I hadn't so much as grazed her. Yet her whole body suddenly tipped backward.
Alex caught her with lightning-fast reflexes.
"Felicia, why did you push me?"
"Alex, she's not just trying to ruin your deal. She wants to hurt our baby."
"I shouldn't have come back and bothered you two. I only wanted to fulfill my father's dying wish. Is it really so wrong to be a good daughter?"
Listening to Layla's pitiful sobbing, Alex's heart ached for her.
He raised his foot, ready to kick me.
But right at that moment, a soft, childish voice rang out from the doorway.
"Don't you hit my Mommy!"
Conrad Henson scrambled down from the nanny's arms, his little legs pumping as he sprinted toward me.
He threw his arms wide and planted himself in front of me like a shield.
Then he scrunched up his face and glared at Alex. "You two big meanies are bullying my Mommy! I'm gonna tell Daddy!"
Alex froze mid-step. "What the hell are you babbling about, you little brat? Who's your mom?"
Conrad ignored him completely and threw himself into my arms.
"It's okay, Mommy. Super Conrad will protect you."
My eyes burned. I pressed a kiss to his forehead.
The moment Alex saw that, he exploded.
"Well, well, well, Felicia Pruitt! You went behind my back and cheated on me? You even had a son with some lowlife?"
"How could you betray everything we had?"
"Tell me! Who's the father?"
His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles went white, his eyes blazing with fury.
He looked exactly like a husband who'd just caught his wife in bed with another man.
Worried he might lose control and hurt Conrad, I steeled my expression, ready to tell him the truth. That Conrad was the son of the very billionaire he was so desperate to impress.
But before I could speak, Layla let out a sharp gasp.
"Oh my God, I just figured it out!"
"Three years ago, that baby you picked up off the street would be about this age by now."
Alex's heaving chest went still.
His gaze flicked to me, then to Conrad.
A second later, he couldn't hold it in. He burst out laughing.
"Oh, that's rich! Felicia, you really are something else!"
"You were so desperate to marry me that you actually believed some throwaway line I made up."
"Playing mommy to someone else's kid for free?"
"Come here, come here. Let me see if you fattened him up the way I told you to."
He reached for Conrad's arm. I slapped his hand away hard.
"Don't touch him. You can't afford the consequences."