Beyond Betrayal: Our Unexpected Love Story

Beyond Betrayal: Our Unexpected Love Story

Gavin

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I woke up in a hospital bed after a brutal car crash. I had a powerful fiancé, Crawford Pierce, and a revolutionary project that was my life's work, set to merge our two family empires. The first words I heard were from my stepsister, Brittany, telling me she was pregnant with his child. "I'm so sorry, Althea," she sobbed. "We have a connection. It just... happened." My own father walked in, comforting her while telling me a baby was a good business move. Then Crawford, my fiancé, walked past my bed without a glance, placed a hand on her stomach, and asked if the baby was okay. They hadn't just stolen my future; they had stolen my project, presenting it as their own to secure their new union. They stood before me, a perfect picture of betrayal, expecting me to scream and fall apart. They saw me as an obstacle to be managed, my entire life's work just an asset to be liquidated. But they didn't know my secret. The crash had given me more than just injuries; it had given me a vision. A horrifying glimpse into a future where I fought them and lost everything. So I didn't give them the fight they wanted. I gave them a smile, the engagement ring, and my blessing. They thought they had won. They had no idea they just walked into my trap.

Chapter 1

I woke up in a hospital bed after a brutal car crash. I had a powerful fiancé, Crawford Pierce, and a revolutionary project that was my life's work, set to merge our two family empires.

The first words I heard were from my stepsister, Brittany, telling me she was pregnant with his child.

"I'm so sorry, Althea," she sobbed. "We have a connection. It just... happened."

My own father walked in, comforting her while telling me a baby was a good business move. Then Crawford, my fiancé, walked past my bed without a glance, placed a hand on her stomach, and asked if the baby was okay. They hadn't just stolen my future; they had stolen my project, presenting it as their own to secure their new union.

They stood before me, a perfect picture of betrayal, expecting me to scream and fall apart. They saw me as an obstacle to be managed, my entire life's work just an asset to be liquidated.

But they didn't know my secret. The crash had given me more than just injuries; it had given me a vision. A horrifying glimpse into a future where I fought them and lost everything. So I didn't give them the fight they wanted. I gave them a smile, the engagement ring, and my blessing. They thought they had won. They had no idea they just walked into my trap.

Chapter 1

Althea Roberts POV:

The first thing I heard when I woke up was my stepsister, Brittany, telling me she was pregnant with my fiancé' s child.

Her voice was a tear-choked whisper, cutting through the fog of painkillers and the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor next to my hospital bed.

"I'm so sorry, Althea. I truly am."

I blinked, trying to make the sterile white ceiling tiles stop spinning. The last thing I remembered was the screech of tires, the impossible crunch of metal, and a searing pain that felt like my entire world was being ripped apart. Then, a flash. A vision so vivid it felt more real than the memory of the crash itself: Brittany, standing beside my fiancé, Crawford Pierce, at a press conference, announcing not only their engagement but the launch of my project. The project I had bled for over the last two years.

My ruin.

"Althea, please say something," Brittany sobbed, her perfectly manicured hand gripping mine. It felt cold. "I love him. I never, ever meant to hurt you, but Crawford and I... we have a connection. It just... happened."

Her words were a dull hum, a soundtrack to the horror playing out in my mind. The vision hadn't stopped with the press conference. It showed me fighting them, trying to reclaim what was mine, only to be publicly humiliated, financially ruined, and left with nothing. A pariah.

"We' ve been seeing each other for a few months," she confessed, her voice dropping as if sharing a dirty secret. "We wanted to tell you, but there was never a right time. And now... with the baby... we can' t live a lie anymore."

She squeezed my hand harder, her diamond bracelet digging into my skin. "If you make me give him up, Althea, you' ll be tearing a family apart before it even begins. You wouldn' t do that, would you? You couldn't be that cruel."

The door to the private room swished open, and our father, Hale Rodgers, walked in. His gaze landed on Brittany, his expression softening with a paternal concern he never seemed to have for me.

He walked straight past my bed and put a comforting arm around her slumped shoulders. "There, there, sweetheart. It' s going to be alright."

He finally turned to me, his face a mask of weary disappointment. "Althea, Brittany has told me everything. Look, these things happen. You' re a strong woman. You can find someone else. Pierce Industries is a powerful family, and this merger is important. A baby solidifies that alliance."

He made it sound like a business transaction. My life, my love, my future-all just assets to be liquidated for the good of the company.

"It was a mistake, Dad," Brittany whimpered into his chest. "A single mistake."

"Of course, it was, honey," he soothed, stroking her blonde hair. "A momentary lapse in judgment."

I watched them, a perfect tableau of paternal love and daughterly distress. The only problem was, I was his daughter too. The illegitimate one, the product of an affair he' d rather forget, a constant, quiet reminder of his past indiscretions. Brittany was the legitimate heir, the golden child. I was just... the strategist. The workhorse.

Even through her sobs, I could see it. I had seen it in my vision. Her grief wasn't real. Her eyes, red-rimmed and swollen, held a flicker of something else. Something cold and hard and triumphant.

She wasn't just my stepsister who had fallen in love with my fiancé.

She knew.

Just like me, she had lived this life before. She had seen the future where I married Crawford, where our project made us the undisputed power couple of the industry, where she was left in the dust. And she had come back to get a head start. To steal it all before I even had a chance to live it.

Every tear was a calculated performance. Every sob was a weapon. She wasn't just taking my fiancé; she was executing a pre-emptive strike, rewriting a history that hadn't happened yet.

My father' s patronizing tone, Brittany' s feigned remorse, the sterile smell of the hospital-it was all a cage closing in around me. They expected me to fight, to scream, to make a scene. That' s what the Althea in my vision did. And she lost.

I took a slow, painful breath, the movement pulling at the stitches in my side.

I wouldn' t be her.

The door opened again. This time, it was him. Crawford Pierce. Tall, impeccably dressed, his handsome face etched with a look of conflicted gravity. He looked from my bandaged head to Brittany' s tear-streaked face. His gaze lingered on her, his expression softening in a way it hadn't for me in months.

He walked past my bed, his expensive shoes silent on the linoleum floor, and stopped in front of Brittany. He didn't even look at me.

He placed a gentle hand on her stomach.

"Is the baby okay?"

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