Chapter 5%
The flight home felt like the longest journey of my life. The woman who boarded that plane wasn’t the same one who had left years ago, hopelessly in love and desperate to prove her worth. That woman had died the moment Lothario betrayed me.
Now, I was Pearl Anderson again–the daughter of Alexander Anderson, the most powerful man in Europe. And I was done being weak.
The estate was exactly as I remembered. Grand gates, marble pillars, endless gardens. The moment I stepped out of the car, the doors swung open, and there he stood. My father.
Alexander Anderson
He was a man who demanded respect without saying a word. Silver streaked his jet–black hair, his suit pressed to perfection. But beneath the power and control, there was something else–relief.
I took one step toward him, and before I could say a word, his arms wrapped around me.!!
“Pearl.” His voice was firm, but there was an unmistakable tremor beneath it. “You should have come home sooner.” And just like that, I shattered.X
I had sworn never to come back. I had wanted to prove I could stand on my own, that I didn’t need my father’s wealth or influence. But right now, none of that mattered. For the first time in years, I let myself lean into his warmth, my fingers gripping his coat as if holding on to the only piece of my past that hadn’t betrayed me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
His grip tightened. “No. I’m sorry, Pearl.” He pulled back, cupping my face, his sharp blue eyes scanning me. “I should have never let you leave. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have let you suffer because of him.”
Lothario.&
The name alone sent a bitter taste to my tongue.
My father led me inside, his jaw tight with barely contained fury. The moment we sat down in his office, I told him everything.
How I had loved Lothario with everything I had. How I had sacrificed my time, my energy, my life for him–working endless shifts just to support his business when he had nothing.”
How I had stood by him when Alessia had walked away, choosing her career over his failure. How I had watched him rise from a struggling nobody to a man of power, believing we had built his success together.
And how he had thrown me away the moment she came back
I told my father about the accident. The child I lost. The betrayal I had endured.”
By the time I finished, the room was filled with a dangerous silence.
Alexander’s fingers tapped against the polished wood of his desk, his expression unreadable. Then, with the calm precision of a man who had built empires, he picked up his phone and dialed a number.
“Find everything you can about Alessia Ricci,” he ordered. “I want to know every lie she’s told, every skeleton in her closet. If she so much as faked a receipt, I want to know about it.”
I watched him, my chest tightening. “Dad-“}
He looked at me sharply. “No, Pearl. This is not about revenge. This is about justice. That woman walked away once, and now she’s using my daughter’s suffering to play house with the man she abandoned? I won’t allow it.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt something other than pain.
I felt powerful.E
I was no longer the weak woman Lothario threw away.”
That Pearl died the moment he denied me in front of everyone, the moment he let his fiancée mock me, the moment he acted like I was nothing.X
Now? I was someone else. Someone stronger. Someone untouchable.
Under my father’s guidance. I underwent a ruthless transformation. He didn’t coddle me, didn’t treat me like a broken daughter who had crawled back home in defeat. No. Alexander Anderson was a man who built an empire from nothing, and he expected the same resilience from his bloodline.
“You want power?” he had said, staring down at me in his grand study, his sharp blue eyes piercing through my soul. “Then earn it.“:
And I did.
I buried myself in business, learning everything from the ground up. Mergers, acquisitions, negotiations–I devoured knowledge like a starving beast. While the world thought I was licking my wounds, I was sharpening my claws.
Then, after months of training, my father handed me the keys to one that even Lothario’s business would tremble in its presence. But there was
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“I won’t introduce you as my daughter Alexander said, leaning back in his chair, his fingers tapping against his deskt I smirked. “Good. I don’t want them to know. Not yet “%
Because I wanted to watch them squirm.X
Lothario and Alessia had built their lies on a fragile foundation, and I was going to rip it apart, brick by brick
Alessia paraded around, pretending to be the daughter of Alexander Anderson? Fine. Let her bask in that stolen glory. Let her think she had secured her place beside Lothario
I would take everything from them. Their business, their status, their illusions
I would remind Lothario exactly what he threw away
And when I was done, I’d make sure neither of them could ever recover
Lothario had made one mistake–he had underestimated me. He thought I would cry forever, that I would beg, that I would break %.
But I wasn’t the girl he left behind anymore.X
I was Pearl Anderson. And I was going to remind the world exactly what that meant.
