Chapter 1 – My Husband Abandoned Me and My Son

I lay on the hospital bed as I looked into my son’s eyes. He held my hand strongly as he cried. “Mum please don’t go,” he cried out to me as he held my hand.

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this,” I said to him. “I know you’re angry with me. I know you must hate me for not having managed to convince your father to make you, his heir.

I recounted the resentment my son had built up towards me in the last years.

Anthony then roughly shook his head. “Mother what are you talking about!?”

His reaction caught me off guard perhaps he didn’t want to say it out loud so as not be rude but I didn’t mind. “I’ve noticed don’t talk to me as much and he always seemed angry with me. I’m sorry I failed you.” I said to him.

He then let out a tired sigh. “You still don’t get it, do you? Your never cared to. You’ve always been like this,” he complained disappointed in me.

“What do you mean?” I asked him weakly in confusion.

“You only ever focused on making me the heir father chose. You thought that’s what I wanted but it wasn’t. All I ever wanted was to spend time with you. Everywhere I went I was ostracised and bullied for the situation we are in. My life has been a living hell. The one thing that could have better was at least having you around. But all you ever did was chase after father. I never cared about being the heir. I accepted that Father hates me. But at least you could’ve been there for me! I really wish you could have spent more time with me.”

My eyes widened in horror as I looked into the eyes of my now 16-year-old son. All these years I thought I was doing everything to help him. Turns out I was doing everything wrong. How could I have been completely oblivious to how he felt?

Now knowing that I’d basically wasted my time I was ashamed of myself. How had I not noticed before. It’s now on my death bed that I realize it. When it’s far too late.

“Now I’m about to lose you and I’ll be all alone,” he said as he continued to cry. Watching him cry pained me immensely. To know that I had failed my child was a hard pill to swallow.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe, and my chest began to constrict.

“Mum! Mum!” Anthony yelled out to me in panic. My body wasn’t responding though and I continued to shake.

He ran to the doorway of the room. “Help! I need some help in here!” I heard him scream. I assumed it was to the hospital staff. My vision became blurry as I convulsed. I heard footsteps enter the room in a hurry.

“She’s going into respiratory failure!” I heard someone yell.

In the distance I heard the familiar voice of my son, he was crying. It was awful knowing I was traumatising my son. I wished I could fix it all. To go back in time and redo all the things I’d done wrong. To spend more time with him and give him what he actually wished for.

What was going to happen to him now if I died? If he’s forced to move in with my ex-husband there’s no doubt in my mind that “woman” will kill him. I had failed as a mother. My one job was to protect my child and I had failed, miserably.

As the doctors tried to resuscitate me. I felt my body begin to shut down. My blurry visioned eyes felt heavy and began to close.

‘No!’ I screamed in my mind. ‘Please let me stay with my son! He’ll be alone. Please, he needs me! I need to fix this! I can’t die like this!’

To think I would die at the early age of 36 was unbelievable to me. As my eyes closed and suddenly, I saw a blinding bright light appear before me. Which was ironic since my eyes were closed.

The light seemed to envelop me as it was all I could see with nothing else that lay ahead.

Was this me going to the afterlife? I wondered. The light stayed surrounding me for what felt like several minutes with nothing changing. Then suddenly, the light began to fade.

Surprisingly my eyelids no longer felt heavy.

“I’m sorry Mrs Acland but Mr Acland is busy,” I then heard a voice say.

Unsure if I’d heard right, I slowly opened my eyes and was met with a woman seated behind a desk in front of me.

“What?” I said, confused by the scene before me.

“Mrs Acland, I said Mr Acland is busy he can’t see you right now,” the woman repeated.

Mrs Acland? I thought to myself in surprise, I hadn’t been called that in so long I’d divorced Keith 6 years ago. Ms Towers was my maiden surname and it’s what I was called after the divorce. Mr Acland was Keith, my ex-husband.

She looked familiar. I then looked around taking in my surroundings. I was in a luxurious buildings’ entrance hall, which I also recognized. This was the Acland Holdings Limited HQ building. In front of me was the reception where two well dressed women, the receptionists, were stationed.

“Mrs Acland,” she called out to me again however I still didn’t respond.

What was I doing here? How has this happened? I asked myself shocked. Was this a dream? I pinched my arm. I certainly felt the pain. Was this real?

This seemed like one of the many scenarios in which I would attempt to see Keith, and he would reject seeing me every single time. However, that was more than 3 years ago when I used to do that. In recent years, I had gotten ill and couldn’t move around. Had I gone back in time? Had my wish come true? What in the world was going on?

“Mrs Acland, unfortunately, we’re going to have to call security if you don’t leave,” the receptionist informed me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I continued to ignore her, however, as a thought suddenly came to mind. Anthony! I could go see Anthony! I thought to myself. Whether it’s a dream or not, I have to see my son.

It all started when my parents informed me of my arranged marriage to Keith Acland,21, when I was 19 years old. It was due to a business deal my father’s company had formed with the Acland family’s company. The Acland family owned the Acland Holding Limited Company, an extremely successful international hotel company. With hundreds of four- and five-star hotels all over the world. Their family had an estimated net worth of over 20 billion (USD).

My father was the heir of a well-performing construction company. Although my family wasn’t billionaires like the Aclands’, we were millionaires, which was still impressive.

The business deal our families had struck had to do with my father’s company helping to construct some new hotels for Aclands’. My marriage to the heir of the Aclands’, Keith, was to strengthen the new partnership between the two companies.

My marriage to Keith was loveless which was to be expected as our marriage was arranged. However, after our wedding and we began to live together, we developed somewhat of an amicable relationship. A year into our marriage and we gave birth to our one and only child; our son Anthony. I loved Anthony so much and was completely devoted to raising him well. The first years of being Keith’s wife were pleasant.

However, everything changed ‘she’ came 7 years later. I would bever forget that day. It was Keith’s birthday, and I had organized a party to celebrate. All our family members and friends were present. As the party was in full swing with everyone enjoying themselves, suddenly a woman entered who caused everyone to stop and look at her.

I immediately recognized her. She was Keith’s former lover, Diana, from before we got married. When we got engaged, Keith stopped seeing out of respect for both our families and our union. However, I knew he had loved her, and he felt guilty for leaving her. All this time I wondered what had happened to Diana as she appeared to have disappeared from the social scene. I wondered why she was appearing now after 7 years.

It was then that I noticed the child standing by her side and holding her hand. It was a boy who seemed close in age to Anthony, who was 7 at the time and looked strikingly like Keith. She then announced to everyone at the party that the boy was Keith’s child. I would never forget the shock and utter disbelief I felt upon hearing this as well as everyone else at the party. She claimed that after Keith had left her to marry me, she found out she was pregnant.

After the party she showed Keith an apparent DNA test to prove the boy was indeed his son. I felt the whole situation was suspicious. Keith felt guilty for abandoning her an the fact that she had to raise their son alone, so he decided to take her in and allowed her to stay in our house.

At first, I thought her place in our home would be temporary as Keith figured out what to do with her. I was understanding of the situation to an extent, because I was sympathetic to the fact that Keith was forced to leave his lover for me. So, if that was his son he was still the father and had to look after him.

However, I NEVER could have imagined the way in which things would have ended up panning out. Diana and Keith seemed to rekindle the romantic connection they had in the past, gaining his favour. With that she began her smear campaign of me.

For example, her belongings would go missing and then they would be found among my things. Or she would harass and bait me into a fight and then turn around and claim I was harassing her. Because of how it looked Keith took her side causing him to distrust me. She also formed a relationship with the servants of the house and began to turn them against me and my son.

She soon took over the house and began to run it as if she was Keith’s wife, pushing me to the side. To everyone in the house I looked like I was the crazy jealous wife who was harassing Diana. Diana’s plan on taking my place in this house became clear to me. I had stop her and fight for my place.

Keith had her and her son attend public events with us as if we were one big happy family. He also told her to join me when I met with my friends who were the wives of his friends or business partners. At first my friends were on my side and felt the situation was wrong. Then after a while of meeting with Diana they began to like her and eventually took her side. Diana had a way talking to people and making them like her. The same way she had turned the maids against me.

As time passed, I saw Keith wasn’t planning on having Diana leave our home, but in fact he was integrating her into the family.

She had his favour and was well-liked by everyone around. Before I knew it Diana had taken away my husband, my friends, and my title. Worst of all, my son was put in a precarious position. Everyone began to think she was soon going to take my position, and I was going to be tossed aside. What’s more is that they felt she deserved it more than me since her smear campaign had worked and my reputation was now negative.

Everyone seemed to have turned against me and my son. I had no one to turn to. Even my own family turned against me. My father and older brother believed the rumors that were spreading about me and told me that Keith left me they would take me back. The final blow was when the legitimacy of my son being Keith’s biological child came into question.

Unlike Diana’s son who looked exactly like Keith, Anthony’s features were, unfortunately, more like mine. Keith acted as if he believed the rumours, even though he had been there throughout my pregnancy. He knew Anthony was his.

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