Five years old. I'd raised him with my own hands, held him every night and told him stories—and now that same little boy was clinging to Leonora's leg, face upturned, eager to please, calling her—
Mommy.
Leonora looked down and stroked Ryan's hair, her smile impossibly tender. Then she raised her eyes to mine, and the triumph in them didn't even try to hide.
"There's my good boy."
Her voice was soft. She glanced at Landon. "Mommy was just talking to Daddy, sweetie. You couldn't wait for Mommy to pick you up, could you?"
The color drained from Landon's face.
He crossed the room in two strides and pulled Ryan away from her.
"Ryan, you got it wrong. That's your aunt."
"But Auntie told me to call her that."
Ryan blinked, all innocence. "Auntie said she's my real mommy. She bought me tons and tons of toys and said if I called her Mommy, I'd never have to go back to that stupid house."
The blood in my veins ran backward.
"Landon."
I heard my own voice—hoarse, barely mine. "You've been taking Ryan to see her?"
Landon swallowed. He said nothing.
Leonora laughed—a bright, shaking, delighted laugh that carried across the room.
She crossed the floor toward me one stiletto step at a time and dropped her voice low.
"You still don't get it, do you?"
"Ryan is mine and Landon's. You were just… a free womb."
"The college entrance exam destroyed you. The marriage? You were nothing but the substitute. And now even the son isn't yours. Dora Sullivan, you really did lose everything."
My whole body was shaking. My nails dug into my palms.
"You're lying!"
I shoved her aside and lunged for Ryan, pulling him into my arms. "Ryan is mine! I carried him for ten months—I was on that operating table having a C-section while you were out drinking at a bar, Leonora! How dare you say that to me—"
"Dora!"
Landon's brow knotted hard. "Don't make a scene in front of the child."
I looked at the man I had loved for fifteen years, and the tears finally fell.
"Tell me. Is Ryan my child or not?"
Landon's gaze flickered away. He hesitated.
That hesitation made my stomach turn.
He was figuring out how to spin it.
Or maybe, even now, he was looking for another lie to feed me.
"Landon."
Leonora tugged his arm, her voice syrupy. "Just tell her. She'll find out sooner or later."
"He's ours, after all—our blood, our child. She's the outsider here… she deserves to hear it."