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."
Something venomous flickered behind Layla's eyes.
Then she turned to the crowd and shrieked at the top of her lungs.
"Felicia! How could you? You're a kidnapper! You tore apart a happy family!"
The word kidnapper hit the crowd like a match to gasoline. Nobody was walking away from that.
Every last one of them wanted to tear me apart.
Within seconds, dozens of outraged "good Samaritans" swarmed around me. Two burly men even volunteered to grab my arms, one on each side, pinning me in place as if I might bolt.
When someone pulled Conrad away from me, his desperate cry of "Don't hurt my Mommy!" was swallowed whole by the wave of shouting and cursing.
"Snatching children in broad daylight? You've got some nerve!"
"You don't even deserve to be called human! You're worse than an animal!"
"Call the police! Lock her up! She should rot behind bars!"
When someone pulled out a phone and threatened to call the cops, Alex, who'd been standing off to the side enjoying the show, suddenly went pale.
He rushed over in a few quick strides and pushed the man's hand down.
"No need, buddy. I already called them. Just rough her up a little, that'll do."
I jerked my head up to stare at him.
"Alex, have you lost your mind? You're the one who—"
Before I could finish, a stinging slap cracked across my face.
My ears rang, a sharp buzzing that drowned out everything except Alex's voice, deliberately low so only I could hear.
"That's for shoving Layla earlier. Consider it your punishment."
"If you want me to marry you, then shut up and take what's coming to you."
I stared at that smug, self-satisfied face, so sure of its own power, and I almost laughed.
The Felicia who once loved him down to the marrow of her bones had died the day he threw her away.
