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."
The flaunting triumph in that look, the open provocation, sent a chill straight through me.
My arms tightened without thinking, and Ryan began to whimper against my chest.
"Mommy… you're hurting me…"
Then he burst into wailing sobs, reaching both hands toward Leonora. "Mommy, save me! I don't want her! She's mean!"
It felt like someone had carved a piece out of my heart.
"Ryan, look at me."
I cupped his face, my voice breaking.
"Mommy's right here. I'm your mommy."
Ryan froze for two seconds, then let out a piercing cry and shoved my hands away.
"You're not! Auntie told me! You're the bad one! You stole me!"
Leonora's eyes went red on cue.
"No matter how much you hate me, the child is innocent. You can't keep him from his real mother just because you and Landon have problems."
The chill that ran through me went all the way to the bone.
"I want a DNA test."
The results came back fast. Ryan was not my child.
His biological parents were Landon Henson and Leonora Pruitt.
Leonora lifted her chin. "Believe me now?"
"Fine."
I let go of Ryan. I stood up slowly and wiped my face dry.
"I'm giving him back to you."
I turned and walked away without looking back.
Behind me, Landon panicked.
"Dora, where are you going? Don't do anything rash."
He tried to rush after me. I stopped and looked him in the eye.
"Landon, let's get a divorce."
His pupils contracted.
"Dora, stop this."
"Just go home. We'll talk when I'm ready."
I turned away without another word, but the tears were already pouring.
Not my child. I carried him for ten months—morning sickness so violent I was hospitalized, a C-section where I hemorrhaged and nearly died on that table—and the child I loved more than my own life was never mine. Leonora's egg, borrowed womb. That was all I ever was to them.
What did they think I was?
Thoughts crashed over me, one after another, drowning out everything else.
I never saw the car speeding toward me.
