Chapter 16 - The Mother Who Raised MeMom arrived at the hospital two hours later.
She looked exhausted.
I stood in front of her.
“Did you know?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Ryan is your son?”
She nodded.
“I gave birth to him.”
I felt my knees weaken.
“And you gave him away?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
She sat down.
“Your father took you.”
“What?”
“He took both of you.”
I stared.
“Both?”
“Yes.”
She told me the truth.
My father and my mother had been married first.
Patricia entered his life later.
Ryan was born during a brief separation.
My father believed Patricia would use Ryan to gain control of the company.
So he took Ryan.
Then years later, when I was born, he took me too.
He changed records.
He erased names.
He built a completely new family history.
I cried.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried.”
“And Patricia?”
“She knew.”
“Did she help?”
My mother looked away.
“At first.”
I sat beside her.
“So Patricia gave Ryan to my father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she believed your father would return him.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
“He raised him as the Hawthorne heir.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
My mother whispered:
“Everything became about the company.”
I thought about Patricia’s dinner.
Her commands.
Her cruelty.
Her insistence that wives serve husbands.
She had been trying to shape me into the kind of woman she believed would protect power.
The kind of woman she had once been.
I looked at Mom.
“Why did Dad make me marry Ryan?”
“He didn’t.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Your father died years before you met him.”
“Then who arranged it?”
Mom’s face went pale.
“Jonathan.”
Everything clicked.
Jonathan had arranged the meeting.
He had manipulated Patricia.
He had manipulated Ryan.
He had manipulated me.
The wedding had never been about love.
It had been a controlled transaction.
Except something had gone wrong.
Ryan had actually fallen in love with me.
And that changed the plan.
The doctor came out.
“Ryan is awake.”
I ran to his room.
He opened his eyes.
“Emily.”
I sat beside him.
“There’s something you need to know.”
He looked at me.
“I already know.”
“What?”
He smiled sadly.
“We’re not related.”
I froze.
“What?”
He lifted a folder from beneath his pillow.
“My biological father is not your father.”
“What?”
He pointed to the DNA report.
“The first report was altered.”
“By who?”
“Jonathan.”
I stared.
“Then who is your real father?”
Ryan looked toward the hospital door.
Then he said:
“Thomas Hawthorne.”
I almost laughed.
“But…”
Ryan interrupted.
“There’s one thing you still don’t know.”
“What?”
May you like
He reached for my hand.
“Thomas is not dead.”
