He Chose Her Over Us

---- Chapter 10 Gregory Velazquez POV: Adrianna must have heard the commotion because she rushed into my office, her eyes wide with alarm. "Gregory, what's wrong? You look terrifying." She tried to place a calming hand on my arm, but | was beyond reason. "Get out of my way, Adrianna," | growled, shoving past her. | needed to get to Nantucket. | needed to confront Belen, to see the lie in her eyes when she denied her affair with Montoya. "But the doctor said | shouldn't travel," she pleaded, blocking the doorway.

"Please, Greg, don't leave me." Just as | was about to physically move her, the office doors burst open with such force they slammed against the walls. My mother, Eugenia Velazquez, stood there, her face a mask of cold fury. Her eyes, the same dark chips of obsidian as my own, bypassed me completely and landed on Adrianna. "So," my mother said, her voice dangerously soft. "The little stray has found her way back to the gutter." Adrianna paled, shrinking back. "Eugenia... Mrs. Velazquez... | was just telling Gregory how Belen-" ---- SLAP. The sound echoed through the silent office.

My mother's hand had moved so fast | barely saw it. She struck Adrianna across the face, a sharp, brutal blow that left a bright red handprint on her cheek. "You will not speak her name," my mother hissed. "You are not worthy to even breathe the same air as Belen." She turned on me, her eyes blazing. "And you. My son. | thought | raised you to be a man, not a fool." "Mother, you don't understand," | began, moving instinctively to shield Adrianna. "She's pregnant." | knelt before my mother, a desperate plea. "| know | messed up. But Adrianna is carrying my child.

I'll explain everything to Belen. She'll understand. She'll have to. She married me for my money, she won't walk away from this life." My mother let out a short, harsh laugh that held no humor. "Money? You arrogant boy. You think Belen Porter, whose family practically owns half of New England, married you for your pathetic new money?" She threw a financial portfolio onto the desk in front of me. "Open it." My hands trembled as | did. It was a detailed summary of the Porter family's assets. Trusts, offshore accounts, real estate holdings that dwarfed my own.

Their wealth was old, ---- established, and vast. My billion-dollar tech empire was a child's plaything by comparison. "She didn't need your money, Gregory," my mother said, her voice laced with pity. "She loved you. When you were in that coma, her family's company faced a hostile takeover. They were on the brink of collapse. She could have sold her shares, saved her family, and walked away. But she didn't." She produced another document. A legal agreement. Belen's signature was at the bottom.

She had used her own trust fund, the one her grandfather had left her, as collateral to secure a loan to save my company while | was unconscious. She had risked her entire inheritance for me. "She chose you," my mother said, her voice cracking with emotion. "She chose you over her family, over her fortune. All because she was stupid enough to love you." The room tilted. The narrative | had clung to, the one where | was the powerful benefactor and she was the dependent wife, shattered into a million pieces. She hadn't needed me. She had wanted me. And | had thrown her love away like trash.

The photos on my desk, the ones of her and Camden, suddenly seemed less like a betrayal and more like a consequence. The consequence of my own blindness. My mother wasn't finished. She turned back to Adrianna, who was cowering behind me. "And you. You parasitic leech. You think a fake belly and a sob story can fool me?" ---- My head snapped up. "Fake belly?" The final pieces of the puzzle slammed into place, and the truth was a hideous, blinding light. The truth | had refused to see.