Chapter 4 - THE FIANCÉE WHO WAS CARRYING SOMEONE ELSE’S CHILD
Julian did not shout.
He simply went completely still.
Dalia began crying.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“After the gala.”
“You announced our engagement three weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“Whose baby?”
She looked toward Gabriel.
For one horrifying second, I thought—
No.
Gabriel’s expression turned sharp.
Dalia immediately shook her head.
“Not Gabriel.”
I exhaled.
Julian did not.
“Then who?”
Dalia whispered:
“Elliot.”
Julian frowned.
“Elliot who?”
“Elliot Mercer.”
Julian stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
Gabriel swore under his breath.
I knew the name.
Everyone in business knew it.
Elliot Mercer was Julian’s former CFO.
And his oldest friend.
The man who helped manage the company I had helped build.
He had disappeared from public life six months earlier after an alleged mental-health leave.
Julian stared at Dalia.
“You slept with Elliot.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
She looked away.
“Eight months.”
The humiliation on Julian’s face was almost difficult to watch.
Almost.
Because I remembered standing in our old house while he told me we had “outgrown” each other.
I remembered Dalia appearing beside him publicly two months later.
I remembered strangers calling me jealous because I questioned the overlap.
Now she was carrying his best friend’s child.
Julian sat back down.
“Why are you still engaged to me?”
Dalia’s voice shook.
“Because Elliot disappeared.”
“What?”
“He didn’t leave voluntarily.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Explain.”
Dalia had been seeing Elliot secretly before Julian’s proposal.
Elliot discovered suspicious payments inside Duval Holdings.
Medical clinics.
PR firms.
Shell companies.
He believed someone inside the family had been controlling Julian’s public image and private medical decisions for years.
Then he vanished.
His apartment was emptied.
Phone disconnected.
No banking activity.
Dalia panicked.
Julian, unaware of the affair, proposed soon after.
She said yes.
Not because she loved him.
Because she was scared.
And because she thought staying close to Julian might keep her safe.
I stared.
“Safe from who?”
Dalia looked at Julian.
“Your mother.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“My mother did not kidnap Elliot.”
Dalia shook her head.
“I saw her men outside his apartment.”
“What men?”
She described two private-security employees.
Julian recognized both.
His mother’s longtime staff.
My skin prickled.
Gabriel asked:
“Why would Margaret Duval want Elliot gone?”
“Because he found something.”
“What?”
Dalia opened a file on her phone.
An internal company memo.
Bennett Strategy Archive.
My name.
I sat up.
“What is that?”
Julian looked confused too.
Dalia continued:
“Elliot found an encrypted server containing old strategy documents.”
I stared.
“My documents?”
“Yes.”
Pitch decks.
Investor scripts.
Acquisition models.
Brand strategies.
Market-entry plans.
All the work I created during our marriage.
The work Julian’s company later claimed was developed by his executive team.
I looked at him.
“You kept everything.”
Julian’s face tightened.
“I thought the company owned it.”
“No.”
I laughed.
“I wrote half of it before we were married.”
Gabriel looked at Dalia.
“What did Elliot discover?”
She swallowed.
“Julian’s second company was valued using proprietary frameworks Khloe created.”
Julian went pale.
Dalia continued:
“If Khloe can prove authorship, she may own a substantial intellectual-property claim.”
I stared.
“How substantial?”
Dalia looked at me.
“Possibly hundreds of millions.”
That explained something.
My reputation destruction after the divorce.
If I looked unstable, bitter, incompetent—
I looked less credible.
Julian had not only erased me.
Someone had needed me erased.
May you like
And Dalia whispered the final piece:
“Elliot believed Julian’s mother ordered the smear campaign.”
