The collapse of the Winston Overpass was all over the news. Over twenty people dead or injured, and the blame landed squarely on my father. Lucas Wahl, the section supervisor, had used substandard materials, and they said he embezzled the construction funds. Then they said it to my face.
“Your father embezzled construction funds and caused this collapse. ”
That was the first blow. The second came from Eric’s mother, Michelle, who cornered me at the memorial: “My husband died here and you’re still clinging to my son? ”
I knew Eric and I were over long before that.
When his father died in the collapse, something between us broke. But I never expected the words that came next. “I knew it was over between me and your dad,” I finally admitted. I’d been carrying that truth alone, thinking I was protecting him.
“For real? ” Eric asked. “I didn’t want you to have those complications,” I said. “I’m leaving this town.
I’m sorry to everyone. ”
Eric just said, “Beth, you must take care of yourself. ” And then I was gone, believing I was doing the right thing. I had no idea how badly I’d misjudged everything.
Six years passed before I returned. I had no choice. My daughter, Nina, was sick, really sick, and the only hospital that could treat her was in the town I swore I’d never set foot in again. “Mommy, you said we should never come back to this town,” Nina said, small and pale in the back seat.
“I know, but your treatment can’t wait any longer, Nina. This is the best hospital. I’m going to get you better, okay? ”
Nina was the reason I existed.
I’d do anything for her. Anything. When we arrived at the hospital, I discovered the treatment Nina needed was controlled by the Zane Group, a pharmaceutical empire. I needed to talk to their CEO.
I thought I was walking into a business meeting. I had no idea who was behind the desk. I was in the middle of pleading with the receptionist when I heard a voice I never wanted to hear again. “Beth.
”
Eric Moss. He looked older, harder. And he was the CEO of Zane Group. The man who controlled the medicine that could save my daughter’s life was the man whose father died because of mine.
He immediately went for the ring I still wore—not out of love, but out of habit. “I used to wear that ring,” he said coldly, holding out his hand. “Did you think I still had feelings for you? Here.
I think you should have it back. ”
“No,” I said. “Honey, why are you here? ”
“Who’s this?
” Eric asked, looking at Nina. “Mommy! Who is this? ” Nina tugged at my sleeve.
“Um, this is Mr. Eric Moss. Say hi to him. ”
“Hi, Eric.
Why do you want my pancakes? ”
Eric laughed, but there was nothing friendly in it. “Wow. What a beautiful family you have.
And Bob. And Beth. I must say, you have amazing taste. ”
Bob was the man I’d let him believe I was with.
A lie to keep him away, to protect him from the guilt of being with the daughter of the man who killed his father. But Eric didn’t know that. “Don’t you touch him,” I warned him, my voice breaking. “You are the one who left me.
So you don’t get to say anything. ”
“You can think whatever you want,” Eric said. “I hope I never see you again. ”
And I meant it.
I just didn’t realize how impossible that would be. When Nina’s condition worsened, I begged the Zane Group for a meeting. I told the receptionist I’d do anything to save my daughter. Anything.
Then Eric walked in. “Didn’t you say you’d pay any price? ” He looked at me, disgust curling his lip. “Stay with me for the night and the medicine is yours.
Take your clothes off. ”
He was punishing me. Punishing me for leaving, for moving on, for everything he believed I’d done. “How could you stoop so low?
” I whispered. “I will do anything. Just give me the medicine. ”
Eric laughed, a cruel, hollow sound.
“You’re just not worth the price anymore. ” He threw the medicine on the floor. “Pick it up. Is there really nothing you wouldn’t do for this?
”
I was on my knees, reaching for the medicine, when I saw Nina’s face in the doorway. She’d seen everything. My dignity, my desperation, my shame. All of it.
He was a cruel man. And I hated him for it. But then Nina collapsed. She was losing blood, the hospital bank was low, and every second mattered.
“I’m blood type B,” Eric said without hesitation. “No, Eric, you can’t,” I screamed. “She’s your daughter! ”
He froze.
Everyone froze. But in that moment, the truth didn’t matter to him. He still wanted to save her. And when the new blood arrived, it wasn’t even needed.
Nina would live. Later, after Nina stabilized, I promised her we’d visit her grandfather’s grave, meaning my father. But Eric’s mother, Michelle, found us there. “What are you doing here?
” she spat. “Visiting the grave,” I said. “Visiting the grave? You have no right whatsoever to come here and honor Eric’s father.
Your father caused his death. You all killed my husband. ”
“Mom, please calm down,” Eric said. “Don’t push my mother,” Nina shouted at her.
Michelle looked at me with pure hatred in her eyes. “You’ll carry this guilt for the rest of your life, straight to hell. You’ll never know any peace. ”
I didn’t have the strength to fight her.
Not then. Not when I was still hiding the truth from my own daughter. But little Nina was smarter than all of us. She noticed things.
Like the ring that Eric wore that matched mine. And she started asking questions. “Mom, why does your ring match Eric’s? ”
“I think we just happened to buy the same one,” I lied.
“That looks like a wedding ring to me,” Nina said, her eyes wide and calculating. “Could Eric be my dad? I need to find out. ”
I tried to keep her away from him, but Nina was determined.
She showed up at his office asking to see his ring. “It’s exactly like my mom’s ring,” she told him. “He must be my dad. ”
I found her there and dragged her away, but the damage was done.
Eric started asking questions, and his mother answered them with bitter lies. “She said she lost your ring and she wanted to see mine,” Eric told me later, confused. “She’s a child, Eric. You take everything she says at face value?
”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not while Michelle was poisoning everything. Still, I needed money. Nina’s medical bills were draining everything I had.
So when I got an offer to do promotional artwork for Zane Group, I took it. I told myself it was for Nina. I could handle being near Eric. I could handle his coldness, his cruelty, if it meant my daughter got better.
But Eric made it impossible. “If it’s money that you want, I’ll make you an offer,” he said, cornering me. “You’re my mistress, and I’ll pay you. ”
“Get off of me,” I said, pushing him away.
He grabbed my hand, forcing me to look at my ring. “See this ring? Tell me that this ring means nothing to you. ”
“If I tell you the truth, would it change anything?
” I asked. “What if I said it would? ”
Eric’s fiancée, Olivia Ellis, chose that exact moment to walk in. She was beautiful, polished, and utterly poisonous.
“I do not love you,” Eric told her bluntly. “The only reason that you and I are engaged is because it was my mother’s wish before her heart got worse. ”
“That doesn’t change how I feel about you, Eric,” Olivia said, her composure cracking. I was caught in the middle.
And Olivia knew it. She cornered me later, sliding a contract across the table. “Leave here in 3 days and you’ll find a million dollars waiting for you in your London account. Sounds like a pretty good deal, isn’t it?
”
“And by the way,” she added, “if you don’t go to London, the contract automatically becomes useless. ”
A million dollars. I could pay Nina’s medical bills. I could give her a life far away from this mess.
I took the deal. I was preparing to leave when Eric confronted me. “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you,” he told Olivia in front of everyone. He was breaking off the engagement.
He wanted to be with me. But it was too late. I’d already agreed to leave, already packed my bags. “Goodbye, Eric.
I think we should just be strangers now,” I told him. “Take care of yourself. ”
He looked crushed. “Why can’t Mommy talk things through with Daddy?
” Nina asked, confused by the tension she could feel but not understand. I didn’t have an answer for her. I just wanted to disappear. I didn’t get to.
Fate kept pulling us together. The National Gallery reached out, inviting me to hold an art exhibition. It was an incredible opportunity, one I couldn’t afford to turn down. But it was a trap.
On the day of the opening, I found my paintings destroyed, slashed and ruined. “There’s been a malicious disruption at the venue,” the gallery manager said, pale with shock. Olivia. It had to be Olivia.
I held the exhibition anyway, introducing just a few pieces personally, smiling through my devastation. And there was Eric, watching from the crowd. He’d paid someone to ruin my paintings. The thought was a poisoned seed in my mind.
Then I found him at the bar after the event, drunk and pathetic. “My wife left me,” he slurred when I approached. He was talking about me, about us. “You know I love you,” he pleaded, grabbing my arm.
“You know I love you. ”
“Eric, there is no chance that we are going to get back together,” I said, pulling free. He fell to his knees, begging. “No, no, don’t leave me.
I’m begging you. Please, just stop saying no. ”
I walked away. I had to.
But Michelle wasn’t done with me. She showed up at my apartment, screaming. “Olivia said Eric stayed at your place last night! How dare you get back with my son?
”
“We’re not together,” I told her, trying to protect Nina from the chaos. “If you don’t want to be charged with breaking and entering, I suggest you leave. Now. ”
Michelle looked at Nina, really looked at her.
“She looks so much like Eric,” she said, and I saw the calculation in her eyes. “Could she be…? ”
She watched Nina, studied her. And then she ordered a paternity test without telling anyone.
Eric found out and confronted her. “Mom, what the hell is this DNA test all about? ”
“Stop acting like you have no idea what I’m talking about. Why would you have a DNA test done on Nina?
”
“I suspected that Beth’s child might be yours,” Michelle said flatly. “And you’ve been hiding this from me the whole time? ” Eric’s voice shook. “I always suspected that she was unfaithful to you,” Michelle said.
“It’s like I was right all along. ”
The test results came back, and Eric was furious, convinced I had betrayed him, that Nina wasn’t his. He didn’t believe me. Wouldn’t even look at me.
I was broken. “If I tell you the truth, would it change anything? ” I’d asked him once. And now I knew the answer.
I finally admitted to him that his father was drunk driving that night. “My father was drunk driving that night. That accident back then was because my father was drunk. He sped up and he ended up on that collapsed road.
My mother, she could never really accept the truth. All these years, I just kept blaming myself. I’ve been carrying this guilt for all these years, just blaming myself that if he didn’t get in the car, if he never got on that road, if he wasn’t drinking, if I had just stopped him. Maybe none of this would have happened.
”
“You can’t change the past, dear,” I said, because it was what I’d told myself a thousand times. “And you’re engaged now. That’s just a line I can’t cross. ”
“I broke off the engagement with Olivia,” Eric said.
“Please, tell me that you still have some love for me. ”
“I have only ever loved you,” I admitted. “Will you be with me again? ”
“Yes.
”
“Let’s get married and make up for all this lost time. ”
And then I told him the truth. “Eric, Nina is your daughter. ”
“Whether Nina is my daughter or not, I promise I will always be there for both of you.
”
But the word “whether” cut me to the bone. He didn’t believe me. The DNA report was in his hands, and it said Nina wasn’t his child. Someone had forged it, but I didn’t know who.
All I knew was that the man I loved didn’t trust me. “I cannot believe he just did that,” I confided to my mother. “I don’t like him anymore,” Nina chimed in, angry on my behalf. I told her the truth then.
“Eric is your dad. He’s your real dad. ”
Nina’s eyes widened. “What?
How did that even…? ”
“I know we had our misunderstandings, but we figured it out. Are you mad I kept it from you? ”
“No,” she whispered, a smile breaking through.
“As long as you’re happy, I’m happy. I have a dad now. ”
But our happiness was fragile. Olivia, Eric’s insane fiancée, crashed our life again.
“You’re my fiancée,” Olivia spat at Eric. “Don’t I have the right to confront the woman who’s trying to steal you and her little bastard? ”
“Our engagement ended a very long time ago,” Eric said, his voice steely. “So you have no right to say anything hurtful about my wife or my daughter.
Get out. ”
“Do you really think that this filthy child is yours? ” Olivia sneered. “Nina is Eric’s child,” I insisted.
“His child? Do you really think Eric believes this crap? Michelle already told him that you ran off with another man. So tell me, who do you think he’s going to believe?
”
Eric’s silence was my answer. He believed them. He believed everyone but me. “I told you, whether Nina is mine or not, I’ll always take care of her,” Eric said, and the words felt like a knife.
“So you believe her? ” I said, hating the quiver in my voice. “Yeah. It’s really disappointing.
It’s hard to believe this. ”
“Hate you,” I whispered. Eric’s obsession only grew after that. He drugged my drink and kidnapped me, taking me to a private estate.
He was out of his mind with jealousy and anger, professing his love while imprisoning me. “I’ll give you some time to accept me,” he said. I couldn’t accept him. I couldn’t accept any of this.
His own mother helped me escape, not out of kindness but out of spite. “Once you leave, never show your face around us again. Deal? ”
“Deal.
”
I ran. I ran to my mother’s, to Nina. I thought I was free. Then Eric came after me, raging, accusing me.
I thought he’d lost his mind completely when he grabbed my arm by the side of the road. “Why did you leave again, huh? You promised. What makes him better than me, huh?
What did I do wrong? ”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Eric. It’s just too late. ”
“It is too late for us to ever go back to how things were.
We should have ended this when you stopped trusting me. ”
“How was I supposed to believe you? ” he shouted. “I already got the DNA tests.
Nina is not my child. I wanted to believe you. I got the results. ”
“Nina is your child, Eric.
Have you ever considered that maybe those results were fake? ”
His expression shifted. Something dangerous was taking shape behind his eyes. Nina really was his child.
When Eric ran a proper test, the result came back undeniable: “The probability of paternity is 99. 99%? ”
And when Michelle saw that result, she didn’t apologize. She didn’t embrace us.
She saw only one thing: an heiress. “Nina is Eric’s child. She’s the true heiress to our family,” Michelle said, her voice cold and calculating. “I can’t allow that woman to stay, but the child must be with us.
”
Eric stood up to her, finally, truly. “Mom, the child stays with her mother. And her mother is my wife. And that’s the end of this.
”
Michelle backed down, but her hatred for me only grew. I was done. Done with their family, their cruelty, their chaos. I told Eric it was over.
We were going back to London, away from all of them, forever. We were at the airport. Nina was holding my hand, chattering about the flight. Then Michelle’s men appeared.
They grabbed Nina, dragged her away right in front of me, threw her into a car. I screamed. I screamed her name until my throat was raw. Eric arrived, furious.
“They took Nina,” I gasped. “Your mother’s men took her. ”
He rushed off to find her, and I was left alone, terrified. I found out later that Michelle had arranged for Nina to be kidnapped by her own goons, engineered a fake ransom situation to get her back and claim she’d “saved” her.
The deception was monstrous. I demanded my daughter back, and Eric confronted his mother. “Mom, where is she? Where’s Nina?
”
“Who else would have taken her? ” Michelle said, feigning innocence. “She’s my most precious heiress. I just brought her home.
”
“Mom, give her back now. ”
The staged kidnapping backfired spectacularly. In the chaos of trading money for Nina, one of the hired criminals grabbed me instead. A knife pressed against my throat.
Eric was shouting. Then I felt a sharp burning pain, and everything went black. I woke up in a hospital bed. Eric was there, holding my hand, his face pale and drawn.
Michelle was in the corner, her face a mask of guilt. “The stitches went well and she’s out of danger,” the doctor said. “But the wound will leave a scar. ”
I looked at Eric, and I saw everything we’d been through.
All the pain, the lies, the mistrust. “Eric, I don’t think I can do this anymore. Will you please tell Michelle when she wakes up? Just tell her thank you.
”
And I left. I left again. A month passed. Eric was a wreck, I later learned.
Alone and guilty. Then Michelle came to see me. She looked older, smaller. “Beth, I owe you an apology.
All these years, I knew it wasn’t fully your fault, but I just blamed you for everything about my husband. ”
“I think we can leave that in the past,” I said. “No. Over time, I’ve come to see how wrong I was.
Beth, Eric still loves you. I’m sorry. Please come back to us. ”
I looked at Nina, who looked back at me with my own eyes.
“What do you think, Nina? Should we give Grandma and Daddy another chance? ”
“If you are willing to, then I am, too. ”
Eric found us soon after.
He was unshaven, rumpled, his eyes filled with relief and regret. “Of course I came back, Eric,” I told him when he appeared at the door. He gathered Nina into a hug, then pulled me close. “I don’t want to move away with Daddy,” Nina said, giggling.
“I want to enjoy my busy life with Serena. ”
“And me, too,” I added, laughing. “It’s so good to see you. Both of you.
”
Months later, at the wedding, I stood in a white dress, looking at Eric as he walked toward me. My mother was there. His mother was there. Nina was there, wearing a little dress and grinning from ear to ear.
“Mr. Eric Moss, do you promise to love Beth Wall in all times, good and bad? ”
“I do. ”
“Miss Beth Wall, do you promise to stay by Mr.
Eric Moss’s side in sickness and in health? ”
“I do. ”
Eric’s old rival appeared, a man named Owen, but he only offered me a kind smile. “Beth, you’re marrying him.
And I wish you nothing but happiness. ”
“Thank you. I hope you find happiness, too. ”
“I will.
”
The officiant smiled. “Mr. Eric Moss and Beth Wall, you may now kiss. ”
Eric leaned in, and I let myself finally believe we’d made it.
The collapse, the lies, the betrayals, they were all behind us. We were on the other side, together.
