Margaret inhaled sharply.
My stomach dropped.
No.
No way.
Ethan turned slowly toward his mother.
“You knew?”
Margaret’s silence confirmed everything.
I thought Ethan looked devastated before.
I was wrong.
This destroyed him.
“You intercepted them,” he whispered.
Margaret finally snapped.
“I did what was necessary!”
Linda quietly ushered the nurses out of the room.
Even they knew this had become something explosive.
Margaret’s eyes glistened angrily.
“She would have trapped you with a child!”
I laughed in disbelief.
“Trapped him?”
“She was emotional and unstable—”
“Enough.”
Ethan’s voice cracked like thunder.
I had never seen his mother afraid before.
Until that moment.
“You stole years from me.”
Margaret’s lips trembled.
“I am your mother.”
“And she was my wife.”
The words slammed into me.
Was.
Not is.
But somehow it still hurt.
Lucas suddenly let out a tiny cry.
The sound cut through the tension instantly.
Ethan looked at the baby.
Then at me.
And something shifted in his expression.
Not obligation.
Not guilt.
Love.
Raw and terrifying.
Margaret saw it too.
And for the first time in her life…
She realized she had lost control.
