He Faked Poverty, Tricked Me Into an Abortion, All for a Bet Chapter 03

He Faked Poverty, Tricked Me Into an Abortion, All for a Bet Chapter 03

Early the next morning, Ethan’s alarm woke him.

Normally, I would already have breakfast ready and would wake him myself, but that morning, I lay motionless in bed with my back to him.

Ethan said nothing.

He got up as quietly as possible, washed up, then returned to the bedside and bent down to kiss my forehead.

“Erin, I’m heading to work. Stay home and get some rest. I made a hundred and eighty dollars delivering orders yesterday, and I transferred a hundred and fifty to you for everyday expenses. If you go out, remember to tell me. Don’t leave without saying anything like you did last night, okay?”

I kept my eyes closed and ignored him.

He did not seem to mind and only stroked my hair gently before standing and leaving.

The moment I heard the door close, I opened my eyes and got up.

Ten minutes later, I had washed, changed, and gone downstairs just in time to see Ethan riding his electric bike away from our apartment building.

I called a rideshare and told the driver to follow him.

The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“Catching a cheating boyfriend?”

I gave a faint, humorless smile.

“Maybe.”

Ethan’s electric bike soon entered a gated luxury community, but our car was not allowed inside.

I calmly asked the driver to park a short distance from the entrance.

About half an hour later, a black sedan drove out with its rear window lowered halfway, and I clearly saw Ethan sitting in the back seat.

The driver clicked his tongue.

“A Rolls-Royce. That guy must have some serious money.”

I asked, “Is that car expensive?”

“Very. Even the cheapest base model costs around five hundred thousand dollars.”

That day, I followed Ethan and saw more things I had never encountered before.

The car was worth roughly half a million dollars and came with a private chauffeur.

He went to a bespoke tailor where, according to the driver, suits started at twenty thousand dollars each.

Then he bought a full set of jewelry from a high-end boutique whose name I did not recognize.

I asked the driver, who seemed to know a little about everything, how much it might cost.

“Hard to say. The cheaper pieces might cost a little over a hundred thousand, while the expensive ones could run into the millions or even tens of millions. I’m not into jewelry, so I don’t know the exact prices. I just know that brand is insanely expensive.”

After dark, the Rolls-Royce I had gradually become familiar with drove into what the driver said was the most exclusive gated community in the city.

“So, what now?” he asked. “Do you want to keep waiting?”

I got out of the car, paid him for the full day, and thanked him.

“Security here is extremely tight,” the driver warned me. “No outsiders are allowed in without a resident’s permission.”

I nodded.

“I know.”

Naturally, I had never been anywhere like this before.

Maybe it was sheer luck that I had finally been given a chance to uncover the truth Ethan had been hiding and let go of this relationship for good.

At the security gate, I spotted my friend signing in.

She and I came from neighboring small towns, though we had never been particularly close.

Still, we were from the same area, and when one of us could help the other, we usually did.

She had agreed to introduce me to the club job because she had undergone an appendectomy the year before, and I had signed her emergency-contact paperwork and taken care of her for several days afterward.

“Lena Davis,” I called out.

She turned, and I asked whether she could take me inside.

She looked surprised, then gave me a faintly mocking smile.

“This really isn’t somewhere you belong.”

“I have a friend inside,” I said. “I just want to go in and take a look.”

Then I added, “Don’t worry. I won’t cause you any trouble.”

After thinking for a moment, she agreed.

The community was enormous and even had its own shuttle service.

I had no idea which mansion Ethan had gone to, but by sheer coincidence, I saw him in the backyard of the house where Lena was attending a party.

The backyard was massive, with lights glowing everywhere and guests constantly coming and going.

Ethan stood surrounded by a group of people, speaking politely with a woman in an elaborate evening gown.

“His name is Ethan Walker,” Lena said, following my gaze. “He’s the heir to the Walker family. You’ve heard of them, right?”

I shook my head.

“They’re in commercial real estate. The biggest shopping center in the city belongs to them. Do you know him?”

I shook my head, then nodded.

Lena lit a cigarette and took a drag before speaking again.

“For the past couple of years, rich people like them have been obsessed with a game. They find an attractive woman from an ordinary background, pretend to be poor, and get close to her.”

“At first, they only bet on who could pretend to be poor most convincingly without getting caught. Then they realized most of the women never suspected a thing, so they made the game even uglier.”

“The new challenge was to get a woman pregnant, manipulate her into ending the pregnancy, and still have her trust him completely and stay by his side.”

Lena looked at me.

“I heard a while ago that Ethan won several hundred thousand dollars from the bet.”

Her gaze settled on me, and she raised an eyebrow.

“So the woman who got pregnant with Ethan’s child, ended the pregnancy, and helped him win all that money…”

“That was you.”