Pregnant With His Heir, He Married The Actress Instead Chapter 04

Pregnant With His Heir, He Married The Actress Instead Chapter 04

The elevator rose to the 112th floor, straight to Zayne’s office.

He was focused on the documents in front of him, but he still noticed me.

Our eyes met.

My eyes stung, and hot tears spilled from the corners of my eyes in heavy drops. “Why did you give my prime-time anchor slot to Cassidy?”

He looked up. His dark eyes gave nothing away as he answered coolly, “Give up? Raina, do you even understand what that word means? That anchor slot is mine to give to whoever I want. Why would I need you to give it up?”

I clenched my hands so tightly my shoulders shook. “What about the Reporter of the Year award? I nearly died for that. She hasn’t reported a single story, so why does she get it?”

Six months earlier, I took the Gaza assignment no one else wanted and spent three months there as a war correspondent.

I came close to death more than a dozen times.

The stories I risked my life to report sent Northstar News stock soaring fifty percent and pushed it to a ten-year high.

Zayne came around the desk and stopped in front of me, looking down at me from above. “Raina, how exactly did you graduate from SMU?”

“If you question your boss’s decisions again, I can fire you.”

My stomach lurched, and my voice shot up before I could stop it. “Th-there are plenty of positions in this company, so why did it have to be mine? I worked my way up from an intern reporter to the prime-time anchor slot. Do you know how much I had to go through—”

He cut me off with a cold laugh. “Because Cassidy is my fiancée. She’s the woman I’m going to spend my life with.”

“You’re nothing more than a kept woman I keep around.”

“If I can throw you away whenever I want, what makes you think you have the right to compete with her?”

“Raina, you should learn to be satisfied.”

“Three years ago, when you applied for a staff job at Seattle Broadcast Network, you ranked first on the written test, but you never would’ve made it to the interview. They weren’t going to take an out-of-town girl with no connections. I’m the one who got you in the door.”

I froze.

Zayne lifted a hand and wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes. When he spoke again, his voice softened.

“Cassidy took a movie role. She’s playing a news anchor, so she came to the station to experience the job for herself.”

“I know you’re good at what you do. Once she goes into filming, I’ll give the position back to you.”

Only then did I finally understand.

A finance titan so far above everyone else had never once seen me as an equal.

I had worked relentlessly all these years, but in his eyes, every bit of my success came from him.

Not once had I ever thought of using his name or his power to pave my way.

And yet in the end, he used that same power to strip away everything I had worked for.

He left nothing behind.

When I was eighteen, I still didn’t understand that some lines of class could never be crossed.

Even in love, no one ever truly gets to bargain as equals.

And I had staked everything on a reckless gamble just because my heart had raced once.

Only now did I finally wake up.

A kept woman is just that.

Not a replacement. Not the love of his life. Not an ex. Nothing at all.

I didn’t want that prime-time anchor seat anymore.

The moment I walked out of Zayne’s office, I booked a seven o’clock flight to San Diego for that night.

Then I called my best friend, who worked at a hospital, and asked her to help me schedule an abortion for the following week.