman I had fantasized about tearing apart with my bare hands a thousand times over.
1
“This is your big gift for me?”
The polished, radiant woman standing before me was none other than my ex-wife, Lillian—the woman who had cheated on me during her pregnancy without a shred of shame.
The moment she appeared, every eye in the room swiveled to me. Many of them had been there for the spectacular implosion of my marriage, and they had all watched me raise my child alone, through years of tireless work.
“Dad,” my daughter, Sophie, said, her voice smooth. “You’ve been through so much, all these years alone. It’s time you and Mom made things right.”
I gripped the arms of my chair and pushed myself up, my voice urgent as I reached for Sophie’s hand. “Sophie, you don’t understand what happened back then. You’re old enough now. I can explain everything.”
But she pulled her hand away, her face a cold mask. “I already know what happened. Mom had a moment of weakness, and for that, you threw her out and robbed me of a mother for twenty years.”
The air was punched from my lungs. I couldn't believe it. The child I had poured my entire life into was so blind to the truth.
Lillian shot me a look of smug triumph. “Ethan, Sophie is my daughter. She came from my body. That’s an undeniable fact. No matter how hard you tried to keep us apart, you can’t sever the bond of blood.”
Sophie pulled out a chair for her at the head of the table, guiding her to sit in a director’s seat. It was a gesture of care she had never once shown me, her own father.
I took a deep breath, fighting for composure. I looked at my daughter. “After all these years, after everything I’ve done for you, are you really going to betray me for this woman who walked out on us?”
Sophie’s brow furrowed in disgust. “She is my mother. You will not insult her like that.”
Mr. Davies, one of the board members, finally spoke up, unable to watch any longer. “Sophie, your mother was clearly in the wrong back then. That’s why Ethan divorced her and removed her from the company. For you to bring her back the moment you take over… that’s a hard pill for anyone to swallow.”
Other shareholders around the table nodded in agreement.
But Sophie was unmoved.
“I could have had a happy, complete family,” she declared, her voice ringing with accusation. “But for the sake of his own pride, he stubbornly threw my mother out. Because of him, kids at school bullied me my entire childhood, calling me the girl with no mom.”
“If he had just swallowed his pride for my sake—forgiven her for one mistake—I never would have had to suffer like that.”
“He already ruined my childhood. Is he going to ruin my chance to finally heal from it, too?”
Her words were a blade, twisting in my heart. All these years, I had never spoken of Lillian in front of Sophie. I wanted to shield her from the hatred, to let her grow up happy and healthy. I never imagined that instead of hating the mother who abandoned her, she would grow to hate me for shattering her fantasy of a perfect family.
I dug my nails into my palm, a desperate attempt to hold back the tears stinging my eyes. I pointed a trembling finger at Lillian.
“If you have to choose between us, Sophie, right here, right now… who is it?”
Sophie was silent for a long moment before her voice, firm and resolute, cut through the tension.
“You and Mom are the most important people in my life. If you’re going to be as stubborn as you were twenty years ago and try to tear my family apart again, then I’ll have to do to you what you did to her.”
My legs nearly gave out. “What does that mean?”
She walked over to me and picked up the contract from the table. “The equity transfer is complete. I’m in charge of the company now.”
“Dad,” she said, her voice devoid of warmth. “It’s time for you to step down.”
“If you refuse to accept Mom back into our lives, then I’ll have to teach you a lesson. You’re going to experience the same suffering she did for the past twenty years. It’s time you learned what karma feels like.”
She closed the folder, completely oblivious to the fact that the signature was incomplete.
Suddenly, I felt like I was meeting the child I raised for the very first time.
Back then, blind with rage, I had landed a few solid punches on that intern. Lillian, despite being eight months pregnant, had thrown herself in front of him, shielding him like a woman possessed. The struggle ruptured her amniotic sac, and she was rushed to the hospital.
After the birth, she screamed from her hospital bed that the baby was a cursed thing, that the sight of it made her sick. She warned me not to even think about using a child to tie her down. She never even asked if it was a boy or a girl, or if it was even alive. She just signed the divorce papers and ran off with her lover without a backward glance.
For twenty years, I never mentioned her name. I forbade her from ever coming near Sophie. My daughter shouldn't have even known a person named Lillian existed.
Yet here they were, putting on a show of mother-daughter devotion for the entire board, looking as if they’d known each other for years.
I couldn’t piece together where everything had gone wrong, but one thing was terrifyingly clear: there was a traitor in my midst.
My eyes swept across the faces in the room, searching for a flicker of malice, of sadistic pleasure.
I found nothing.
“Fine,” I said, my voice steady. “I can accept Lillian back. On one condition.”
Hearing me relent, Sophie’s expression softened instantly. “What is it?”
“When did you first find out about her?”
Sophie’s eyes lit up, as if she were recalling a cherished memory. “It’s a long story. When I was in elementary school, the other kids would pick on me, saying I was the weird girl with no mom, that they could do whatever they wanted to me.”
“One day, a group of them cornered me after school. Mom appeared out of nowhere and saved me. She scared them off, and after that, no one ever bullied me again.”
“That’s when I learned the truth. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a mother; she had been watching over me all along, from the shadows.” A tear welled in her eye. “And she couldn’t come home because you, in your selfishness, had cast her out.”
I pressed on. “So you recognized each other then? Did she know it was you, or did someone tell her?”
I knew Lillian. She couldn't care less about the child she’d just given birth to, let alone feel a sudden pang of conscience and rush to protect a bullied little girl. A coincidence that perfect could only have been scripted.
Someone had been pulling the strings, connecting them.
“For that, we have someone very special to thank,” Sophie said, a smile gracing her lips. “And he’s here now.”
As she spoke, the conference room doors opened once more.
Standing in the doorway was a man in a bespoke suit, radiating an aura of mature, refined confidence.
“Godfather!” Sophie cried out, her face breaking into a genuine, happy smile.
It was my special assistant, Mark Peterson.
For years, he was the one person besides myself I trusted implicitly. He’d been with me through thick and thin. He was my brother in all but blood. Since he never married or had children of his own, I’d asked Sophie to call him her godfather.
Mark’s leather-soled shoes clicked against the floor as he walked straight to Sophie’s side. “Is the transfer complete?”
Sophie nodded. “Yes. We were just waiting for you to celebrate Mom’s homecoming.”
Mark reached out and affectionately ruffled her hair. “Good girl. You did well.”
“You were the one who made it possible for Mom and me to reunite,” Sophie said, beaming at him. “You’re the hero of this story. We couldn’t possibly celebrate without you.”
Her words shattered what little composure I had left. My voice trembled. “You’re telling me… it was Mark who introduced you to Lillian?”
“Yes. Godfather couldn’t bear to see us kept apart. He told me the truth a long time ago.”
My gaze, cold as ice, locked onto Mark. “I never thought the one to betray me would be you. You, of all people. You know there’s nothing I hate more than betrayal.”
“Don’t make it sound so ugly, Ethan,” he said with a dismissive wave. “I just felt sorry for Sophie, growing up without a mother. Not everyone can be as heartless as you.”
I slammed my fist on the table, the sound echoing my collapse. “What did I ever do to you? How have I ever wronged you for you to do this to me?”
Mark wasn’t just my colleague; we’d been friends since college. Back then, when he was so broke he was about to drop out, I gave him my allowance to cover his tuition. We survived for months on nothing but cheap bread together. He swore to me then that wherever I went, he’d be there to support me, to repay my kindness.
Even when Lillian’s scandal broke, everyone in the company hid it from me. It was Mark who risked his job to tell me the truth. From that day forward, he became the person I trusted most in the world.
When his career stalled, I promoted him. I cleared obstacles from his path, gave him power and authority. After me, he had the most influence in the company. When he said he didn't want a family, I made him a part of mine.
I remembered now how Sophie, as a child, would have these strange tantrums, screaming that she hated me, that I was a cruel father. I always assumed it was because my work kept me away, that I wasn’t there for her enough.
Now I saw it all. Mark had been poisoning her mind against me, then playing the peacemaker to gain both our trust.
My voice was hoarse with disbelief. “You knew everything that happened back then. You knew Lillian was carrying my child when she was messing around in her office. How could you help her get back to my daughter? After what she did, how could you do this to me?”
Mark’s face twisted with resentment. “What, you wanted Sophie to live her entire life without a mother? Twenty years was more than enough punishment for Lillian. This day was always going to come.” He gestured around the room. “And now the company is in Sophie’s hands. If you want to live out your days in comfort, you’ll welcome Lillian home.”
“The way you say her name… Lillian,” I spat. “What the hell is going on between you two?”
A smug, vicious grin spread across his face. He raised his chin, looking down his nose at me. “Well, since we’re laying all our cards on the table…”
“Let’s just say the intern wasn’t her only affair back then.”
He turned to look at Lillian, his eyes filled with a sickening adoration.
The world tilted on its axis. “You two… you were together behind my back all along?”
A flicker of pure hatred flashed in Mark’s eyes. “If that new intern hadn’t been so damn brazen, trying to step on my territory, I never would have exposed her in the first place.”
I closed my eyes, the pain a physical blow. “I treated you like a brother. Why?”
Mark laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “You treated me well? You were always the master, throwing me scraps from your table. You gave me things you had in excess.”
“We were supposed to be equals! We both graduated from a top university. I graduated first in our class; you were near the bottom. But you walked straight into a manager position while I had to claw my way up from the mailroom, terrified every single day that I’d be fired.”
“Lillian told me she always liked me more. The only reason she chose you was for your family’s money. She wouldn’t have given you a second look otherwise.” His voice rose to a furious shout. “Just because you were born rich, I was supposed to hand over everything that should have been mine. Tell me, Ethan, how is that fair?”
“Everything you have now,” I ground out through clenched teeth, “I gave to you!”
“Is that all you can do?” he roared back, his face contorted with rage. “Hold your charity over my head? You’re a damned hypocrite, Ethan. You get off on it, don’t you? The feeling of tossing a bone to the less fortunate, having people worship you. But you’re a ruthless, selfish bastard underneath it all.”
My body went numb. “This whole thing… you planned this together?”
Mark walked to Lillian’s side and wrapped a protective arm around her. “So what if we did?”
“The company belongs to Sophie now. Do you have any idea how long we’ve waited for this day?” he sneered. “You have nothing left, Ethan. You can either nod and welcome Lillian home, or you can pack your bags and get out. It’s your turn to see how it feels to suffer.”
He kept saying her name, Lillian, and it made my stomach turn.
Lillian leaned into his embrace, her face alight with petty victory. “How does it feel, Ethan? To have everyone you trust turn against you and side with me?”
I glared at her. “You were the one who cheated! If I were you, I’d be too ashamed to ever show my face again, let alone try to reclaim a daughter you abandoned.”
“Enough, Dad!” Sophie cut in. “I know you have no feelings for Mom. I’m not asking you to get back together. I’m just asking you to let her and Godfather be happy.”
“If you hadn’t gotten in the way, they would have been married years ago. Since you don’t want her, let Godfather have her. We can still be a family. We can all live together, peacefully.”
I laughed, a harsh, broken sound. “A family?” My best friend, one of the men who destroyed my marriage, and now my daughter, the daughter I raised alone for two decades, wants me to give them my blessing.
“Let’s all just compromise,” Sophie pleaded. “You accept Mom and Godfather’s relationship, and I’ll support you for the rest of your life.”
“What are you saying? If I don’t let these two adulterers have their happy ending, you’ll actually throw me out?”
“What happens next is your choice. But I will not let what happened twenty years ago happen again. Anyone who tries to destroy my family will be the one to leave.”
She didn’t say it directly, but the threat was clear. I had one option: bless this disgusting union. Otherwise, I would be the villain, the one tearing her “family” apart.
And with the company in her hands, she held all the power. One word from her, and I’d be gone.
I looked my daughter in the eye, my voice hard as steel. “I will never let them have an easy life.”
Hate flashed in Sophie’s eyes. “You have to be this selfish?”
“Fine. Then get out of this company. Get out of my house. When you’ve had a change of heart, you can come back.”
I leaned back in my chair, a slow, cold smile spreading across my face. “Who leaves is still up for debate.”
Mark scoffed. “Get a grip, Ethan. The shares are in Sophie’s name. You have no say here anymore.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Sophie,” I said, my tone shifting to that of a disappointed teacher. “How many times have I told you? Be meticulous. The details are what matter. Don't let your victory be undone by a simple oversight.”
Panic flickered across her face. “What are you talking about?”
“If you’d bothered to look at the contract you just closed, you’d know this is far from over.”
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