Leah

"Mr. Lachlan, w-what are you doing here?" Victor asked, standing up to his full height.

I turned around to see an elderly man in an expensive looking suit and sharp grey eyes staring at me like he had just seen a ghost. What the hell was going on?

My husband scrambled forward, fixing a polite smile on his face. "I was just about to come out in time for the award. I—"

The man brushed him out of the way without sparing him a single glance, and approached me slowly. "It's really you."

"Haha," Victor laughed, glaring at me from over the man's shoulder. "Please allow me to introduce my fiancée Gia Russell. Trust me you have no interest with Leah. She's nothing but a wretched orphan and—"

"She's my granddaughter." The man cut in.

The words were like a bullet fired in the room. Victor's head turned sharply toward Gia's and then mine, a mixture of shock, confusion and horror written on his face.

*Granddaughter?* The word echoed in my mind, bouncing around like it couldn't find a place to land. This had to be some kind of mistake. I was nobody. I was nothing. Just an abandoned baby left on church steps.

"You're mistaken, sir," Victor stated.

The man shot him a look of annoyance. "This is my long lost granddaughter. She's the spitting image of her mother, my daughter who I lost in the helicopter accident twenty years ago."

Twenty years ago. The same timeframe from the news broadcast this morning. My legs felt weak. This couldn't be happening. Not now, not like this.

"I think you're mistaken," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I'm not your granddaughter. I'm an orphan. I was left outside a church as a baby and was raised in the orphanage."

The man shook his head sadly and pulled out his wallet from his pocket then opened it and pulled out a photo. "That's your mother, my child."

I was reluctant to take the photo, but eventually accepted it with shaky hands. As soon as I saw the woman in the photo, I sucked in a breath. She looked like an almost perfect replica of me. The same green eyes, the same dark hair.

My world tilted on its axis. All those years of wondering who I was, where I came from, why I was abandoned—and here was the answer staring back at me from a photograph. This woman was my mother. This distinguished man was my grandfather. I had a family. I had always had a family.

"It can't be," Gia screeched, ripping the photo from my hand and staring at it with anger. "There has to be some mistake somewhere. It's simply a coincidence. This good-for-nothing Leah can't possibly be the Lachlan heiress. It's impossible."

*Heiress.* The word hit me like a physical blow. All my life, I'd been told I was worthless, unwanted, a burden. Victor's mother had called me a parasite just this morning. And now... I was an heiress? To what seemed like a fortune, judging by this man's presence at such an exclusive event?

"As soon as I saw her in the reception hall, I thought I'd seen a ghost," the old man said with a trembling voice. He raised his hand and placed it on my cheek, the same cheek that my husband had hit earlier this evening. "I knew it deep in my heart that I had finally found you. I don't usually come to these events, but I was moved to come for this one. Now I see that it was fate all along."

His touch was gentle, grandfatherly. When was the last time someone had touched me with such tenderness? Certainly not Victor. Not his mother. Not anyone in years. Tears pricked my eyes as something inside me—something I'd kept buried for so long—began to crack open.

"Of course it was fate," Victor said with an adoring smile. "If I didn't bring my wife along, all of this wouldn't have happened either. I guess I had a hand in fate too, don't you think, father-in-law."

And there it was. The chameleon changing colors again. Five minutes ago I was a wretched orphan he was eager to discard. Now I was his beloved wife again. The calculation in his eyes made my stomach turn.

"Excuse me?" Gia demanded. "We are engaged. He's not your father-in-law."

"Shut up," he replied. "Did you really think I'd leave my adoring wife who helped me go from being a mere manager to become a senior associate and now a board member for you? Do you even know all Leah has done for me? She has loved and supported me from day one. Choosing to live a modest life instead of squandering money on expensive shoes and clothes like you."

I gaped at the man I'd called my husband for three whole years of my life. It suddenly dawned on me that I had never known this man. He was nothing but a leech and a chameleon. Ready to feed off everyone around him and change his colors accordingly.

The clarity was startling. For the first time in years, I could see Victor for exactly what he was. Not the man I'd fallen in love with, not someone who had ever truly cared about me, but a user. A manipulator who saw opportunities where others saw people. And now he saw a new opportunity in my newfound status.

Disgust rolled through me as I stared at him now.

Hearing him recognize my role in his life now made it clear to me that I had wasted my life building a man who never valued me when I should have been building my own self. But maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe this revelation—this impossible, life-changing revelation—was my chance to start over.

"Is this man your husband, child?" Mr. Lachlan asked me, looking startled.

"Of course. Three years and counting of marital bliss," Victor said, dropping a hand around my shoulders.

I immediately shrugged out of his hold and bent to pick up the divorce papers he had so carelessly flung at me. The papers felt different in my hands now. Not like a death sentence, but like a liberation. "Please, do you have a pen, Mr. Lachlan?"

"Here," the old man pulled out a fountain pen with a flourish. "And I hope in future you can call me grandfather."

*Grandfather.* I had a grandfather. Someone who was looking at me with love and pride instead of disgust and disappointment. Someone who wanted to claim me, not discard me.

"No need to sign that," Victor tried to pull the documents away, but I pushed him off and grabbed the pen, quickly scribbling my name on the dotted line.

Each letter of my signature felt like breaking a chain. With every stroke of the pen, I was freeing myself from three years of emotional abuse, manipulation, and lies. I was choosing myself for the first time in my adult life.

"You wanted to get rid of me so badly," I said, looking directly at my now ex-husband. "Well, I guess you succeeded." I flung the document at him. "You and Gia, you deserve each other. Congratulations on your engagement."

"I hope this doesn't affect my place on the board, Mr. Lachlan," Victor said desperately. "Leah and I weren't a good fit romantically, but I'm sure I'll be a perfect fit on your team of board members."

I opened my mouth to tell him that he didn't deserve the place on the board since I was the one who had helped him get to where he was, but my grandfather beat me to it.

"As a matter of fact, it does, Mr. Burnes," he said. "As you can see, there is no longer an empty seat on the board."

"What does that mean?" Gia asked, eyes flashing with fury. "You can't do this!"

"The company law states that in the absence of a natural heir, an external board member can be chosen," I recited. The irony wasn't lost on me—I knew the corporate law better than Victor did, despite being the "worthless orphan."

"And as you can see, there is a natural heir now. An heiress, as a matter of fact," Mr. Lachlan completed.

Victor's face drained of color. "What about me? What about me, huh? Don't I get anything from the divorce? Am I not entitled to half? Don't think I won't drag you to court, Leah. I'm going to make you a public spectacle if you don't give me what I deserve."

I stepped up to him and met his gaze directly. For the first time in our entire relationship, I wasn't afraid of him. I wasn't cowering or apologizing or trying to please him. I was simply done. "You deserve to burn in hell, Victor. But since I don't have that power, my lawyer will contact you in the morning. We are done here."

And with that, I walked away and left him to stew in his pot of regret.

As I walked beside my grandfather toward the reception hall, I felt something I hadn't felt in years: hope. I didn't know what came next, but for the first time in my adult life, I was walking toward my future instead of being dragged through someone else's.