I married a janitor just to defy my wealthy father — but when my dad came to speak with my husband, he fell to his knees.

Chapter 2: The Boy Who Disappeared

My father reached for Ethan’s sleeve like a guilty man reaching for the past.

Ethan stepped back.

“Don’t touch me.”

The room fell silent.

My father looked at me, then back at Ethan, as if he were trapped between two impossible truths.

“You know him?” I asked.

My father swallowed hard.

Before he could speak, Ethan answered.

“He knew my mother.”

Something in those words made my stomach twist.

My father closed his eyes.

“I thought you were dead.”

Ethan laughed once, but there was no humor in it.

“That was convenient for you.”

I felt the floor tilt beneath me.

The man I had married to escape my father’s plan was not some stranger I had pulled from the sidewalk.

He was connected to my father’s past.

Connected deeply enough to make a powerful man kneel.

My father whispered, “Your mother told me the baby didn’t survive.”

Ethan’s eyes hardened.

“My mother told me you paid her to disappear.”

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