On top of everything, I'd have to bring my "real son" home.
Then everyone would know: the next heir to the Henson family was brain-damaged.
And I wasn't young anymore. I couldn't risk my life to give birth again. So no matter how capable I was, I couldn't stop the Henson family business from being swallowed by rival firms for lack of an heir.
The best option now was for me to accept Clay as the Henson heir, or to beg Clay to have a second child who'd keep the Henson name and carry the family on, generation after generation.
Either way, no matter how you looked at it.
My family would take a devastating blow.
But I didn't say a word.
I only looked at Clay, standing off to the side.
"Clay, what do you make of all this?"
Clay couldn't hold back any longer.
He'd been raised on my teaching since he was small. He was no fool, and of course he could see this was a scheme.
Cole and the other two knew that swapping the head of a company wasn't like swapping out tables and chairs. That was exactly why they'd chosen today to spring it.
And the way he saw it, he had only one mother. Me.
So his words weren't gentle.
"No matter what you say, I won't believe a word of it."
"You're deliberately targeting my mom, going after the Henson family's fortune."
"No wonder something always felt off to me. My mom thought you were still young and suggested you remarry, but you refused."
"And all these years, you were so good to me. You knew about the swap all along. You were counting on me finding out I was your son so I'd help you go after my mom!"
"You people are disgusting."
Five:
The moment Clay said it.
He ripped the last shred of cover clean off the three of them.
Catherine shook her head over and over.
"That's not it."
"I was only good to you because I thought my son was brain-damaged. Seeing you healthy, I always felt like I was looking at my own boy."
"Now that I think about it, maybe that's what they call a mother and son's hearts being tied together."
Not even a ghost would believe a word of it.
Least of all me.
Back then, during my confinement, I'd had a hard delivery, so I never learned much about how that child ended up brain-damaged.
But once my confinement was over, my mother let something slip to me.
"You and your sister-in-law gave birth at the same time. We deliberately arranged the same delivery room and postpartum nurse for her as for you. But your sister-in-law and your mother-in-law, who knows what got into them, wouldn't trust a soul. They insisted on caring for the baby themselves."
"It was so hot out, and they still wouldn't turn on the AC. They gave that baby a raging fever, plain and simple."
"We got people to try and save him, but it was too late. His brain was already damaged. There was no fixing it."
Putting it together with what was happening now, I was even more certain: they'd done it on purpose.
They'd wanted to cripple my child, to leave me no choice but to depend on theirs.
But Moira had no idea what was running through my mind. She just looked at Catherine with a heartbroken face, taking Clay's hand and pleading with him.
"Your birth mother isn't like your adoptive mother. Your adoptive mother sees nothing but profit, but your birth mother is simple and kind. Swap or no swap, she'd have been good to her child no matter what."
"Clay, you've been a good boy since you were little. You can't side with the Hensons just because they have money."
"Samantha may be pitiful, but she kept someone else's son for all these years. Whatever pity she deserves was drowned out long ago by how much she's to blame."
"We don't care about the Henson money. But if the Henson money goes to you, at most it's just making up for what was done to you!"
Six:
The room fell into chaos in no time.
My parents were livid.
"Every last cent of the Henson family's money, we'd sooner give it all away to charity than hand it to people as vicious as you!"
