“You were heartless yesterday. Neither of them has touched a meal since.”
“*Heartless?*”
I set down my coffee cup and locked eyes with him：
“Mr. Stephens, do I no longer have the right to manage my own family's affairs?”
“That's not what I meant……”
Ervin paused for a beat：“It's just that anyone with eyes can see it.
“This is revenge. Plain and simple.”
I smiled：
“If that's what you want to call it—fine. I admit it.”
“But isn't the thing you're really angry about the fact that I didn't marry you back then?”
Ervin grew agitated：“What happened back then can't be undone.
“If you want revenge, come after me. Don't take it out on an innocent mother and daughter!
“Name your price.
“Let Anne marry Ronnie and you can have everything I own. Every last cent.”
I looked at the man in front of me. That actually surprised me.
Then I laughed：
“Ervin Stephens.
“You're self-made.”
He went still.
Let out a sigh and turned his face away.
“You swore you'd never let yourself live in poverty again.
“And now you'd throw away everything you built? For them?”
Ervin sighed again：
“They……matter more than money.”
A bitter smile.
Those words.
He'd said them to me once, too.
Ervin Stephens.
In the end, I had him shown out.
He kept looking back as he left：
“Can't we talk about this a little more?
“I meant what I said about compensating you. I'm not joking.”
“Nadia, please.”
“They're really hurting.”
I looked out the window.
And what about the girl who knelt on the ground twenty years ago, sobbing that she'd been framed?
Ervin had barely been gone when someone else asked to see me.
The moment the door opened, we both froze for a beat.
Martin Vance.
The man who'd been in that bed with me.
My sister's boyfriend.
All these years, he'd believed I was the one who drugged him.
And for those twenty years, just like me, he'd never married.
“I didn't expect you to show up too.”
I spoke first.
Martin sat down across from me.
His gaze swept over my home, expression complicated, before settling back on me.
He opened his mouth：
“I didn't realize you were this determined.”
“Hm?”
“Ronnie Henson. I only found out yesterday that he's your son.”
I said nothing.
“That night?” he asked.
I knew what he meant. The night my mother set us up.
I shook my head.
He let out a breath：
“You don't need to deny it. I already know.”
“I really didn't.”
He studied me.
A trace of resignation crossed his face：“You always were stubborn.
“But you know exactly who I've been single all these years for.”
I drank my coffee and said nothing.
“Making things difficult for those two, honestly, that's going too far.”
“You're going to meddle in my family's affairs too?”
I shot him a cold look.
He sighed：
“Nadia.
“Strictly speaking, Ronnie is my child.
“That makes this my family's affair too.”
“I already told you he's not your child.”
Martin looked at me：
“Nadia, I'm not blind.
“That boy looks like me.”
I almost laughed：
Martin Vance was the sharp-jawed, ruggedly handsome type.
Ronnie was too.
“He has the same look as you, Mr. Vance, sure.
“But you're hardly the only man who looks like that.
