Forbidden Fortune

CHARACTERIZATION

Protagonist

Annabel, Twenty-Four years old.

Backstory: She's the last child of a millionaire.

Initial Desire: To turn her father's company into an international conglomerate. She sees Ethan as an opportunity to achieve this feat.

Antagonist: Ethan Cresswell. 25 years old.

Backstory: The first son and heir of a billionaire.

Initial Desire: To acquire more companies and to own the richest company in the world. He intends to continue living life recklessly irrespective of his marriage to Anabelle. Therefore he embarks on a shameless show of extramarital affairs all in an effort to shame his wife.

START: Annabel and her father are having dinner with Ethan Cresswell and his parents. Her father explains to her that she is to marry Mr. Cresswell's son as a fulfillment of a deal made in the past. Annabel is furious but she chooses to marry Ethan Cresswell nonetheless because she knows nothing is going to change that. She schemes to use Ethan's wealth to start her business and expand her father's business. Her ultimate goal is to destroy Ethan Cresswell financially as revenge for a deep-rooted grudge.

SUBPLOT: When Annabel was a child, her father (St. Claire's) signed a contract with Ethan's father at a bar. His business was falling apart when fate brought the two men together. Drunkenly, he rants about his business failures to another man who happens to be a billionaire and in their drunken stupor they sign a contract that mandates St. Claire to one day marry his daughter to his son (Ethan). Ethan's father backs St. Claire financially and even allows his daughter (Anabelle) to attend his private school on a full-ride scholarship.

In high school, she has a huge crush on Ethan Cresswell and tries everything to make him like her but he remains cold and instead takes advantage of her feelings. During a truth and dare game, Ethan is dared to strip Anabelle. He complies by tearing her shirt in the hallway while other students take pictures of her. From that day onward, she swears to take revenge on Ethan Cresswell.

DEVELOPMENT: Annabel and Ethan got married. She's extremely nice to Ethan and ignores his harem of mistresses. She gives him business ideas that build his company and help him make more money than he has ever had. She also seduces him constantly and tries to get him drunk so he can reveal the weakness of his business empire to her. Ethan finds it suspicious that Anabelle is helping him grow his business especially since he is aware that Anabelle should hate him. He hires a private investigator to find out if Anabel still holds any sour feelings towards him.

CLIMAX: The private investigator finds out that Annabel had secretly bought Ethan's rival company and she's now the CEO. Ethan wonders at the reason she would do such a thing and plans to confront her but before he was able to confront her, a scandal about him is on the internet. Due to the scandal, his stock prices plummeted drastically while that of the rival company Annabel secretly owns increased.

POST CLIMAX DEVELOPMENT: Annabel kept pretending to be a supportive wife to Ethan unaware that he has found out her secret. One drunken night, they slept together. When Ethan woke up the next morning and finds himself next to her, he hurriedly left the house to avoid being confronted about their night together. Annabel became pregnant, she is devasted and decided to abort the pregnancy without telling Ethan. She continues her revenge mission and when she got to the abortion center, she discovers the P.I Ethan hired to monitor her. She confronted the P.I and handed him some money to stop stalking her. Annabel, who is aware of the private investigator's greed knows that he would continue feeding Ethan with information about her every move. Therefore, she misleads him.

Ethan finds out about his wife's pregnancy and although he is angry that she owns his rival company and has been deceiving him he cannot help falling in love with her. He convinces her to keep the pregnancy. The P.I. continues to feed him wrong information and after this, there are two more scandals attached to his name. After this scandal, Ethan's father dies, followed by her father.

CONCLUSION: Ethan finds out that his wife is behind the scandals that threaten his business empire. He is furious beyond measure and takes action to divorce her. When he drops the divorce papers, Annabel starts bleeding and he rushes her to the hospital. The baby is born prematurely and there are severe complications that hospitalize Annabel and the baby dies. While she's in the hospital, Ethan begins to do everything to ruin her business but all his plans keep falling through. He is not aware that although hospitalized, she has put plans in place to keep her business running smoothly.

Ethan then decides to team up with her older brother who inherits her father's company to destroy Annabel's business. When she's out of the hospital, she finds out their plans and uses them against them. Both businesses begin to crumble to the ground. Frustrated that his efforts have come to nought, Ethan decides to solicit help from a company just as successful as Annabel's. The COO of that company gives him criteria he is to meet within a specified deadline. If he fails to meet this deadline, his company will be owned by them.

Ethan meets more troubles and is unable to meet up with the deadlines. He begs the COO that he would like to speak to the CEO (actual owner of the company) to ask for an extension of the deadline. The COO tells him that he is lucky she's in the office. Ethan is surprised that the CEO of such a company is a woman but when he sees that the CEO is Annabel, he is angry.

They have an intense fight in the office but somehow, they end up having sex on the table in the office. Then the COO walks in on them thinking they are still fighting. He has plans to take Ethan out of the office. When he sees them making love and they don't notice him, he walks out quietly.

Days after this they continue the divorce process and she moves out of the house. She finds out she is pregnant and decides to travel out of the country to have her baby without Ethan's knowledge. Ethan finds out about this and begs her to allow him to be a part of the child's life. Both exhausted from their petty revenge and silly fights decide to bury the hatchet for the sake of their child. Ethan makes amend for his past wrongs and confesses his love to her. They later go on to live a happy life.