Chapter 6 - The Mistress Flees The Ship
“Sixty percent?” Lourdes’s screech was loud enough to distort the digital audio feed. She grabbed the edge of the conference table to keep from collapsing onto the floor. “That’s our entire majority control! That’s my late husband’s life work! You want to take our family company away from us?”
“Your late husband’s company was forty million dollars in debt when he died, Lourdes,” Helena replied, her voice cutting through the hysteria like an icy scalpel. “My automated patents were the only reason the commercial banks didn't foreclose on this very tower six years ago. You didn't build this empire. My algorithms did. If you refuse to sign the equity transfer agreement by twelve o'clock, the city will revoke your contract, the performance bond will be called, and your company will enter involuntary chapter seven bankruptcy by Friday morning.”
Helena glanced at her wristwatch. “You have exactly three hours and twelve minutes to decide whether you want to own forty percent of a solvent company, or one hundred percent of a bankrupt shell. Good day.”
The screen went black.
The conference room descended into a suffocating, funeral silence.
Rodrigo stood frozen, his eyes glued to the dark monitor. His entire reality—the power, the luxury, the unquestioned status of a high-society tycoon—had been dismantled in less than twenty-four hours by the very woman he had dismissed as replaceable.
Beside him, Marcela began frantically pulling off the diamond bracelet I had left in the hotel suite. Her eyes were wide with panic, darting around the lavish boardroom as if the walls were already caving in around them.
“Marcela? What are you doing?” Rodrigo asked, turning to her with a dazed, hollow expression.
“I’m leaving, Rodrigo,” Marcela said, her voice shaking as she threw the bracelet onto the conference table. The white-gold diamonds clattered against the wood, skidding across the spilled water.
“Leaving?” Rodrigo grabbed her wrist, his voice cracking with disbelief. “You’re carrying my son! You’re seven months pregnant! We are supposed to build a new life together!”
Marcela violently wrenched her arm out of his grasp, stepping backward toward the exit. The loving, submissive intern who had purred in his ear for six months had vanished entirely, replaced by a calculating opportunist looking for an escape hatch.
“I came here to build a life with a billionaire, Rodrigo!” Marcela screamed, tears of frustration ruining her expensive makeup. “Not a disgraced, bankrupt fraud who is about to be sued into oblivion by the city! Do you think I want my child growing up in a foreclosed townhouse while your mother screams about losing her country club membership?”
Lourdes gasped, clutching her chest in horror. “You insolent little tramp! How dare you speak to my son like that after everything he bought for you?”
“He bought everything with Helena’s money!” Marcela spat back, glaring at both of them with vicious contempt. “I’m taking my things from the penthouse and moving back to my parents' estate in Miami. Don't bother calling me, Rodrigo. My lawyers will send you the child support paperwork after the baby is born!”
May you like
She spun around on her designer stilettos and stormed out of the boardroom, her heels clicking rapidly down the marble hallway until the elevator doors chimed shut.
Rodrigo stood alone in the center of the vast room, staring at the diamond bracelet resting in the puddle of water, completely abandoned by the woman he had destroyed his marriage to keep.
