Master Of My Own Destiny

POV: Sienna I held the pregnancy test between my fingers, and the two red lines glowed beneath the cold bathroom light like an inevitable sentence. My heart hammered against my chest with violent force. I hadn't wanted to take the test over simple nausea, but my mother's suspicions hounded me all the way to the lab. The result appeared in a matter of minutes. I am pregnant. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If this news had reached me six months ago, I would have run to shout it from the rooftops. But at this precise moment, my marriage to the renowned CEO of Megg Collection, Alexander Megg, was hanging by a frayed thread. I knew with perfect accuracy the night we conceived this child: that evening when he came home from a corporate cocktail party. I hadn't seen him so impassioned in months. When he finished, he fell asleep beside me without saying a single word. Foolishly, I believed the spark had returned, but the next day he greeted me with the same routine coldness before leaving for the company. I slid the small test inside my coat pocket. Barely three hours ago, my entire life had been on the verge of turning to ashes. A sudden fire consumed the executive wing of Megg's main headquarters. Being near the building for a medical appointment, I instinctively ran through the smoke to look for him. I found him in his private office alongside Diana Apex, the billionaire heiress of the Apex Group. Both were wearing only bathrobes unbuttoned at the chest. When a beam engulfed in flames broke free from the ceiling straight toward Diana, my body reacted out of pure human instinct: I shoved her away from danger. The structure collapsed squarely onto my left leg. I felt the sharp pain of the impact and the searing heat piercing the skin of my ankle. And what did Alexander do? Instead of helping the woman he had been married to for two years, he ran toward Diana, scooped her up in his arms, and carefully guided her toward the exit through the cloud of reporters and cameras, leaving me lying among the rubble. The paramedics cut off the boot of my dress trousers to bandage my burn and stabilize the sprain. I flatly refused to get into the ambulance. The physical pain in my bandaged leg was nothing compared to the icy fury spreading through my blood. I arrived at the Megg residence at one-thirty in the morning. I supported my weight on an aluminum cane I got at the emergency clinic, feeling a shooting pain in my hip with every step. Just before putting the key into the lock, I heard suppressed laughter and clinking glasses coming from inside. "Alexander, you really are heartless," echoed Diana's soft, flirtatious voice from the living room. "You left your little wife in the middle of that disaster without looking back." "Sienna knows how to take care of herself, Diana," responded Alex's deep voice, accompanied by a low chuckle. "She's a strong woman. Besides, your life and the multi-million alliance with the Apex Group are worth too much to the project." I turned the key. The heavy oak door emitted a dry creak as it opened, abruptly interrupting the festive atmosphere. The scene in the living room was an insult to my dignity. Gina, Alexander's younger sister, had the room in a state of chaos with dozens of garments strewn across the sofas. She was trying on dresses from the company's new collection while two designers from the firm advised her. Beside her, seated on a high stool, Diana wore only a black dress shirt belonging to Alexander, unbuttoned halfway down her chest, holding a glass of red wine. At the marble bar, Alexander wore his silk pajama pants and served a pair of cuts of steak with herb butter with extreme elegance. In three years of marriage, Alexander had never touched a frying pan in this house. Gina was the first to turn around. Seeing me arrive limping, with my face smeared with soot and my cut trousers revealing the thick bandage, she rolled her eyes in absolute annoyance. "Look who decided to show up," Gina blurted out arrogantly, letting out a mocking giggle. "What a way to ruin the mood." "Sorry for coming home," I replied, keeping my voice steady despite the knot choking my throat. "Her home? This is my brother's home," Gina spat, adjusting the skirt of her dress. "I have more right to be here than you do. You should know your place once and for all; you're nothing more than a penniless gold-digger." I squeezed my fingers tightly around the handle of the cane. Gina and her mother always sought the slightest opportunity to humiliate me, repeating that a woman without a highborn background like me would never have a place beside a man born with a silver spoon like Alexander. What the Meggs completely ignored was that I came from one of the most influential dynasties on the continent. I was the sole heiress of the Mcgregor Empire, the most multi-million and respected haute couture house in the fashion world. I gave up the luxury and my father's last name when Alex and I fell in love in college. My father gave me a choice between marrying him or taking my throne in the family business. I chose love. I remembered my father's final words the day I left: "I wish you the best of luck, my child. But if you ever want to come back, remember that I will be waiting for you with open arms." "Sienna, you're back," Diana spoke from the bar, scanning my soot stains and the bandage on my leg. "We thought you'd be admitted to the hospital after what happened at the office." Alexander didn't even drop the cooking tongs. He raised his cold eyes toward me and frowned upon noticing the dirt on my shoes against the wood floor. "You're tracking dirt onto the entryway floor," he said, gesturing to the floor with his chin. "And you could have let us know you were coming. Diana needed to eat something to recover from the shock of the fire." "Are you cooking for her?" I asked, taking an unsteady step toward the living room. "In three years you never cooked a dish for me. You said the kitchen wasn't a man's job." "Don't compare basic courtesy toward a key business partner with ordinary domestic chores," Alexander answered in a sharp tone, wiping his hands with a clean towel. "Diana closed a crucial financial deal for Megg Collection tonight. She deserves the best attention." "Business partner? You were in your private office wearing only bathrobes when the fire started," I said, feeling how rage completely displaced the pain in my burned leg. "Do you think I'm an i***t, Alexander?" "Enough of your selfish drama!" he turned pale, raising his voice with authority. "Diana couldn't inhale that smoke and you're a doctor, you know perfectly well how to survive in those situations. Stop making a ridiculous scene in front of my sister and Diana and apologize for interrupting." My hand slipped instinctively toward my coat pocket. I touched the small gift box where I kept the positive pregnancy test. I was going to give it to him as a surprise tonight, dreaming that the arrival of a child would save our marriage. But seeing the devotion with which he protected another woman while I was bleeding, the scales fell from my eyes. A child would never be an anchor to hold onto a man who had lost his soul. You don't deserve to know. You will never know that this child exists. I pulled my hand out of the pocket, completely empty. I straightened my back and locked my eyes directly onto my husband's gray eyes, wearing a smile so cold that it instantly erased the self-satisfaction from his face. "You're right, Alexander. There is nothing left to compare," I declared, taking a firm step toward the main hallway. "Keep your partner and your company. First thing tomorrow morning, you will receive the divorce papers.”