THE FORGOTTEN HEIRESS-Chapter 442: I Gave Birth To it

"I’m fine," Ariel insisted. "And about the pregnancy..." she quickly began before she’d change her mind.

"Of course, you were too hasty in your decision back then," Cheryl interrupted, patting Ariel’s hand gently, "but that’s all in the past and we can’t do anything about that. What’s important is that you move on."

"Cheryl is right, Ariel," Lauren said in agreement.

She wondered why Ariel was still talking about the pregnancy which was an irrecoverable part of her sad past.

The important thing was to see what can be done about her present and maximize it fully for the future.

After her own wedding which is barely two weeks from now, Ariel would be the only one yet to be married among them and she knows just how Ariel would be feeling even if she wouldn’t tell them.

It was part of the reason she had spoken with Cheryl and they’ve tried to see how they can help her forgive George and accept him back or either get over George if she saw no future with him and move on with her life.

Whatever her choice, they will support her, even though she would have preferred the former.

Ariel took a deep breath, steeling herself before saying, "I kept the pregnancy."

The word dropped like a bombshell and a moment of stunned silence fell over the table as the two girls tried to process what they just heard.

After a few seconds, Lauren and Cheryl exchanged bewildered looks, as if they needed to be sure whether they were hallucinating or not.

"You what?" Lauren finally blurted with eyes shining like two well polished saucers.

"I didn’t get you, did you just say you..." Cheryl echoed with an equal amount of shock,

"Yes, I didn’t abort the baby," Ariel said, her voice growing firmer as she spoke the truth she had kept hidden for so long. "I gave birth to it."

As the words left her mouth, the air shifted around them, and a shadow fell across the table.

Ariel’s eyes darted up in alarm, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw him standing there... George.

He looked like he had just walked in, but the expression on his face told her he had heard everything.

And at the moment, his normally confident demeanor was replaced by a stunned, almost haunted look as he stared at Ariel.

Countless times, his mouth opened, but no words came out. In the end, he took a step closer and in a voice barely more than a whisper, asked, "You... you had the baby?"

Ariel’s hands shook as she clutched the edge of the table, trying to steady herself. "George... what are you doing here?"

How can fate be so cruel? How did he suddenly appear and hear the only secret she had kept these years? Now she was sure he was not going to just let things be.

George ran a hand through his hair, his eyes locked on Ariel’s as if he was trying to ascertain that she was actually the one wearing in front of him and saying those things.

"I didn’t mean to overhear, but when I saw you here... I couldn’t stay away. And then I heard... is it true?"

Ariel clenched her jaw in a bid to regain her composure. "Well, now you know. Are you satisfied?"

George’s expression was filled with disbelief and also a glimmer of hope, which he desperately clung on to and dared not let go. "Where... where is our child?"

Ariel’s face twisted with pain and her eyes narrowed fiercely as she looked at George. "You don’t get to ask that, George. You lost that right a long time ago."

Lauren and Cheryl exchanged a glance, unsure whether to intervene or give them space.

But George’s expression crumbled, and he took another step closer, his voice breaking. "Ariel, please... I never knew. If I had..."

"It wouldn’t have made a difference," Ariel interrupted sharply. Her voice rose with the anger and heartbreak she had kept buried for years. "You made your choice, George. And I made mine."

George seemed to reel from her words, but he didn’t back down. "I know, I made a mistake when you told me you were pregnant. But I came back the following day so we could talk things over but you were gone... your friend told me you left immediately you terminated you got back from the hospital," George explained, his eyes desperately begging for Ariel to understand his plight then.

"I know I disappointed you and don’t deserve another chance, but please... let me see our child. Let me make things right."

Ariel’s eyes filled with unshed tears, her face a mask of conflict.

It’s true that she went to the hospital to abort the child but after the doctor warned her against it and that an abortion was dangerous for her health and might affect subsequent conceptions, she changed her mind about it. And that was why she went away. Since George didn’t want their child, shehad to take him away. But she never told her friend to tell George she aborted the baby. She even left a forwarding address in case George changed his mind later and that was exactly why she had been so heartbroken when he never contacted her.

"After all we had shared, you just let me go as if I never existed."

"I searched for you Ariel, but then my resources were so small." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"How could you still lie after so long, George? You would have found me if you truly searched?" Ariel sneered. "It was so easy to if you had wanted to."

George’s shock was indescribable when he heard this. "Are you saying..."

"Yes. I left an address with Cassie... in case you wanted to reach me, but it was obvious you didn’t want anything to do with a burden like me," Ariel said sarcastically.

"I swear, she never gave me your address even after I asked. I kept coming back for days to know if you had contacted her but she... it’s obvious she never wanted us to reconcile our differences... for reasons best known to her. I only stopped going there when I heard she had relocated from the city."

Ariel frowned and for a moment, she seemed to waver, caught between holding onto the pain and disappointment she had suffered by believing he abandoned her or believing George and embracing the faintest glimmer of something like hope that she got from the fact that their relationship can still be salvaged even though her friend had been a little bit overzealous and kept them apart for years.

But then the main character squared her shoulders, drawing a shuddering breath. "I don’t know whether to believe you or Cassie."

"Of course you should believe me. If you want, I can deploy my people to uproot her from whichever part of the earth she is to tell you if what I’m saying is the truth or not. I can do that."

"But I’ll be glad if you choose to trust in our love. I love you, Ria. I never stopped and won’t ever. Let’s forget everything and move on."