You Wanted Me Childless? Now You Have Nothing

My family was cursed. Every generation, men and women alike, struggled to conceive.

Because of that, the first child born to any member of the bloodline was raised as the family's successor.

The one who would helm a trillion-dollar empire.

In my generation, I was the first to get pregnant.

The day I got the confirmation, I rushed home, bursting with joy, ready to tell my husband the news in person.

With a baby on the way, I could finally introduce him to my family.

And the business troubles he'd been drowning in would resolve themselves the moment my family learned about the pregnancy.

But when I walked through the door, there was another woman in our home.

Dale Fleming's voice was calm. "Noreen's back."

"So let's get a divorce."

I rested my hand against my stomach. It seemed Dale and this child weren't fated to share much of anything. He wouldn't be leveraging this baby to expand his empire after all.

Fine. I'd keep the child and lose the man.

——

Noreen Pruitt. Dale's childhood sweetheart.

She'd left the country eight years ago, and Dale had been devastated.

My best friend, who also happened to be Dale's sister, was the one who set us up.

I didn't learn about Dale's all-consuming first love until after we were already married.

Everyone has a past. I didn't hold it against him.

What I hadn't expected was that he'd never let her go.

The moment Noreen set foot back in the country, he wanted a divorce.

I looked at the dining table. A lavish spread, every dish plated to perfection, the aroma filling the room.

Dale still had the apron on.

Eight years of knowing him. Six years of marriage. I never once knew he could cook.

I sat down. "The last supper?"

"Sorry." Dale untied the apron. "This is a welcome-home dinner for Noreen. She doesn't like to share. I promised her that anything I cook is for her and her alone."

He walked over and picked up a divorce agreement he'd clearly prepared in advance.

"If you agree, sign it and move out."

That eager to get rid of me.

I picked up the agreement. My brow creased.

The terms were spelled out in black and white. I would leave with nothing.

I said nothing. I picked up the pen.

Divorce was a perfectly normal thing. I could accept it.

But Dale had gone too far. If he'd even split things evenly, I wouldn't have said a word.

From here on out, I would take back everything that was mine. In my own way.

I signed, slipped off my wedding ring, and stood to leave.

Noreen's voice cut through the air. "Wait."

"Open the purse. Let me see."

I looked at Dale. "You want to search my things?"

"Noreen is the woman of this house now. Do as she says."

I took out my phone, then tossed the purse to Dale.

"Search away."

Dale handed the purse to Noreen.

Noreen rifled through it. "Everything in here was bought with Dale's money, wasn't it?"

"Including the purse itself. You can't take it."

"And your phone."

"The clothes on your back."

Noreen looked me up and down, a smirk playing on her lips. "If you've really got that much pride, leave it all behind."

I turned to Dale. He was gazing at Noreen, soft and indulgent. "Do as Noreen says."

He used to look at me that way. But Noreen's return had changed everything.

I set the phone down without a word and walked back to the bedroom.

Minutes later, I emerged wearing the traditional wedding gown my birth family had custom-made for me.

I never imagined I'd walk into this marriage wearing this dress and walk out of it wearing the same one.

When I stepped out of the bedroom, something flickered in Dale's eyes.

On our wedding day, he'd told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. An angel descended from heaven.

I wondered what was running through his mind now. Maybe he thought he was powerful enough to have it all.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and fixed my gaze on him. "This dress has nothing to do with you, does it?"

"I didn't buy it." He said it to Noreen, not to me.

Displeasure flickered across Noreen's face. She'd clearly wanted to humiliate me, to send me out the door with barely a scrap of clothing on my back.

She pointed at my necklace. "I like that necklace. You're not seriously letting her keep it?"

Dale wouldn't even look at me. "Leave the necklace."

Today I'd confirmed I was pregnant. That was supposed to be the best news of my life.

Even after Dale brought up the divorce, I hadn't planned on making a scene. Not today.

But he just kept pushing.

This necklace was a gift from my father for my eighteenth birthday, crafted from the finest materials by one of the world's most renowned jewelers.

I'd worn it every day since, and it was my pre-marital property. Dale knew that perfectly well.

"Dale Fleming, don't push your luck. This necklace has nothing to do with you."

"How does it have nothing to do with him? Renata, you're the one being unreasonable here." Mrs. Fleming swept in from outside the door. "Everything in this house, down to the last blade of grass, was earned by Dale's hard work."

"And somehow when it comes to you, none of it's connected?"

"All these years you've been eating his food, living off his money. He's not even asking you to settle that tab in the divorce."

"One little necklace, and you insult him? Saying he's pushing his luck? The only one pushing her luck here is you."

"Take off the necklace and give it to Noreen."

I ignored Mrs. Fleming entirely. My eyes stayed locked on Dale. "Dale Fleming. I'm asking you one more time. Does this necklace have anything to do with you?"

"Renata, I was right there when my brother bought you that necklace."

Zoey Fleming. Dale's older sister, and once upon a time, my closest friend. She'd arrived too.

She went on, her tone casual and certain: "I even asked Dale to buy me one just like it, but it turned out to be a one-of-a-kind piece. Don't tell me you've forgotten?"

Mrs. Fleming shot me a sideways glance. "Ungrateful wretch. As if she'd remember anything."

I remembered everything. They were the ones who had forgotten.

Back then, it was Zoey who told me her family was struggling, that her mother lay awake every night worrying about finding Dale a wife.

She said she knew I wasn't the shallow, materialistic type. She asked me to give her brother a chance.

On our wedding day, Mrs. Fleming had wept with joy, saying that finding a daughter-in-law as sensible as me was a blessing from their ancestors.

When exactly had all of that changed?

In the beginning, Dale had nothing. When we married, I'd asked for only a token bride-price of six thousand six hundred dollars.

No house. No car.

I didn't choose a partner based on those things. I cared about character and ability.

As for money, I could handle that myself.

My family placed certain financial restrictions on us children before we had kids of our own, but even with those restrictions, the resources I could access were more than enough to send Dale's career into the stratosphere.

It seemed none of them had ever stopped to wonder why a man with no connections, no background, no family name had managed to sail through business without a single setback.

And as Dale's fortunes grew, Zoey started putting on airs around me, bossing me around like it was her birthright as the older sister-in-law.

Mrs. Fleming began finding fault with everything I did.

Dale's temper grew shorter by the year. I told myself that was just how marriage worked. You adjusted. You compromised.

Now I could see how wrong I'd been.

My silence only made Mrs. Fleming angrier. She barked at me.

"What are you standing there for?"

"Take off the necklace and give it to Noreen."

Noreen sat there watching me with a half-smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, dripping with provocation.

As if to say: So what if you were his wife for six years? The moment I walk back in, you step aside.

I didn't want these people and their ugliness to ruin today for me. I didn't want to waste my anger on trash.

The pregnancy had been hard enough to come by. I needed to stay calm.

I unclasped the necklace in silence and set it on the table.

Noreen picked it up. "It's decent enough, I suppose."

"But something worn by trash? Disgusting."

She hurled it at the floor.

The necklace I had treasured like a piece of my soul shattered on the tile.

Zoey rushed over. "Noreen, sweetie, just tell us what style you like. Dale can take you shopping for a new one."

"Exactly," Mrs. Fleming chimed in. "Whatever catches your eye, Dale will get it for you."

My necklace lay in pieces on the ground, and all they cared about was what Noreen wanted next.

Six years of devotion, and every bit of it had been wasted. I crouched down, carefully gathering the broken fragments, when a heel came down on my hand.

Noreen stared down at me. "What I throw away isn't something a worthless tramp like you gets to touch."

Dale kicked the shattered pieces aside. "Get out. Stop embarrassing yourself."

My chest seized. I couldn't help thinking back to the moment I first fell for him.

A group of punks had cornered me on the street, catcalling, running their mouths, trying to put their hands on me.

Dale happened to walk by. He took on all six of them alone and ended up in the hospital.

Sitting at his bedside, I heard him say: "Anyone who disrespects you, I'll fight them with everything I've got."

Now Noreen was grinding me into the floor, and he told me to get out.

I swallowed the fury rising in my throat, stood, and turned toward the door. Behind me, Noreen pulled off the shoe she'd used to crush my hand and flung it at my back.

"Stepped on garbage with it. Don't want it anymore."

The heel struck between my shoulder blades, and the pain drilled straight through to my ribs.

I lowered my head, one hand resting lightly on my stomach. Just get out first. Everything else could wait.

"Hold on." Noreen's voice stopped me again. "There's one more thing you need to leave behind."

I turned. Every ounce of restraint I had left went into keeping my voice level. "What thing?"

She pointed at my belly. "A friend of mine at the hospital told me you're pregnant. That's Dale's."

"To make sure you don't use the baby as leverage to fight for assets later, I brought these." She held up a small packet. "Abortion pills. You're going to take them. Right now."

"Renata, this is really for everyone's benefit. Just drink it." Zoey's voice was soft, coaxing, as if she were offering me tea.

She took the pills from Noreen and walked over to me. "I've already arranged a private doctor. It's just a termination. It won't do you any harm."

Six years. For six years I had done everything in my power to get pregnant.

I had choked down herbal remedies so bitter they made my eyes water, cup after cup, without complaint.

Zoey knew that.

Dale knew that.

And now they wanted me to kill this child.

"Dale, the baby I'm carrying isn't just mine. It's yours too."

Dale glanced at me. The disgust on his face was too raw to be faked.

For the first time, I wondered whether the last six years of tenderness had all been an act.

Then he opened his mouth, and I barely recognized the words coming out of it.

"Only Noreen is worthy of bearing my children."

The man standing in front of me was a stranger. How many nights had he clasped his hands together, praying for a child that was ours?

"I'll sign an agreement," I said. "The child will never make a single claim on the family's assets."

"God, you're pathetic." Noreen looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. "Dale doesn't want you anymore, and you're still begging to have his baby."

"Absolutely shameless."

Zoey held the pills out to me. "Take them yourself, and we can all walk away with a little dignity."

The moment the words left her mouth, the household bodyguards closed in around me.

The message was clear. If I wouldn't swallow the pills on my own, they would make me.

I had given ground again and again, and every inch I yielded they took a mile.

The fire inside me was getting harder to contain. I locked my eyes on Dale. I needed an answer before this went any further.

"Dale, I'm curious. What exactly does Noreen have that I don't, for you to be this heartless?"

"Good in what way?" Mrs. Fleming laughed. "You really have the nerve to ask. Do you even know who Noreen is?"

"She's the daughter of the richest man in Cloudridge. She's the kind of person who can take Dale's career to the next level."

"What could you possibly offer compared to her? In six years, what have you ever done for Dale?"

"All you do at your age is fuss over your health routines. You're just some hick from the middle of nowhere. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were some kind of heiress."

The disgust in her eyes was undisguised. "Besides spending Dale's money, what else are you good for?"

Zoey chimed in right after. "My mom's blunt, but everything she said is true. You and Noreen aren't even in the same league."

I turned on Dale, fury rising in my voice. "Dale Fleming, who do you think got you where you are today?"

I was the one who brought in his first investor. I was the one who introduced his first client.

His company's very first project only happened because of me.

I personally wrote many of the critical proposals that came after.

Yes, I spent more time taking care of my health. I was trying to have a child. That was something I had to do.

But Dale's success didn't come from thin air. Setting aside everything I'd done behind the scenes, even the things I did openly were the key to the company's growth.

I stayed out of the spotlight to protect his pride, deliberately keeping my involvement in the company's management invisible.

Mrs. Fleming glared at me. "He got where he is through his own hard work. You think he owes it to you?"

"Renata, all this talk is just because you want to keep the baby." Dale finally spoke. He took the pills himself and held them out to me.

"I won't allow it. Take them."

I'd confirmed my pregnancy today. I was happy. I hadn't even planned to fight the divorce.

But they had trampled on my dignity, step by step. And now they wanted me to destroy my own child.

Enough.

I walked to the table and picked up my phone. I found our family group chat and typed out a message.

I'm pregnant. Dale and his mistress are forcing me to abort.