Falling For Her Billionaire Baby Daddy

"Of course, not," Yasmin agreed with a sad smile. "You never got to see that side of him, did you?" Derek didn't answer.

"Anyway, I married him five days after our first meeting. I felt so helpless, it was as if I was giving ownership of my life to someone else. Jeremy was extremely cold to me after we got married. He barely spoke to me and we were like two strangers living under the same roof."

Rachel felt sorry for Yasmin. She could imagine how painful the experience must have been for the older woman.

"I became pregnant three months later. I hoped that it would make him affectionate toward me but I was wrong. He was as cold as ever and barely spoke to me at all. Not long after, tragedy struck when my parents died in a car crash on their way from a party."

"Oh, dear," said Rachel sympathetically.

"Jeremy swung into action immediately and bought my father's company, adding it to his conglomerate. That is the business that you know as JF Jewels, but it used to be known as Harriton Jewels."

It was a lot of information for Derek to take in. He wasn't sure if the room was hot or if it was this revelation that was making him sweat. He took off his jacket and draped it on a nearby chair.

"I was devasted," Yasmin was saying. "I had lost my parents and my inheritance in a single swoop and I was trapped in a loveless marriage. When you were born, Jeremy poured all of his love and attention into you, ignoring me more than ever before."

Rachel felt her heart breaking on the woman's behalf.

"I was miserable," Yasmin continued. "It was as if I was invincible to Jeremy. I couldn't understand why he had married me if he hated me so much. For years, I suffered silently while throwing grand parties at our mansions, traveling to exotic locations on vacation, and spending money lavishly."

Derek wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. He hated this tale but he couldn't stop listening.

"None of those things filled the void inside me," said Yasmin, "and it became worse when I discovered that Jeremy had a string of mistresses that he had stashed away in different parts of the country. So, while I was pinning for him and wishing that he would notice me, he was busy shagging multiple women and living his best life. I felt betrayed and used. I decided to take revenge on him."

She drew in a shaky breath and continued. "I started dating different men. I made sure to give the paparazzi a tip-off so that they would know where to find me and take pictures for the gossip magazines. I began to party more than I ever did in my youthful years, I was all over the place."

Yasmin looked as if she was going to cry but she blinked a few times and composed herself. Her confession was harder than she thought it would be.

"All I wanted was to get back at Jeremy for his cruelty toward me all these years but it didn't work," she explained. "He did not say a word to me or ask me why I was disgracing him." "Wow..." Rachel said quietly.

"Despite everything that I had done, I was still invincible to him! Oh, it hurt so badly that I became depressed. A friend of mine invited me on a trip to a wellness spa in Germany and that was where I met Ivan Yulensky." "The guy you died with?" Derek asked sardonically.

"Yes," Yasmin replied boldly. "Neither of us knew about each other before our meeting, so we started our friendship without prejudice. He was a sweet man who had gone to the spa to recover his sanity after a difficult divorce from his ex- wife."

Her face lit up as she continued to speak about Yulensky. "We were inseparable; we went everywhere together, ate together, and made sure to sit beside each other during group activities."

Rachel smiled as if she was reliving the sweet memories with Yasmin.

"My friend was jealous and excited for me at the same time. By the time my stay at the spa was over, I was sure that Ivan and I were in love with each other. When I returned to the U.S., I knew what I had to do."

At this point, Yasmin seemed to be acting out her memory as she became animated when she continued her story.

"I went to Jeremy in his home office where he was tapping away on his computer," she said with squared shoulders. "I said to him, 'Jeremy, I want a divorce.' He looked me dead in the eyes and said, 'Over my dead body will I allow you to divorce me. You are mine and you will remain my property until one of us dies.' I was shocked!"

"Oh, my," said Rachel.

"Not only had he refused to grant me a divorce, but he had referred to me as his property. I was like one of the companies that he had acquired and he wasn't going to let me go until one of us died." "This is insane," Derek muttered.

"I agree," said Yasmin. "I felt trapped all over again. So I got in touch with Ivan to tell him what had happened. That was when he came up with the wild idea of us dying in a plane crash." "That was extreme," said Rachel.

"I know," Yasmin agreed. "Ivan owned a fleet of private jets and was willing to sacrifice one of them to buy my freedom. We planned everything within 24 hours and I let everyone know that I was traveling to Bermuda with my Russian lover." Derek glared at her.

"I couldn't confide in you because by then, your father had driven a wedge between us by playing the victim. He made you see me as a bad mother and a horrible wife. I came to Bermuda to meet with Ivan and the next day, we boarded his jet for a trip to Jamaica with one flight attendant and a pilot."

"How did you fake the crash?" Rachel asked.

"As we approached the Bermuda coast, the pilot emptied the jet's gas and let go of the controls. We all donned our parachutes while screaming and sounding scared for the sake of the black box, and then we jumped out of the jet before it crashed." "Wow!"

"The pilot and the flight attendant were handsomely rewarded and sworn to secrecy," Yasmin continued. "We fled to the Cayman Islands and lived there for one year before traveling to Italy and then touring Europe. We would go out wearing large dark sunglasses and nose masks. We were totally unrecognizable!"

Rachel could feel the other woman's nostalgia as she recalled these exciting memories.

"Those were by far the best years of my life!" Yasmin sighed. "That was until Ivan fell sick while we were in Switzerland on a ski trip. He was coughing so much and losing weight drastically.

"When we went to a specialist hospital to find out what could be wrong, he was diagnosed with stage three throat cancer. It was an extremely difficult time for us knowing that we were about to be separated permanently." Rachel felt warm tears gathering behind her eyes.

"At Ivan's request, we flew to his home country of Russia and lived together in one of his estates quietly and out of view. He died the following year and was buried in the garden outside his home. That was three years ago." "I am so sorry to hear that," said Rachel.

Lost in the world of this story? Make sure you're on Ñe5s.org to catch every twist and turn. The next chapter awaits, exclusively on our site. Dive in now! "Well, after several months of therapy, I can talk about it without falling apart," said Yasmin with a brave smile.

"Why did you come back here?" Derek asked her.

"The truth is, I've always loved this place. Something about Bermuda just draws me back to it, so I came to live here. Mind you, Ivan is one of the owners of the resort but after his death, I learned that he had willed everything he owned to me, Yasmin James."

"I see..."

"In case you're wondering, both names were my parents' first names. Ivan never had children and his ex-wife remarried shortly after their divorce, so she wasn't entitled to alimony anymore.

"All of Ivan's billions and multiple businesses became mine. It was his parting gift to me and I am forever grateful to him for that."

"There is something I still don't understand," said Derek. "If you wanted the world to believe that you are dead, why would you risk blowing your cover by revealing yourself to us?"

Yasmin sighed. "As I said before, I couldn't reveal my plan to you because I knew you hated me. After your father died of a heart attack, I wanted to reach out to you to let you know that I was still alive but Ivan thought that wouldn't be a wise thing to do."

"Is that so?"

"He thought that it would be too jarring for you to find out that your philandering mother had somehow survived a plane crash, while your beloved father was now dead. I saw the wisdom in what he said, so I didn't contact you.

"I had instead written a letter explaining all of this to you and it was to be delivered to you when I died for real. And then I found out that you were coming to Bermuda and it seemed like fate was finally allowing me to come clean at last." "Wait, did you just say that you found out that I was coming to Bermuda?" Derek asked incredulously. "How?"

Yasmin cleared her throat self-consciously. "Well, that brings me to the next part of my confession, Derek. I have been keeping track of you all these years. I've had someone watching you."