He Made Me Abort, I Left With Our Daughter

Chapter 4

After hanging up, I started packing my things.

Laughter drifted in from outside my bedroom.

The soundproofing was too good for me to make out what they were saying. All I knew was that Henry kept laughing as Claire coaxed him.

So this was the only place he could truly relax.

Only in front of Claire could he become that carefree young man he had once been.

Ever since Claire returned, Henry's mood had been getting better by the day.

When I signed the divorce agreement and settlement contract, he even asked me,

"Do you need me to take you to the hospital?"

I was just about to shake my head when his phone rang.

I didn't know what Claire said on the other end, but the tension visibly left his face.

Then he turned to me and refused.

"I'm going to pick up Claire. The driver will take you."

I smiled faintly.

"No need, Mr. Foster. I'll send you the medical report after the procedure."

Henry froze.

His gaze instinctively dropped to my lower abdomen.

I hadn't been pregnant for long. My stomach was still perfectly flat, making it almost impossible to imagine that a new life was growing inside me.

A life that shared his blood.

Henry parted his lips, as if he wanted to say something, but my next words stopped him.

"Don't worry. I take contracts very seriously."

"Samantha, do you really have to use the baby as a bargaining chip?"

My words clearly provoked him.

He frowned in disgust and turned away.

I stood there, tears sliding down my cheeks, one drop after another hitting the floor.

'What did he mean? Was I using the baby as a bargaining chip? He was the one who didn't want this child in the first place, wasn't he?'

The smell of disinfectant at the hospital was just as harsh as ever.

I had barely reached the obstetrics and gynecology department when Lucas arrived.

Seeing how pale I looked, he gently patted my head, his eyes filled with concern.

"You… I told you to give up from the beginning. You just had to put yourself through all this. Have you finally accepted reality?"

I followed Lucas into the operating room.

It was completely empty.

The cold, gleaming instruments reflected my face.

At first glance, I really did look like Claire.

I raised a hand and traced the line from my brow down to my chin.

My voice was barely a whisper.

"Lucas, do Claire and I really look that much alike? So much that Henry couldn't tell us apart?"

Lucas sighed.

"Samantha, Henry is convinced that Claire was the girl who saved him when he was a child. We have no way to prove otherwise. The Sullivan family cares deeply about bloodlines. With just the two of us, there's no way we can set the record straight."

"Set the record straight?"

I couldn't help laughing.

Because I had never wanted to set anything straight.

I just couldn't accept losing.

The small town in the South was full of stories.

Not only had Henry, the Foster family's illegitimate son, grown up there, but the Sullivan family's illegitimate daughter had been abandoned there too.

I just hadn't been as lucky as Henry.

He had a mother.

I had no one.

I was nothing more than the result of a one-night stand involving a Sullivan heiress.

If terminating the pregnancy would have caused permanent infertility, I probably never would have been born.

The Sullivan family considered me a disgrace and left me at the mercy of their relatives.

Every day in that little town had been a living nightmare.

Until I met Henry.

He was only ten years old then.

He had run away because he refused to go to the Foster family, only to slip and fall into the river.

I saved him.

The rough rope had torn both my hands bloody.

Two miserable little kids made a promise by the river that day.

No matter what happened in the future, we would protect each other for the rest of our lives.

I believed him.

For the sake of that promise—and to avoid being handed off by the Sullivan family in marriage to a sixty-year-old business partner—I went through hell to find Henry.

But when I finally did, I learned that he had already decided Claire was the girl who had saved him.

The real me had become nothing more than a gold-digging woman who had deliberately gotten plastic surgery to get close to him.

I kept trying to explain.

But every time I did, Henry would eventually lose patience and throw the same words at me.

"Even if you were the one who saved me back then, I only love Claire."

From that moment on, I knew the boy I remembered was dead.

"I booked your flight for the day after tomorrow. Samantha, let's go. Leave Henry. Leave this place. Go live the life that was always meant to be yours."

Warmth spread from Lucas's palm into mine.

"And Ellie is waiting for you too."

My pupils trembled.

I lowered my head and gently stroked my flat stomach.

I really had been pregnant before.

Just not now.

It had been a year ago.

Back then, Henry got drunk after seeing intimate photos of Claire with another man.

He held me in his arms all night, calling me Claire.

Two months later, I found out I was pregnant.

I once believed that having a child might finally change Henry's mind.

But before I could tell him, a single message from Claire sent him rushing overseas, leaving everything behind.

When we saw each other again, the first thing he said to me was,

"Claire is back. We're getting a divorce."

I closed my eyes, waiting for the ache at the corners of them to fade, then nodded at Lucas.

With ten percent of the Foster Group, Ellie and I would have a much happier life ahead of us.

As for Henry…

Ellie didn't need him as a father.

"Take me home to get my things, Lucas. I've got a whole room full of designer goods. They're worth quite a bit too."

Lucas had already arranged a moving company for me.

By the time he dropped me off at the mansion, the movers had already arrived.

"Do you want me to come inside with you?"

"No." I shook my head. "I'll be out in a minute."

I opened the mansion's iron gate for the movers first, letting them in to collect my things.

Then I walked into the living room with the medical report in my hand.

It was two in the afternoon.

Henry should have been at the office at this hour.

Yet he was sitting on the sofa.

At the sound of my footsteps, he slowly raised his head.

His eyes were dark and unreadable, like those of a predator that had cornered its prey.

Several charred sheets of paper lay scattered across the coffee table.

Most of the writing had been burned away, but I could still make out a few words: "Henry Foster," "Investigation Results," "Birth Certificate."

My pupils contracted.

A wave of terror instantly swept over me.

"Samantha."

Henry's voice was frighteningly cold.

"I really underestimated how bold you are."

At that moment, Henry was like a furious lion that had just been provoked.

"You investigated me. And you secretly gave birth to my child. What exactly were you after when you approached me?"