12/01/2025
Unaware that the pregnant wife he had divorced was the billionaire owner of the company where his entire family worked, his mother threw dirty water on her at a family dinner while her husband and his mistress laughed. What she did shocked him and left his mother devastated.
The night that Linda, Marcus Morrison's mother, poured a pitcher of dirty water on Elena, his pregnant ex-wife, during a family dinner, should have been the final humiliation for the woman Marcus had divorced six months earlier for being a "nobody."
But what Marcus didn't know, what his mother Linda didn't know, what his mistress Sarah didn't know as they laughed and filmed the dirty water dripping down Elena's face and soaking her five-month baby bump, was that the pregnant wife Marcus had divorced was actually Elena Caldwell, the billionaire owner and secret CEO of Caldwell Global Holdings, the vast corporate empire that employed Marcus's entire family.
Every paycheck Linda, Marcus's mother, received as an executive assistant; every dollar his father, Gerald, earned as a senior vice president; every bonus Marcus collected as a regional director; every commission his mistress, Sarah, earned as a client relations director—it all came from the company that, in fact, was owned by Marcus's pregnant, now divorced, wife.
The company that paid for the very house where Linda had just poured dirty water on the pregnant billionaire wife, where Marcus and his mistress had laughed at the woman who signed their checks, where the entire family had mocked the billionaire owner who, unknowingly, stood dripping water in the foyer, holding Marcus's unborn child.
But Elena didn't scream or cry as the dirty water and potato peelings slid down her simple dress and onto the Italian marble floor of her own company's headquarters. She simply placed a protective hand over the pregnant belly that Linda had called a "burden," pulled out her phone with the other, and made a single silent call that would devastate Marcus's mother, deeply shock him, and destroy everything his family had built with the fortune of the pregnant wife he had divorced without ever knowing who she really was.
What was Elena about to do to the mother who had just thrown dirty water on a pregnant billionaire? How would Marcus react to discovering that the pregnant wife he divorced owned the company where his entire family worked? Why was his cousin Rebecca suddenly shouting, "No, Elena, please, no, not them too!" as if she had witnessed this same devastation before? And what didn't Sarah, the mistress, know about the jewelry she was wearing and the pregnant wife she had just laughed at while Marcus's mother threw that dirty water?
The Morrison family home in Westchester Hills had always represented everything Linda Morrison believed she deserved. Crystal chandeliers. Imported marble. Designer furniture arranged to perfection. The kind of house that proclaimed success to anyone who walked through the door. And that night, surrounded by her family at the mahogany dining table, Linda felt powerful. In control. Ready to deal with Elena's problem once and for all.
She had invited her former daughter-in-law over under the pretext of discussing the baby's future. But Linda's real plan was simpler, crueler. She wanted Elena to sign papers relinquishing any rights to Marcus's life, his money, his future. She wanted the girl gone. Erased. As if she had never existed.
Elena had arrived on time, wearing her usual simple dress, no jewelry except for a simple gold ring on her right hand, no makeup, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Everything about her screamed normality. Forgettable. Beneath them.
Linda felt vindicated just by looking at her. Was this the woman Marcus had wasted three years on? This plain, quiet nobody who didn't even know how to dress properly for a family dinner?
Marcus sat at the table next to Sarah, his new girlfriend, and the contrast was striking. Sarah wore a designer dress that hugged every curve, diamond earrings that sparkled, and that gorgeous necklace Marcus had given her last month. She looked like the picture of success. Of ambition. Of everything Elena had never been.
Gerald, Linda's husband, presided over the table in his tailored suit, looking like the senior vice president he'd worked thirty years to become. Their son Marcus exuded confidence in his expensive watch and Italian shoes. Even Rebecca, Linda's niece, who had been living with them since her divorce six months earlier, seemed put together despite her recent struggles.
And then there was Elena. Plain. Plain. Pregnant. Standing in the....