After I Made Him Don, He Cheated on Me

13 years ago, I pulled Alexander Roswell out of a small town and gave him everything my family had. I helped the Roswell family's unwanted second son become the Don he is today. The day he accepted the scepter that symbolized his authority as Don, he proposed to me. He held out a diamond ring, his eyes soft. "Evelyn, I love you. Once I've dealt with the traitors, we'll get married." I thought I wouldn't have to wait long. I was wrong. He betrayed me before he could keep that promise. He took Sienna Brooks, his young new assistant, to one of my family's hospitals for a prenatal checkup. He didn't even seem to care that he was on my territory. When I arrived, he was stroking her belly and discussing baby names with her. She leaned against him, looking perfectly happy. "Darling, do you think our baby could be your heir?" Alexander said nothing, but his silence was answer enough. He was actually considering it. Pain stabbed through my chest. The report slipped from my hand and fell to the floor. It confirmed that my fifth round of IVF had failed. Chapter 1 The report hit the floor with a sharp sound that broke the silence in the private room. Alexander's head snapped up, ready to lash out at whoever had interrupted him. Then he saw me standing in the doorway. He immediately let go of Sienna and walked over to me, wrapping an arm around my waist as he always did. "Honey..." I cut him off. "Is this what you meant by handling family business?" Tears burned my eyes, but I was the Slade heir. I couldn't afford to lose my dignity, so I straightened my spine and refused to let him see how much it hurt. He didn't answer. Instead, he glanced back at Sienna, who sat curled up nervously on the bed. Alexander pulled me out into the corridor. "Evelyn, Sienna scares easily. You frightened her." Then he frowned, his voice turning cold. "Why are you even here?" There was no concern in his eyes, only suspicion. He thought I'd followed him here. My heart clenched. Alexander, the man I'd loved for 13 years, had forgotten why I'd come to the hospital. I was there to get my IVF results. The realization drained the last bit of strength from me. "I have better things to do, Alexander. You're the one who owes me an explanation." He said nothing. He just kept looking at me with suspicion. I couldn't stand there any longer. I picked up my report from the floor and walked away. The moment I stepped out of the hospital, rain began to pour. My assistant hurried over with an umbrella, but I waved him away and walked into the rain alone. My mouth tasted bitter. I couldn't tell whether it was from the rain or my tears. All the way back to the estate, I kept hoping Alexander would come after me and explain himself. I even made excuses for him in my head. Maybe he was just taking care of a pregnant employee. Maybe the baby belonged to his brother, the one who had run away and never returned. But Alexander never came. He didn't even bother to explain. I lay on the huge silk-covered bed, tears slipping down my face. My phone sat beside me, but not a single message came. I cried myself to sleep and dreamed of the past. At 15, I was completing the Slade family's rite of passage in a small town called Grassmere, where I was funding a program for poor children. That was where I met Alexander. He was 17, badly injured, and covered in blood. He had just escaped from an underground fight club, and blood still trickled from the corner of his mouth. He stumbled into me and grabbed the spotless hem of my dress. "Do you need a bodyguard, miss? I'll be loyal to you forever." He looked up at me, his eyes bright with ambition and a desperate will to survive. My heart raced. "Just go stay at the house by the sea. I'll come see you and the baby when I have time. Don't worry. I'll keep you both safe." A familiar voice beside me pulled me out of the dream. I slowly opened my swollen eyes. Alexander was sitting on the couch in my bedroom, talking to Sienna on the phone. When he saw I was awake, he quickly hung up and came over to kiss me as though nothing had happened. I pushed against his shoulders, but he only held me tighter. "Did you sleep all right?" He scooped me up and carried me over to the dining table. "I got you your favorite chocolates." A box from my favorite chocolate shop sat on the table. Alexander picked up a piece and held it to my lips. I turned my head away as wave after wave of nausea rolled through me. He still thought I was the same woman I'd always been, as if one piece of chocolate could make everything okay again. I shot to my feet, sending the chair scraping across the floor, then headed for the stairs. I couldn't bear to look at Alexander again. The sight of him made me sick. He grabbed my hand. "Darling, are you jealous?" "Get lost." I tried to shake him off, but he pulled me into his arms and sighed softly in my ear. "Evelyn, I love you. Sienna is no threat to your place. You're the woman I love most." He kissed my earlobe, and my whole body trembled with disgust. I couldn't take it anymore. I slapped him. "Alexander Roswell, you make me sick. You're rotten to the core. You deliberately took your mistress to a Slade hospital for a prenatal checkup. Were you trying to humiliate me? Or are you trying to make an enemy of my family?" Anger flashed across his face. Since he'd become the Don, no one had dared speak to him that way. But he quickly suppressed it. "Evelyn, be reasonable. The Roswell family needs an heir, and the Slade hospitals are among the best in the world." I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to throw every failed IVF report in his face. But I couldn't. I was an heiress. I couldn't throw away the last of my dignity by breaking down over his secret lover and an illegitimate child. His words were so ridiculous I almost laughed. Did he think I didn't want a child? I'd always cared about my appearance and taken good care of my body. But to have his child, I'd swallowed countless pills and endured injection after injection. My stomach was now covered in needle marks. "Evelyn," Alexander said again, "I don't understand why you're upset. With Sienna, you get to be a mother without putting your body through any of it. When her baby is born, I'll hand him to you to raise." Rage flooded through me. I forgot all about keeping my composure. I grabbed the nearest thing on the table and hurled it at him. "Get out!" Right then, his phone rang. I glanced at the screen. Sienna. Alexander glanced at her name on the screen, told me to get some rest, and then left the estate. I sank to the floor amid the scattered chocolates, tears spilling down my face. A dull ache throbbed low in my stomach, right where I'd given myself another fertility shot that morning. For the first time, I saw Alexander for exactly what he was. Cold. Faithless. A hypocrite. One moment, he was whispering sweet words to me. The next, a single call from his mistress was enough to send him running out the door. I wasn't going to let him get away with trampling on the Slade family's dignity. I dried my eyes, picked up my phone, and sent one message. "Block every Roswell project currently underway." Chapter 2 It was late, and Alexander still wasn't home. He used to claim that family business kept him busy. Now he didn't even bother hiding his affair. Every time that man said he loved me, it was a lie. Just thinking about it made me sick. Sienna's smile flashed through my mind. She had a sweet, innocent face and two deep dimples that appeared whenever she smiled. That innocent face fooled me too. I opened Sienna's Instagram. Her pinned post was still a photo of the two of us. In it, I stood beside her, smiling with a bouquet in my arms as we celebrated her graduation. Back then, I was the one who told Alexander about her. Sienna had been a younger student at my school, and I'd supported her financially for four years. I told him she was kind, sweet, and full of life. On my recommendation, Alexander hired her as his assistant. I thought there would be less gossip if she worked for the Roswell Group instead of joining the Slade Group directly. And Sienna had always known Alexander was my fiancé. Before she started working for him, she took both my hands in hers and made me a promise. "Evelyn, I won't let another woman near Alexander. I swear it." She kept that promise, all right. She didn't let another woman near him because she wanted him for herself. She was just like Alexander. A liar to the core. Two seconds later, a new photo appeared on her Instagram. It showed two hands clasped together. I recognized Alexander's hand at once. The long scar he'd gotten while saving my life ran across the back of his hand. 13 years ago, I brought Alexander out of Grassmere. Our convoy was ambushed on the way home. I was the sole heiress to the Slade Group. My uncles wanted me dead so the succession would pass to their children. Alexander took a blow meant for me. He saved my life and got me home safely, but the attack left an ugly scar across the back of his hand. That was when I decided he was worth backing. He had ambition, and more importantly, he had the ability to match it. I used every resource at my disposal to support him. Step by step, I helped him fight his way back into the heart of the Roswell family and eventually become Don. And now, the same hand that had once saved my life was holding another woman's hand as he promised her a future. The photo turned my stomach. I tightened my grip on the file I'd prepared—the agreement that would permanently sever all business ties between the Roswell Group and the Slade Group. Alexander was going to pay dearly for betraying me. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, picked up the file, and headed for Roswell Group's headquarters. Alexander's office was on the top floor, overlooking the entire city. It was also where he'd proposed to me. That day, he'd gone down on one knee with the whole city spread out beneath us. "Alexander Roswell swears on his life that he will never betray Evelyn Slade." What a joke that promise had become. Now he was sitting behind his desk with an arm around Sienna, laughing and talking with her. "Evelyn, I've missed you so much." Sienna spotted me first and hurried over, reaching for my arm as she always had. I turned away before she could touch me, walked straight past her, and stopped in front of Alexander. "Sign it." He took the file from me. "Evelyn, are you still upset? The Slade Group has been canceling my projects lately, but I don't mind. Everything was always meant for you anyway." Sienna jumped in, pretending to be concerned. "Evelyn, don't be angry with Alexander. He hasn't been able to sleep because of this. He's been working until dawn every night. It hurts me to see you two fighting because of me. You're the two people I love most. As for the baby... I've agreed to Alexander's plan. Once the baby is born, I'll give the baby to you to raise." I let out a cold laugh and ignored her sickening little performance. I kept my eyes on Alexander. "Sign it. This ends all joint projects between our companies." He looked at me like I was a child throwing a tantrum. Then he picked up a pen and signed without a second thought. "Evelyn, you're adorable when you're being childish. Does this fake document make you feel better?" I almost laughed. How ridiculous. How pathetic. I'd loved Alexander so much that I'd spoiled him. Now he believed this was nothing more than another tantrum. He truly believed I would never leave him. Chapter 3 I walked out of the Roswell Group building and was about to text my father when Sienna called after me. Every employee who passed by gave her a respectful nod. I almost laughed. So everyone at the Roswell Group had known about Sienna and Alexander for a long time. They were already treating her like the Don's future wife. Yet Alexander still had the nerve to lie to my face. Looking back, I was a fool to trust them both so completely. "What do you want?" I asked coldly. Sienna smiled sweetly, one hand gently stroking her belly. "Evelyn, this is Alexander's first child. You love him so much. You're going to love this baby too, aren't you?" She tilted her head, as if remembering something from the past. "Thank you for coming to my graduation party. If you hadn't, I would never have met Alexander. "He was tall, handsome, and rich. He was cold to everyone at the party except you. Whenever he looked at you, his eyes were full of love. "I fell for him the moment I saw him. "So I did everything I could to become your closest friend because getting close to you was the only way to get close to him. "You were our Cupid." I couldn't take it anymore. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face. My hand trembled afterward. Our friendship had been a lie. So was the love I'd once believed would last forever. My father was right. In this world, money and power are the only things that will never betray me. "Evelyn, is this how an heiress is supposed to behave? How could you slap a pregnant woman in the street?" Alexander's icy voice came from behind me. I turned around. His face was dark with anger. Sienna had deliberately thrown herself to the ground. She clung to his sleeve and cried quietly. "I'm sorry, darling. I made Evelyn angry." Alexander quickly helped her up, his face full of concern as he checked her for injuries. "Are you hurt?" Sienna pressed a hand to her stomach. "My stomach hurts a little. Darling, do you think something's wrong with the baby?" Alexander immediately swept her into his arms. He kissed her forehead and murmured, "Don't worry. We're going to the hospital right now. The baby will be perfectly fine." Before leaving, he turned to me, his eyes filled with disgust. "Evelyn, you've disappointed me. You used to love children. Now you're willing to hurt an unborn child." I froze. For a moment, I could barely breathe. Three years ago, the remaining Roswell traitors had joined forces and kidnapped me. They wanted Alexander to know what it was like to lose the woman he loved while also facing the Slade family's fury. After all, I'd only been dragged into their fight because of Alexander. In the end, I escaped on my own. I'd been trained to handle almost anything since childhood. But by the time I fought my way out, I was badly injured. When Alexander finally found me, I was lying in a hospital bed, pale and weak after surgery. I'd lost our first child. The kidnapping hadn't just taken my baby from me. The injuries had damaged my uterus so badly that it was now incredibly difficult for me to get pregnant again. Back then, Alexander sat beside my bed, holding my hand and crying. He promised me that it didn't matter whether we ever had another child. He swore he'd love me forever either way. And now, that same man was using my inability to give him a child against me. Chapter 4 I went back to the estate and began packing my things. This was the home Alexander had promised me. I'd lived here with him for five years. And now, he'd destroyed that home with his own hands. There was nothing left here worth staying for. When Alexander came home, he found me quietly packing my things with my back to him. He walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Evelyn, stop being difficult." The moment his body pressed against mine, my skin crawled with disgust. He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, "We need a child. We need an heir. The Roswell family needs one, and so does the Slade family. Sienna's baby is going to be our baby. Our heir." My hands froze. Then I turned around and shoved him away. "Spare me your lies, Alexander. You betrayed everything we had. I was willing to put my body through round after round of IVF because I loved you. We're finished." Alexander stared at me as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. With nothing more to say, I turned to leave. He grabbed my wrist and yanked me against his chest. "I won't allow it, Evelyn. I won't let you leave me. You'll be the only woman I ever marry. Without you, my life means nothing." I tore myself free and slapped him across the face. "If you don't want to make the Slade family your enemy, get your hands off me." The slap shattered what little pride Alexander had left as Don. His face twisted with rage. He snapped that if I really walked away from him, our families would be enemies from that day forward. "If you have any sense left, Alexander," I said coldly, "you won't do that." The Slade Group's influence reaches across the world. If Alexander officially declared war on us, the Roswell family wouldn't stand behind him. They'd kill him themselves and apologize to the Slades. He knew that as well as I did. Alexander had no choice but to let me go. When I returned to my own home, I noticed the preserved rose beside my bed. Alexander had given it to me the first time he confessed his feelings for me. He'd said, "Evelyn, you're the flower in my heart that never wilts." I let out a bitter laugh, picked up the rose, and tossed it into the trash. His gift was just like his promises. Worthless. I turned to one of my assistants. "Find Alexander's oldest brother. Tell him he's going to be the new head of the Roswell family."