Chapter 1 - THREE BOYS AT THE CURB
Ryan Harrison stared at my sons as though someone had removed all the air from Chicago.
Noah still had both arms around my waist.
Liam was tugging excitedly at my hand.
And Mason, the youngest by seven minutes, was studying Ryan with the same intense gray eyes Ryan used whenever he was trying to solve a problem.
That resemblance was impossible to ignore.
Ryan finally looked at me.
“How old are they?”
I knew exactly why he was asking.
I also knew there was no answer that would make this moment easier.
“Four.”
His jaw tightened.
“Four what?”
“Four years old.”
“When are their birthdays?”
“Ryan.”
“When?”
His voice cracked loudly enough that several people near the curb turned toward us.
“March eighteenth.”
Ryan went completely still.
He started calculating.
I watched the exact moment he reached the answer.
Our divorce had become final in August.
I had discovered I was pregnant six weeks earlier.
The boys had been conceived while Ryan and I were still married.
Ryan took one step backward.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Emily, are they—”
A woman rushed toward us from the Bentley.
My best friend, Rachel Monroe, immediately noticed Ryan.
Her expression hardened.
“Of course.”
Ryan barely looked at her.
His eyes remained on the boys.
“Emily, are they mine?”
The question I had imagined hearing for nearly five years finally arrived.
And somehow it made me angrier than I expected.
“You don’t get to ask that like I hid some random secret from you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I tried to tell you.”
Ryan stared at me.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“Seven times.”
His face changed.
“I never received anything.”
“I sent letters to your apartment.”
“I sent one to your office.”
“I emailed your private account.”
“I left messages with your assistant.”
“And six weeks after the divorce, I went to Harrison Global headquarters myself.”
Ryan shook his head slowly.
“I would remember that.”
“You weren’t there.”
“Who did you speak to?”
I hesitated.
Because I had not said that name in years.
“Your father.”
Ryan’s entire expression changed.
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
“He told me you never wanted to hear from me again.”
“That I was not to contact you.”
“And that if I tried to use a pregnancy to get money, Harrison attorneys would make sure I regretted it.”
Ryan’s face drained of color.
“My father said that?”
“He did more than say it.”
I reached into my purse.
For five years, I had carried one piece of paper I should have thrown away a hundred times.
I handed it to him.
It was a photocopy of a letter printed on Harrison Global stationery.
Ryan read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
His hands began shaking.
At the bottom was a signature.
Charles Harrison.
Ryan whispered,
“This isn’t possible.”
I looked at my sons.
“It was possible enough for me to raise three boys without you.”
Mason tugged my sleeve.
“Mommy, can we go home now?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Ryan looked at him.
Something broke behind his eyes.
“Emily.”
I opened the Bentley door.
Ryan stepped closer.
“Please.”
I turned.
“Please what?”
He swallowed.
“Don’t disappear again.”
The bitterness in me rose instantly.
“I didn’t disappear, Ryan.”
“Your family erased me.”
Then Rachel’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed within seconds.
“Emily.”
“What?”
She turned the screen toward me.
A financial news alert had appeared.
HARRISON GLOBAL BOARD CALLS EMERGENCY MEETING AFTER LEAKED PATENT DOCUMENTS SURFACE.
Ryan looked at the headline.
Then at me.
“What patent documents?”
I already knew.
Because the technology named in the article was mine.
May you like
The same technology Ryan’s company had claimed he created after our divorce.
And someone had just leaked the original files proving otherwise.
