Chapter 3

The boy looked about four. He stood in front of Aislinn, glaring at me with puffed-out cheeks.

I fought through the pain and struggled to my feet. My trembling hand reached toward him. "Kid, I'm your—"

"Shut up!" Aislinn slapped my hand away. She scooped up the boy and placed him in Memphis's arms before turning to me with an irritated expression.

"Kyson, I'd arranged everything carefully. I even left you property. Just pretend I'm dead. Forget what happened today, and let it go. Can't you?"

I watched her stand in front of Memphis, who was holding my son, shielding them both behind her.

My heart plummeted. My entire body trembled uncontrollably.

In six years together, I'd never seen this side of Aislinn. She seemed like a complete stranger.

For the two years after my parents died, I tried to atone for what happened. I even developed severe depression.

When I couldn't take it anymore, Aislinn, who worked as a psychologist, had patiently helped me through it. She knew all my pain.

Even when I broke down in the middle of the night and ran up a mountain, thinking about ending my life, she was always the first to find me and pull me into her arms.

"Don't be afraid, Kyson. Even if the whole world gives up on you, I never will."

With her tenderness and devotion, Aislinn had pulled me out of the darkness. Then she proposed to me.

After we got married, she became pregnant. I was so excited that I picked her up and spun her around. That very day, she bought books about prenatal development and ordered a crib.

"Kyson, this is our first child," she had said. "Even before the baby is born, I want them to feel how much we love them."

But when the day came, she suffered a difficult delivery.

By the time I rushed back, she had cried until her eyes were swollen.

I couldn't bear to see her in so much pain. I held her and tried to comfort her. "Aislinn, you'll always matter more to me than the baby. You're what's important. Let's forget about the baby."

She had clung to me and sobbed. She said she still wanted to have a child with me and wanted to try IVF a second time.

When I saw the bruises on her abdomen from all the injections, I went out of my mind. I threw everything away.

I told her, "I'd rather never have children than make you suffer like that again."

I believed that because she loved me so much, I could be happy as long as I spent my life by her side.

Who could have imagined that every bit of kindness she had shown me was an illusion? She had only been doing it to give Memphis the happy life he wanted.

"Kyson, I know I wronged you, but Aislinn and I were legally married long ago."

I jerked my head up and met Memphis's smug gaze.

His supposedly conciliatory tone grated on my ears. "Now that you know the truth, if you keep chasing after her, people will call you a homewrecker. Besides, our son is attached to me. You wouldn't be able to take him away anyway."

When I returned to the Compton family, Memphis had already been sent away. I didn't meet Aislinn until two years later.

I hadn't known that he and Aislinn knew each other. And I hadn't noticed that, even after she had built a family with me, she maintained another one with him.

But hearing him call me a homewrecker and claim my son as his own shattered the last of my fragile composure. "I'm not the homewrecker. You stole my son from me! He's my child. I'm not leaving him with you!"

I lunged for the boy, but after only two steps, someone grabbed my shoulder.

Before I could see who it was, a hard slap landed across my face.

The metallic taste of blood spread through my mouth. I clutched my cheek and looked up at Zara, whose face was twisted with anger.

Her eyes were icy as she accused me, "Memphis can't have children because you drove him away. What's wrong with giving him a child to make up for it? What gives you the right to make a scene?"