He Broke Our Engagement, So I Took Everything He Had

### Chapter 1

I was on my way to try on wedding dresses when my fianc called. The wedding's off. Vivian's pregnant and her fianc dumped her.

A child can't grow up without a father. I'm going to marry Vivian first. I'll make it up to you in a couple of years.

She and I are like brother and sister. Don't overthink this.

The air locked in my chest. My mind went blank. The line was already dead.

But I'd already seen it. The chat between Stewart and his assistant, left open on the study computer.

"Vivian came back from abroad for me. If I betrayed her to marry that woman, imagine how devastated she'd be."

His assistant had replied right away: "Aren't you worried Miss Hughes will be disappointed enough to leave you?"

Stewart's voice message dripped with contempt:

"Delgado Corp is about to go public. I'll be worth billions. You really think she'd walk away from that?"

So rather than betray Vivian, he'd betray the woman who'd waited six years.

Six years of devotion, and none of it could compete with one backward glance from his childhood sweetheart.

Fine. Then I'd give them exactly what they wanted.

I didn't hesitate. I called my father and asked him to pull every last dollar out of Delgado Corp.

1.

My father's voice sharpened. "Aren't you two getting married in a couple of days? Did that bastard hurt you?"

At this stage, right before the IPO, losing their largest investor would be catastrophic for Stewart.

The moment I opened my mouth, my voice cracked:

"There is no wedding. He's marrying someone else."

"Don't you worry. Daddy will handle this." Even through the phone, his fury was deafening.

After I hung up, my mind drifted back six years.

Delgado Corp had been on the verge of bankruptcy. Stewart's childhood sweetheart, Vivian Porter, had left him.

I was the one who secretly begged my father to prop the company up from behind the scenes and set it back on track.

And I was the one who walked Stewart out of the wreckage of that heartbreak, step by step.

Six years together. Then, on my birthday, he got down on one knee and promised to make me the happiest woman alive.

Then Vivian came back.

And everything changed.

My phone shattered the silence of the study.

"Leonora Hughes, get here now! Stewart's in a fight!"

In the background, I could hear Stewart roaring.

"Apologize to my fiance, or I'll make sure you regret it!"

The word hit like a fist to the sternum.

He'd just told me the wedding was postponed. And already he was calling someone else his fiance.

I rushed to the club and found Stewart cradling a delicate, sobbing woman in his arms.

One of Stewart's friends pulled me aside, his face tight with worry.

"Some guys said Vivian was dressed like a hooker. Stewart heard and lost it."

"He's wasted. You need to talk him down."

A client had once harassed me, told me to sleep with him to close the deal.

Stewart hadn't been angry. He'd blamed me for being difficult, said I'd cost him business.

Now here he was, so drunk he could barely stand, yet raging like a wild animal because someone had said one unkind word about Vivian Porter.

Mid-argument, one of the men swung a bottle at Stewart's head.

My body moved before my brain caught up. I threw myself in front of him.

Crack.

The bottle shattered against my forehead. A dull, spreading pain.

Something warm and wet crept down from my hairline.

"You crazy bitch! You jumped in front of me! I didn't touch you!" The man's face went white. He dropped the bottle and bolted.

Glass crunched under his shoes as he fled.

Blood ran down my cheeks, warm and sticky. The concern I'd been praying for never came. Instead, Stewart's voice exploded in my ear:

"What the hell is wrong with you, Leonora? Didn't you see what they were doing to Vivian?"

"You just let the guy walk out? Was that on purpose?!"

Every word froze the blood in my veins.

Some pathetic part of me had wanted to see if he would lose his mind for me the way he did for Vivian.

But there was no tenderness in his eyes. No protectiveness. Only rage.

Why was I so desperate?

Stewart had already decided I was there to cause trouble.

"What are you even doing here? Came to laugh at Vivian?"

"Pack up that pitiful pride of yours. Let me make this clear: as long as I'm around, nobody touches her."

Tears of humiliation burned behind my eyes.

"I wasn't"

Vivian cut me off with a sob. "Stewart, this is all my fault for coming to you for help! Leonora has every right to hate me. I should just go. You two can have your wedding."

Stewart melted instantly. He wiped her tears with a gentleness I hadn't seen in years:

"Don't you dare. She's the petty one, not you. You've done nothing wrong."

One of his friends, trying to break the tension, held out a glass of wine toward me.

"A toast to you, Mrs. Delgado."

Stewart snapped at him before the glass reached my hand:

"Don't you know she's allergic to alcohol?"

So he remembered. After all this time, he actually remembered.

Then Vivian let out a teary little laugh.

"Silly. He was toasting Leonora, not me."

Stewart's face cleared. He gave a satisfied nod. "Oh, her. She can drink. Especially when she's entertaining clients."

The words burned through me until there was nothing left.

I'd told him I was allergic the very first day I joined Delgado Corp.

And every time there was a business dinner, I was the first one he sent to pour drinks.

I'd broken out in hives. I'd ended up in the hospital with a perforated stomach lining. He'd called me dramatic, said I was faking sick over a few glasses of wine.

It wasn't that he couldn't remember. He'd simply never cared. Not about me. Seeing him with Vivian made that unbearably clear.

I swallowed the bitterness, picked up the glass, and drained it in one go.

"Stewart Delgado, I wish you both a lifetime of happiness."

### Chapter 2

Stewart's brow furrowed instantly, his voice sharp with impatience.

"All I did was get a marriage certificate with Vivian. What's with the passive-aggressive attitude?"

"I know you're upset, so I'll give you a sum of money as compensation. That should be enough, right?"

I had already cried every tear I had for this man.

Wasting any more heartbreak on him wasn't worth it.

I held his gaze, steady and unblinking, and asked my final question.

"Stewart, in these six years, did you ever love me?"

His frown only deepened.

"You know Vivian's pregnant, and you insist on saying things like that in front of her? Are you trying to upset her?!"

"Just don't make a scene. After two years, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Isn't that enough?"

The rest of his life making it up to me.

I had waited over two thousand days and nights for him to promise me forever.

Instead, I watched him give forever to someone else.

If what he felt for Vivian was only "like a sister," why would such a simple question threaten to break her heart?

There was no "rest of his life" left for me, Stewart. I couldn't afford to gamble anymore.

I turned to leave, but he suddenly remembered something and called me back.

"Contact all your friends and family right away. Tell them the wedding is off. Say you changed your mind at the last minute and decided you didn't want to marry me."

I nodded, calm.

"Fine."

I went to the hospital to get my wound bandaged, then headed straight back to Delgado Corp to wrap up my work.

Back at the office, I posted on social media that the wedding was canceled.

The well-meaning advice came almost immediately:

"Girl, are you crazy? He's about to be the CEO of a publicly traded company! You stuck it out this long, and now you're throwing it away right before the payoff? Why?"

"A catch like that, and women are lining up to throw themselves at him. And here you are, handing him over on a silver platter!"

I didn't reply.

Soon enough, he wouldn't be any of those things.

I was sorting through files when a friend request from Vivian popped up on my phone.

The moment I accepted, a photo of a marriage certificate came through.

"Someone really does love me to death! After that little scene today, he took me straight to get our certificate just to make me feel better!"

In the photo, the two of them were beaming, faces pressed together. It burned behind my eyes like staring into the sun.

I turned off my phone.

Six years with Stewart. To protect his pride, I hid who I was. I lived with him in a run-down studio apartment, survived on dry bread.

I even went through five abortions in those six years.

All because he said he wanted to wait for the right moment to give me and our children a stable, happy home.

In the end, he kept that promise for someone else.

I finished copying my files, then got up to make coffee in the break room.

I stopped in the doorway.

A few coworkers were huddled at the counter, whispering.

"Did you hear? The bride isn't Leonora. It's his childhood sweetheart."

"Apparently this Vivian girl is the one he's been hung up on for years. I saw her in the office once. Way prettier than Leonora. No wonder he could never let go."

"Ha! Leonora spent all those years chasing him, and she ended up with nothing. That's hilarious."

Every word sliced into me like a blade.

I pretended I hadn't heard a thing and walked straight back to my office.

Then I began placing my belongings into a box, one by one.

These same employees used to call me "sis" to my face.

Now that they knew I wasn't the bride, I'd already been downgraded to the desperate ex who couldn't take a hint.

The door slammed open without warning.

Stewart stormed in, swept my box off the desk with one arm, and sent everything crashing to the floor. His face was white-hot with rage.

"What is wrong with you? I told you to say YOU were the one who called it off!"

"Now everyone out there is calling Vivian a homewrecker. Did you spread that on purpose?"

"Post a correction right now, and then apologize to Vivian! She's so upset she's threatening to terminate the pregnancy!"

Listening to him hurl accusations at me, I almost laughed.

### Chapter 3

Mid-rant, Stewart's gaze snagged on the gauze wrapped around my head.

The alcohol had worn off by now, and a flicker of guilt crossed his face. "Your head..."

Before he could finish, Vivian burst through the door, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe:

"Stewart, maybe I should just go get rid of the baby right now! Better that than having everyone call it a bastard!"

Stewart panicked. He pulled her into his arms, his voice going impossibly soft:

"Don't talk like that. You're not the other woman, and our baby is not a bastard!"

"We have a marriage certificate. You are my lawful wife."

"Anyone who says otherwise, I'll destroy them."

But Vivian only cried harder, on the verge of passing out:

"But everyone knows Leonora is your fiance. I should just stop being an eyesore and leave right now!"

Stewart held her tighter, not bothering to hide his devotion:

"I already told her I'd settle things with her in a couple of years. What more does she want?"

"Stop crying. Every tear you shed feels like a knife in my chest."

Vivian struggled in his arms:

"But everyone thinks I'm the other woman. I can never show my face again. What's the point of staying by your side?"

The moment he heard that, Stewart pulled out his phone and called his assistant, barking orders that the wedding was back on.

Not only that, he wanted the whole thing upgraded to a multimillion-dollar affair.

"That way, the entire world will know that you, Vivian Porter, are my wife."

Vivian finally quieted, burying her face in his chest as her sobs turned into a coy smile. "Stewart, you're so good to me. How could I ever bear to leave you after two years?"

"Then don't. I'll take care of you and our child for the rest of your lives."

Once Vivian was properly soothed, Stewart finally lifted his head and looked at me with a sidelong glare:

"Why are you still standing there? Did you post the clarification? If you did, then hurry up and apologize to Vivian!"

Watching their little love show, I felt like I was the other woman in this story. The laughable third wheel.

But I hadn't done anything wrong. Why should I apologize to her?

"Stewart, what if I say no?"

He stared at me with that look, as though he had me all figured out, and let out a single contemptuous scoff.

"You're clinging on and refusing to leave because you want money. Just say it."

He pulled out a checkbook, scrawled a few strokes with a flourish, and slapped it on the desk.

"You were with me for years, so I'll be generous. A hundred thousand should cover it. Now go stand in front of the entire company and clarify that Vivian is not the other woman."

Employees had crowded around the office doorway, craning their necks for the show.

Feeling every last one of those contemptuous stares boring into me, I laughed. For real this time.

So that was all I was worth. A hundred thousand dollars.

"What's so funny? Think it's not enough? Every meal you ate, every thing you used these past years came out of my pocket."

"You should be grateful I'm offering you a hundred grand at all."

Listening to him say it with such righteous conviction, I felt nothing but a bone-deep bleakness.

I must have been blind to have loved a man like this for six whole years.

I reached across the desk and picked up the check. Slowly.

A knowing smirk tugged at the corner of Stewart's mouth.

Then, right in front of him, I tore it to shreds.

"Keep the money. Your happy little family of three is going to need it."

And that day was coming sooner than he thought.

Stewart's face twisted with humiliated rage.

"Leonora, I told you the wedding is just postponed! It's not like I said I'd never marry you!"

He still believed that no matter how far he pushed, I'd be standing in the same spot, waiting.

But betrayal was the one thing I would never forgive.

"Save it. You'd better enjoy your wedding with her while you can. It might just be the last party you ever throw."

The words left my mouth laced with ice.

"Leonora, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He noticed me bending down to gather my things from the floor, and he froze mid-step:

"You're quitting?"

"There's no reason for me to stay."

I packed my belongings into a box without once looking up at him.

"Fine! Then get the hell out of my sight! Once you leave Delgado Corp, let's see which company in this city would dare hire you!"

### Chapter 4

He was seething, teeth clenched, shouting at me like a cornered animal.

He was waiting for me to regret it. Waiting for me to beg. But I pushed through the crowd at the door and walked out without looking back.

I'd barely gotten into the car when my father called. "That Delgado bastard actually had the nerve to tell me the wedding is still on."

I drew a long breath. So he couldn't wait to announce his wedding to Vivian Porter to the whole world.

"And he had the audacity to say you were the one who fell for another man and called off the engagement first."

"Just wait. I'll make that animal pay."

Even though I didn't love him anymore, the sting still cut deep.

To protect his pride, I'd never told him. His biggest investor, his majority shareholder, was my own father.

And this was how he repaid me. Dragging my name through the mud, stripping whatever dignity was left from what we'd had.

I drove back to the Delgado house and packed as fast as I could.

Six full years, and I'd lived so frugally that everything I owned fit in a single suitcase.

I grabbed it and drove to the bridal shop.

The wedding dress had been custom-made before my mother passed. She'd overseen every detail herself. It was filled with her love, her blessing.

The wedding was off, but that dress was coming with me.

I hadn't even made it through the door when I saw Vivian Porter holding a pair of scissors, demanding the staff alter my dress.

"Stewart, I really love this gown. It's just too small. Tell them to let out the waist right now. We can't let it delay our wedding."

Vivian clung to Stewart's arm, her voice syrupy and simpering.

Stewart was busy negotiating with the shop manager.

"Call the woman who ordered it. I'll pay half a million on top of the original price. She can hand the dress over to my wife."

For Vivian, he really would throw money around without a second thought.

The manager's eyes lit up at the number. He turned and headed for the back room, saying he'd call me.

Vivian kept waving the scissors around the fabric, measuring, snipping at air. My heart was in my throat.

"I don't agree!" I charged in. "Vivian Porter, put my dress down!"

She flinched for a second. Then her expression twisted into something cold and cruel.

The scissors raked across the gown.

The skirt tore apart, shredded beyond recognition.

The back of my hand caught the blade when I tried to block her. Blood welled up instantly.

"Oops. My hand slipped."

Vivian dropped the scissors with a look of wide-eyed innocence, but the smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth gave her away.

I stared at the ruined dress. The pain in my chest was unbearable. Losing Stewart hadn't hurt a fraction of this.

"You vile bitch! That was my mother's. You owe me!"

I didn't feel the cut on my hand. I didn't feel anything except blind rage as I swung and slapped Vivian across her pale face as hard as I could.

"Ah!"

A bright red handprint bloomed across her cheek.

"Vivian!"

Stewart backhanded me even harder. The force sent me crashing to the floor.

"Stewart, my face hurts so much!"

Vivian wailed at full volume, throwing herself into Stewart's arms as if she'd suffered some unimaginable injustice.

My chest heaved. Tears burned in my eyes as I stared up at Stewart from the ground.

He knew what that dress meant to me. Better than anyone.

But he couldn't see the blood running down my hand. He couldn't see the dress torn to pieces on the floor.

All he did was cup Vivian's swollen cheek and stroke it over and over, so gentle, so tender, his hands trembling with how much it pained him.

"Leonora!"

He tucked the sobbing Vivian behind him and turned that frozen stare back on me.

"Have you lost your goddamn mind? If you hurt the baby, how the hell are you going to make that right?!"

"Apologize to Vivian. Now."

### Chapter 5

"She destroyed my wedding dress!" I screamed through my tears. "Why the hell should I apologize to her?!"

"It's a piece of junk worth a few hundred bucks! Didn't I already say I'd pay extra for it?!"

Then his gaze dropped to the back of my hand.

"Why are you bleeding so much?"

His expression shifted instantly, and he ran out to find a staff member with a first-aid kit.

The second Stewart turned his back, Vivian's tears vanished like a magic trick.

She curled her lips into a mocking smile:

"All these years you clung to Stewart like a shameless little leech, throwing yourself at him without a shred of dignity."

"Now he and I are legally married, and you still think he's going to walk down the aisle with you? That's hilarious. Stop dreaming that he'll divorce me in two years and come running back, because..."

She placed one hand lightly over her flat stomach, leaned close to my ear, and smiled with pure venom:

"The baby I'm carrying is his."

The room tilted around me.

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached, forcing back the tears that burned behind my eyes.

So he really had betrayed me, and still had the nerve to string me along for two more years.

Her smile twisted darker:

"Valentine's Day. You waited up for him all night, didn't you? He spent every single hour of it with me in a hotel room, making this baby."

That Valentine's night, I'd waited until the food went cold and the candles burned down to nothing.

I called Stewart ninety-nine times. He didn't pick up once.

The next morning he came home full of apologies, saying he'd been entertaining an important client all night.

I hadn't doubted him for a second, especially after he told me he'd already started planning our wedding. The joy of it washed away every question I might have asked.

But later, while getting into the car for work, I found a used condom.

When I confronted him, he said he'd looked into it and it was the driver who'd picked up a prostitute. He fired the man on the spot.

I chose to believe him again.

But all those late nights at the office, all those business trips over the past two months, every single one had been spent with Vivian.

And here she was, gloating over each encounter like a trophy.

When I lifted my head again, my face was perfectly still.

"You love him that much? Then I hope you two are chained together for life."

Especially through the hard times.

I shoved past her shoulder. All I wanted was out of this suffocating room.

Stewart was already coming back with the first-aid kit.

A sharp glint flickered through Vivian's eyes.

"Ahh!"

She threw herself backward, slamming hard into the wall behind her.

I watched, stunned, as she clutched her stomach and wailed: "It hurts! My baby, the baby!"

"Leonora, even if you hate me, the child is innocent!"

The first-aid kit slipped from Stewart's hands and cracked against the floor.

He lunged forward and scooped Vivian into his arms as she sobbed.

"Vivian, don't be scared. I'm here!"

Then he turned on me, eyes savage:

"Leonora, how can you be this vicious? Attacking a pregnant woman?!"

I shook my head hard. "I barely pushed her! I didn't touch her!"

But Stewart didn't believe a word of it. He jerked his chin toward the dress:

"You hurt Vivian. That piece of trash doesn't deserve to exist anymore either."

One of his bodyguards stepped forward immediately, scissors raised.

"What are you doing?!"

"Please, I'm begging you, that was my mother's! It's all I have left of her!"

The bodyguard shoved me aside. The scissors came down, cut after cut after cut.

My wedding dress, destroyed beyond repair.

Only then did Stewart look satisfied. He cast a cold glance my way. "Remember, this time it was just a dress. Touch Vivian again, and don't ever expect me to marry you."

He gathered Vivian gently into his arms and carried her to the car, heading for the hospital.

I knelt on the floor, cradling the shredded remains of the dress, watching his silhouette disappear. No tears left to cry.

"There is no 'ever' for us anymore, Stewart."

I pulled out my phone. My gaze was ice.

"Dad, I need you to run a DNA test on Vivian's baby. Immediately. I think I have one last gift to give Stewart Delgado."

### Chapter 6

I was packing the remnants of the wedding dress into my suitcase when it started to rain.

Good.

That way, no one would see my tears.

I didn't remember how I got from the bridal shop to the hotel.

My father called to tell me the full withdrawal of investments was underway.

Six months at most, and Delgado Corp would cease to exist.

When he saw the gauze on my head and the rainwater still dripping from my hair, my father's eyes filled with tears.

"I'll make that bastard crawl to you on his knees right now!"

I shook my head weakly, but my voice was steel.

"No, Dad. It's not time yet."

Just a few months ago, doctors had discovered that Stewart's sperm was abnormal, making it nearly impossible for him to father a child.

Was Vivian really carrying Stewart's baby?

After that, the fever hit.

I drifted in and out of a haze, but my phone kept buzzing with Stewart's calls, one after another.

I didn't have the strength to deal with him. I turned my phone off.

But then came the sound of fists hammering the door. "Leonora! Don't think I don't know you're in there. Get out here!"

The next second, the hotel room door was kicked open.

Stewart's eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed me off the bed and dragged me toward the door.

"Happy now? Vivian lost the baby, you vicious bitch!"

I struggled in his grip, shouting back.

"She threw herself at the wall on purpose! I didn't do anything!"

Stewart shoved me into the car.

"I saw you push her with my own eyes. Do you think I'm blind?"

He ran every red light on the way to the hospital and dragged me into Vivian's room.

Then he kicked me behind the knees.

Searing pain shot through me as I crashed onto the cold tile floor.

"Bow your head to Vivian. Apologize!"

I clenched my teeth so hard they ached. "I didn't do it. If you don't believe me, check the security cameras at the bridal shop yourself!"

Stewart stared down at me, his gaze a mixture of disappointment and hatred.

"Leonora, do you have any idea what your little shove did? Vivian didn't just lose the baby. The doctors say she can never get pregnant again."

"How are you going to make that right?!"

On the hospital bed, Vivian's face was a mess of tears.

"Stewart, my biggest dream was to have a baby. But now I'll never be able to. Blaming someone else won't change that."

Stewart's gaze locked onto me, cold and unblinking.

"Since you're the one who took away Vivian's chance to be a mother, you're going to have a child and give it to her."

My eyes went wide. "Stewart, do you hear how insane you sound?"

"You owe a debt, you pay it back. Simple as that!"

For her, he'd lost all reason. He truly was desperate in his love for this woman.

A laugh tore out of me, so violent my whole body shook.

Then, quietly, I lowered my eyes. "Fine. You got what you wanted."

I didn't miss the flash of triumph that crossed Vivian's face.

Stewart scoffed and produced a surrogacy contract.

It wasn't even legally enforceable. He actually thought my signature would make it binding.

Black ink on white paper.

"Can I go now?"

Stewart took the signed contract, then flicked a glance to the side. His bodyguards closed in around me.

My heart dropped. "Stewart, what else do you want?!"

"Vivian's been waiting for this wedding for a long time. Nothing is going to go wrong." He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "After the ceremony tomorrow, I'll let you go."

I was thrown into the Delgado family's basement. My head struck the concrete floor, and everything went black.

When I came to in the darkness, I found the livestream on my phone. The wedding was about to begin.

Stewart and Vivian's wedding was every bit as extravagant as I'd expected.

Dozens of A-list celebrities filled the guest list, and the ceremony was streaming worldwide, broadcasting their so-called love story for all to see.

That was when a Rolls-Royce Phantom pulled up to the entrance.

A middle-aged man stepped out of the car.

I whispered, "Dad."

Stewart and Vivian rushed forward with welcoming smiles.

"Chairman Hughes, you're too kind! You didn't have to bring a gift. Your presence alone is more than enough."

When my father's assistant handed over a document envelope, both their eyes lit up.

"What's the gift? Honey, open it, quick!"

Stewart couldn't tear it open fast enough. He pulled out the papers inside.

He must have been expecting shares, assets, something of that nature.

Instead, his gaze froze on a single line of red text.

"'Confirmed: Patient was born without a uterus. Permanent infertility. Patient name: Vivian Porter'?!"