Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of Adrian
While I rested in the comfort of our home, surrounded by books, medical journals, and Gabriel’s endless pampering, the Sterling empire completely disintegrated.
Adrian, stripped of his trust fund and his position at the foundation, found himself completely unqualified for any real-world employment. He had spent his entire life relying on his family’s wealth and his mother’s domineering protection. Now, cast out into the cold, he turned to alcohol to cope with the crushing weight of his reality.
One evening, while Gabriel was at the hospital finishing a surgery, my doorbell rang. Our building had a strict doorman policy, but the doorman, knowing Adrian as my ex-husband, had mistakenly allowed him up, thinking it was an urgent matter.
I opened the door to find Adrian standing in the hallway. He looked unkempt, his expensive suit wrinkled, his hair greasy, and a strong smell of whiskey radiating from him.
"Natalie," he slurred, reaching out toward me.
I immediately stepped back, holding the door firmly between us. "Adrian, you need to leave. You cannot be here."
"Please, Nat... just look at me," he cried, tears streaming down his face. "I made a mistake. A horrible, terrible mistake. Vanessa... she took everything. She laughed in my face when she told me the twins weren't mine. She said I wasn't half the man Marcus was. My mother won't even take my phone calls."
He sank to his knees in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably. "I should have stood up to her. I should have told her the truth two years ago. If I had just been honest, we would still be together. You would be carrying my baby."
I looked down at him, feeling a profound sense of closure. There was no anger left in me, only a deep, quiet pity for a man who had chosen cowardice at every single crossroad of his life.
"Adrian, look at me," I said softly but firmly.
He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and desperate.
"Even if you had told her the truth, we wouldn't be together," I said. "Because your problem wasn't your fertility, Adrian. Your problem was your lack of character. You allowed the woman you claimed to love to be torn to pieces for years just to save your own pride. Love doesn't do that. Gabriel loves me enough to stand in front of a crowd and shield me from the world. You couldn't even stand up to your own mother at a dinner table."
He stared at me, the finality of my words sinking into his alcohol-soaked brain.
May you like
"Go home, Adrian. Get some help. But do not ever come back to this door."
I closed the door and locked it. As I walked back to the living room, our baby kicked strongly against my ribs. I smiled, wrapping my arms around my stomach. The past was completely dead.
