The Heiress' Revenge

Chapter 202: Sign It

Ariana’s POV

I was in the park, seated waiting for Dante’s mother, sheasked to meet and said it was important that we needed to talk.

I knew what was coming.

I could feel it in my bones.

I saw her walk toward me.

She was dressed in a black coat, looking like a woman who was used to getting what she wanted.

She sat down on the bench beside me with no smile, and she didn’t say hello either; she just looked at me with cold, hard eyes.

"Ariana," she said. Her voice was flat. "Thank you for coming."

I nodded. "You said you wanted to talk."

She took a deep breath, folding her hands in her lap. "I’ve invested everything in Dante’s life since his father passed, every penny, minute, and ounce of energy I had, I built that boy into the man he is today. I gave him everything, and what do I get in return? A son who throws away his fortune for a woman who faked her own death."

I felt the words hit me like stones, but I didn’t flinch. "I didn’t ask him to do that; I begged him to move on and marry Natasha. I told him to forget about me."

Dante’s mother laughed.

It was a cold sound. "And yet here you are sitting in front of me and breathing, existing, ruining his life."

I looked at her. "I’m not trying to ruin his life. I’m trying to protect him."

"Protect him?" Her voice was sharp. "You’ve done nothing but destroy him. Ever since he met you, his life has been chaos: the accident, amnesia, and kidnapping. The years of grief and now this. Are you coming back from the dead and tearing apart the little that’s left for him? He was starting to accept the harsh truth of life, learning to live without you, and boom."

I shook my head. "That’s not fair, I didn’t choose any of that, whatever happened, it happened for a reason... I didn’t choose to fake my death, I just did what I had to do to keep my family safe."

Dante’s mother pulled an envelope from her purse and held it out to me. "Sign these."

I looked at the envelope I didn’t take it. "What is it?"

"Divorce papers. Dante already agreed he had signed. All you have to do is sign and walk away from our lives."

My heart stopped, and my hands started shaking. "Dante signed? He agreed to divorce me?"

Dante’s mother nodded. "He doesn’t know I’m here... he doesn’t know about them, I tricked him into signing it, he wasn’t sure what he was signing...”

I felt the tears come. I blinked them back. "Why are you doing this? Why are you so determined to tear us apart?"

She leaned closer. Her eyes were hard. "Because Dante is having a child with Natasha. She’s pregnant, they’re going to be a family”

The world stopped. The air left my lungs. My heart shattered into a million pieces. "A baby? Dante is having a baby with Natasha?"

Dante’s mother nodded. "She’s two weeks along. Natasha told me about it two days ago, and we had her tested. She wanted to break the news to Dante at their wedding”

I looked down at my hands.

They were shaking. "No! This can’t be true."

I felt the tears fall, and I didn’t stop them. "You’re lying. Dante wouldn’t do this; he hasn’t been with anyone, and he swore to me, so it’s a lie ."

Dante’s mother pulled out a paper from the envelope and showed it to me. A sonogram of a tiny baby. "Does this look like a lie to you?"

I stared at the image of the proof that Dante had moved on. At the proof that I had been replaced. "He’s having a baby with Natasha."

"Yes, and that baby deserves a father. That baby deserves a family. That baby deserves a life without the chaos that follows you everywhere you go."

I looked at her in so much pain. “You’ve wanted this from the beginning. You’ve always wanted me gone."

She didn’t deny it. "I wanted what was best for my son. And you were never what was best for him...You brought nothing but pain and heartache and tragedy. Look at his life before you. It was stable, successful, and peaceful, but all that changed when you came into the picture”

I wiped my tears. "I loved him, I really loved him with everything I had."

Dante’s mother shook her head. "Love isn’t enough, Ariana, and by now I’m sure you know that... Love doesn’t fix broken things, and you need to let him go, Ariana. You need to let him be happy."

I looked at the divorce papers. At the line where Dante had already signed his name without knowing, and at the line where I was supposed to sign mine. "He really signed these without reading?"

It was so hard to be true because Dante was always extra careful with things like this.

She nods.

I picked up the pen with my hand that was shaking. "The kids. They’ve gotten used to living without me?"

Dante’s mother nodded. "They have healed and moved on. They’ve accepted that their mother is never coming back. Don’t rip open those wounds. Don’t make them go through that pain again."

I thought about Asher, Alan, Isabella, and Sophia, and then Leo.

"If I sign these, I lose them forever. I lost Dante forever. I lose everything."

Dante’s mother put her hand on mine. "You already lost them, Ariana. The moment you faked your death, you lost them. There’s no coming back from that. There’s no undoing the damage you caused. The best thing you can do now is let them go and let them be happy. Let them live their lives without you."

I felt the weight of her words.

The truth of them. "I never meant to hurt them. I was trying to protect them."

"I know, but intentions don’t matter; the results do, and the result is that you destroyed your family. Now you have to live with that."

I looked at the papers. "If I sign these, I want something in return."

Dante’s mother raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Give Dante back his company, fortune, everything you took from him, you have to give it all back."

Dante’s mother stared at me. Her eyes were cold. "You’re in no position to make demands."

I met her gaze. "I’m not making a demand. I’m making a deal. I’ll sign the papers and walk away. I’ll promise to never accept Dante back into my life, but in return, you give him back what’s rightfully his, everything he lost in the first place because of me."

“We have a deal besides. It was never about the money anyway. It was about protecting my son from you."

I picked up the pen and signed my name.

I pushed the papers toward her. "There."

Dante’s mother took the papers and put them back in the envelope, standing up. "You made the right choice, Ariana. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but one day, you’ll understand."

I looked up at her. "I will never understand. I will never understand how a mother could be so cruel. How a mother could tear apart a family. How a mother could destroy her own son’s happiness."

Her face didn’t change. "I’m not destroying his happiness, I’m saving it."

She turned and walked away.

I would never accept Dante back into my life, and I would keep that promise even if it killed me.