Ficorpio
Chapter 1
After ten years of a childfree marriage, my husband’s mistress got pregnant.
He didn’t ask her to end it. Instead, he came to me and said he wanted to be a father.
I had two choices.
One: take a three-hundred-million-dollar divorce settlement and walk away.
Two: remain Mrs. Sterling, accept the baby as part of the family, and become a mother without ever going through childbirth.
Everyone in the Sterling family thought I would choose the second option. After all, they all knew how much I loved Sebastian Sterling.
But I chose the first without the slightest hesitation.
There was no grand reason.
I had been reborn.
In my last life, I spent decades fighting Sebastian’s mistress. In the end, the empire I built still landed in her son’s hands.
Given another chance, I wanted out of the drama.
I wanted to take the money, become a rich divorcée, enjoy my life, and learn from Sebastian—keep a few pretty young men around for fun.
In my previous life, I had worked myself to death.
After I found out Sebastian had cheated, rage carved itself into my chest like a blade. I didn’t sleep for two days and two nights while I drew up a meticulous revenge plan.
First, I hollowed out Sebastian’s authority and seized more than half the control of Whitmore Holdings. Then I carried out sweeping reforms and multiplied the value of the shares in my hands four or five times over.
Sebastian’s other woman, Vanessa Vale, and her son, Julian Sterling, were crushed so thoroughly under my heel that they hid overseas and didn’t dare come back. They didn’t even dare contact Sebastian.
No one in the Sterling family dared challenge me. Not even Sebastian.
I thought I had won.
Then, at forty-five, because of my health, I still hadn’t managed to get pregnant again.
To try IVF, I put myself through endless injections. At the same time, I worked day and night without rest. At last, my body gave out completely, and I died suddenly on the way to a business trip.
My body hadn’t even been buried before Vanessa brought her son back home.
Sebastian, Vanessa, and Julian clung to one another and sobbed as if they had been the ones wronged all along.
As for my ashes and my memorial photo, they were tossed casually into the trash.
Only then, watching Vanessa move in without a second’s hesitation and Julian take over my company, did I realize I had spent my entire life paving the road for someone else.
At night, Vanessa lay beside Sebastian and whispered sweetly to him through tears. “Honey, you suffered so much these past twenty years. You secretly got a vasectomy for me and even set Serena Bennett up to work herself to death for our son. Thank you, sweetheart. I love you so much.”
Sebastian kissed her forehead. “Nessa, I love you too. You’ve been with me since you were twenty. For you, I’d do anything.”
Chapter 2
So that was why I could never get pregnant no matter how hard I tried later.
Sebastian had gotten a vasectomy long ago.
I couldn’t tell whether the feeling in my chest was regret or fury. I only felt that my whole life had been a joke.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment Sebastian confessed everything to me.
He had just returned from a business trip. He was still wearing the tailored suit I had personally ordered for him, sitting on the sofa, handsome and imposing as ever.
Sebastian sighed. “Serena, let’s end this cleanly. Vanessa is pregnant. It was an accident between us, but she gave herself to me. I can’t let her down.”
“I’m going to marry her. I want this child. So I can only ask you to bear the inconvenience.”
“For the divorce, aside from the three hundred million in compensation, I can buy back the shares you hold at market value. This villa we’re living in now, along with the cars in the garage, will all go to you. Serena, I know I’ve wronged you all these years.”
Objectively speaking, Sebastian’s offer was extremely generous.
If I hadn’t loved him, it would have been an unbelievable windfall.
But I had met him when I was eighteen and married him at twenty.
When Sebastian was building his business from the ground up, I managed the company with him. Later, when his parents grew older and their health began to fail, I stepped back into the home to care for them.
I had never imagined Sebastian would be the one to stab me in the back.
And he hadn’t merely stabbed me. He had aimed straight for the fatal spot.
That was why, in my last life, I hated him to the bone. I spent the rest of that lifetime getting revenge.
Now, looking at the barely thirty-year-old face reflected in the mirror, I paused.
My eyes looked faintly tired from cooking for my in-laws and managing the household day after day.
My clothes were plain and outdated because I had always felt sorry for Sebastian, thinking it wasn’t easy for him to make money.
From head to toe, I radiated the stale exhaustion of a housewife.
My heart trembled.
For a moment, I felt sorry for myself.
How had I let my life become this?
How had I never learned to enjoy it?
While my thoughts drifted, Sebastian repeated the matter of the divorce.
He sounded impatient now.
He was just about to add a few words of warning when he heard my cool, clear answer.
“Fine.”
Sebastian froze instead. “What?”
I said, “Fine. I agree to the divorce. I also agree to let you buy back my shares at market value. Sebastian, let’s end this cleanly.”
Perhaps my decisiveness shocked him. Sebastian stared at me for a long time.
At last, he left only one sentence behind. “As long as you agree. I’ll have my attorney contact you tomorrow.”
Then he hurried out.
I drew in a deep breath. When I turned around, I saw my in-laws standing on the second floor.
Chapter 3
Richard and Margaret Sterling already knew Vanessa was pregnant. They had clearly come to see whether I would make a scene.
Seeing how quickly and calmly I had agreed, their expressions turned awkward.
Margaret forced a smile, then pushed Richard’s wheelchair around and left.
I was left sitting alone in the living room, slowly absorbing the fact that I had truly been reborn.
Sebastian Sterling’s secretary was efficient. Barely a week had passed before Vanessa Vale dared to walk through the front door as if she belonged there.
In my last life, Sebastian had been protective of her because she was young. He’d kept her tucked away so well that I’d rarely had to deal with her directly.
Which was why coming face-to-face with twenty-year-old Vanessa now stirred up a sudden, inexplicable surge of hatred in me.
I forced it down.
I knew where the real blame lay. This was Sebastian’s fault. Vanessa was only the fly that had happened to land on the rot.
She was being fussed over like some precious treasure by the Sterling family. Margaret, my mother-in-law who had worn a cold face around me for ten straight years, was smiling at someone with actual warmth for the first time.
She kept feeding Vanessa pieces of fruit, then touching her stomach, looking every bit like a woman whose lifelong wish had finally come true.
I didn’t go in and ask for humiliation.
Instead, I turned around, went back to the car, and called Sebastian.
“Have your secretary come out. I’ll sign in the car.”
“And since you’ve already given me the house, have your parents move out tomorrow. I don’t like strangers in my home.”
“Transfer the money to my account first. We’ll finish the equity transfer paperwork as soon as possible, then go finalize the divorce.”
Sebastian was silent on the other end.
After a long while, he let out a mocking laugh.
“You’re surprisingly straightforward.”
As if I were the one after his money.
I didn’t take the bait.
There was no point arguing with him now. The most important thing was to get everything settled as quickly as possible.
Maybe my attitude provoked him. Or maybe Sebastian simply didn’t want Vanessa to feel wronged.
Either way, one month later, I walked away with nearly eight hundred million dollars in total settlement assets—and a divorce decree.
The moment I stepped out of the county courthouse, I listed the house online for sale.
Sebastian had been following behind me the entire time. When I nearly stumbled, he caught my arm.
For once, there was guilt on his face.
“Serena, what are you going to do now?”
I was busy estimating the house’s market value and didn’t catch it.
“Hm? What?”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Me?”