No Longer April Mayo: Heiress Returns

Name: No Longer April Mayo: Heiress Returns
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Gavin

Short stories | Completed

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For seven years, I gave up my life as a corporate heiress for a modest house with the man who saved me and our son. I chose love over an empire. That choice shattered the night he came home smelling of another woman' s perfume. He called his affair a "business merger," but the headlines told the real story. He was choosing power over his family. His mother summoned us to the family estate only to announce his mistress was pregnant with the "only legitimate heir." In front of everyone, she offered me a job as a maid and said my son could stay on as an adopted orphan. My partner, the man I gave up everything for, stood by her side and said nothing as his mother publicly erased us from his life. My five-year-old son looked up at me, his voice trembling, and asked a question that destroyed the last piece of my heart. "Mommy, if she' s having a baby... then what am I?" But the final blow came on his birthday. His mistress tricked us into attending their engagement party, where he pushed our son to the floor and denied him. As his family attacked me, my son begged him for help, calling him "sir." In that moment, the woman he knew died. I took my son' s hand, walked out of that life forever, and made the call to the empire I had abandoned. It was time for the world to remember my real name.

Betrayal Revenge Pregnancy Divorce CEO

Chapter 9

Today 15:48

Chapter 1

For seven years, I gave up my life as a corporate heiress for a modest house with the man who saved me and our son. I chose love over an empire.

That choice shattered the night he came home smelling of another woman' s perfume. He called his affair a "business merger," but the headlines told the real story. He was choosing power over his family.

His mother summoned us to the family estate only to announce his mistress was pregnant with the "only legitimate heir." In front of everyone, she offered me a job as a maid and said my son could stay on as an adopted orphan.

My partner, the man I gave up everything for, stood by her side and said nothing as his mother publicly erased us from his life.

My five-year-old son looked up at me, his voice trembling, and asked a question that destroyed the last piece of my heart.

"Mommy, if she' s having a baby... then what am I?"

But the final blow came on his birthday. His mistress tricked us into attending their engagement party, where he pushed our son to the floor and denied him. As his family attacked me, my son begged him for help, calling him "sir."

In that moment, the woman he knew died. I took my son' s hand, walked out of that life forever, and made the call to the empire I had abandoned. It was time for the world to remember my real name.

Chapter 1

April Mayo POV:

The first time I knew-truly knew-that my life was over, it started with the scent of another woman' s perfume. It wasn' t cheap or obvious. It was expensive. Jasmine and roses, clinging to the collar of the man I had given up everything for.

For seven years, I had been April Mayo, a woman with no past, living a simple life in a modest house with Emerson Goodman, the brilliant CEO of a rising tech firm, and our son, Dexter. But before that, I was April Sterling, the sole heiress to the Sterling corporate empire, a world of unimaginable wealth and power that I had walked away from without a second thought. I chose love. I chose him.

Tonight, that choice felt like a tomb I had built for myself.

My bags were already packed, hidden in the back of Dexter' s closet. My father' s words from seven years ago echoed in my mind, a phantom ache I could never quite shake. "He' s not one of us, April. Ambition is his god. One day, it will demand a sacrifice, and you will be the offering." I had called him cynical. Now I just called him right.

I lay in bed, feigning sleep, trying to summon the Sterling that was supposed to run through my veins. Where was the ruthless heiress now? She felt like a ghost, a story told about someone else. All I could feel was the hollow space in my chest where my heart used to be.

The bedroom door creaked open. Emerson stepped in, his silhouette framed by the hallway light. He moved with a quiet confidence that had once made my pulse race. Now, it just made my stomach clench. The scent of jasmine and roses filled the room, a poisonous fog.

He thought I was asleep. I felt the dip in the mattress as he sat beside me, his fingers gently brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. His touch, once my sanctuary, now felt like a violation.

"April?" he whispered, his voice a low, intimate rumble. "You asleep?"

I didn't move. I kept my breathing even, a slow, steady rhythm that belied the storm raging inside me. I had seen the headlines on my phone just an hour ago. "Tech Mogul Emerson Goodman and Socialite Chloe Cochran: A Match Made in Merger Heaven?" The article was accompanied by a photo of them leaving a five-star restaurant, Chloe' s hand tucked possessively in the crook of his arm. Her smile was triumphant. His was... tired.

The jasmine and rose perfume wasn' t just on his collar. It was in his hair, on his skin, soaked into the very fabric of his being. It was the scent of Chloe Cochran.

I knew he' d been spending his nights with her for weeks, under the guise of finalizing the merger between Goodman Innovations and Cochran Industries. Business, he' d called it. A necessary evil.

I shifted, as if stirring in my sleep, and pushed his hand away. "You stink," I mumbled, my voice thick with a disgust that was only partially feigned. "Go take a shower."

He froze. I could feel the tension radiate from him. "April, I... I' m sorry. The meetings with Chloe run late. You know how she is, she practically bathes in that perfume."

He said her name so easily. Chloe. Not Ms. Cochran. Chloe.

"I' ll go shower now," he said, his voice strained. He stood up and headed for the bathroom, a flicker of embarrassment in his movements. In a few minutes, he' d come back smelling of my soap, my shampoo, trying to wash her off of him and pretend he belonged here, with me.

But he didn' t belong here anymore. How could a man so dependent on another woman' s influence and power ever truly belong to me? Was he a CEO or her well-dressed pet?

To the world, I was just April Mayo, a woman of no consequence. An orphan he' d picked up, blessed with a quiet life she didn' t deserve. Nobody knew I was the woman who held the key to an empire that could swallow Goodman Innovations without a ripple.

The shower shut off. He emerged moments later, a towel slung low on his hips, water droplets clinging to the hard planes of his chest. He was still beautiful. Devastatingly so. The same man who had pulled me from the wreckage of a car crash seven years ago, his face etched with a fierce concern that had stolen my breath.

I had been running away from an arranged marriage, from my father' s suffocating world. My car had skidded on a patch of ice and flipped. He had been the first on the scene, a stranger who tore the door off its hinges with his bare hands to get to me.

He' d carried me to his cabin, his hands gentle as he cleaned my wounds. I remember the raw power in his shoulders, the intensity in his dark eyes. He wasn't like the polished, predatory men from my world. He was real.

"You' re mine now," he had growled that first night, his voice thick with a possessiveness that thrilled me. "I found you. You belong to me."

He had promised me forever. He had sworn I would be his only partner, the mother of his children, the woman who stood by his side as he built his legacy.

Now, he slid into bed, his skin warm and clean, and tried to pull me into his arms. But the ghost of jasmine and roses lingered in my memory. I flinched, turning my back to him.

"April, what' s wrong?" he murmured, his breath hot on my neck.

"Nothing. I' m tired."

He wasn' t the man who had saved me. That man was gone, replaced by this stranger who smelled of ambition and betrayal.

A sharp, frantic knocking echoed from the front door, shattering the tense silence. It was nearly two in the morning.

Emerson sighed, a sound of pure exasperation. "Stay here."

I heard his footsteps, the front door opening, and then the hushed, urgent voice of Chloe Cochran' s butler. "Mr. Goodman, my apologies, but Miss Cochran has taken ill. She' s calling for you."

My blood ran cold.

I heard Emerson' s immediate response, no hesitation, no thought for me or our sleeping son. "I' ll be right there."

He came back into the room, pulling on a shirt. He didn' t even look at me. "Chloe' s not feeling well. She gets these terrible migraines. I need to go."

He said it so casually, as if he were talking about a business associate. But the slip was there, the unconscious intimacy. "Her doctor says stress makes them worse, and I' m the only one who knows how to massage her temples just right."

He paused at the door, a flicker of guilt crossing his features. "I' ll be back before you know it, April. Chloe' s just... fragile."

He expected me to wait. To sit here in our bed, in our home, while he went to comfort another woman. He expected me to be the ever-patient, ever-understanding April.

I turned my head on the pillow and gave him a small, tight smile. The smile of a ghost. "Of course. Take your time."

Relief washed over his face. He was so blind. He saw my smile and thought it was acceptance. He didn' t see the ice forming in my eyes, the steel hardening my spine.

He left. The front door clicked shut, leaving me and Dexter in the suffocating quiet of a house that was no longer a home.

He expected me to wait.

He was wrong. I wouldn' t be waiting for him ever again.

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