Page 27 of Forgotten Vows
Seeing her again was a blast to the past, a reminder of the history we shared and that I couldn’t let go of.
But it was the young boy standing behind her who shocked me the most.
More than the slap Raisa gave me as a greeting, the sight of this brown-haired boy was the sucker punch to the gut that I couldn’t breathe through.
Those medical records I’d found were wrong.
Raisa hadn’t lost a baby. She hadn’t lost my child.
He was alive. He stood right there, tilting his head like I did, showing the same dark-brown eyes that shone back at me whenever I looked at my reflection in a mirror.
My child—myson—was alive.
“You…” I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think straight. All that filled my head was the sobering and shocking realization that Iwasa father. And she’d hidden my son from me for years.
There was no denying it. When Misha shifted his weight on his feet in the background, I volleyed my gaze back and forth. They were so close in age that they looked like twins. I saw the resemblance connecting me to this boy. I dared her to deny that this boy was mine. It was obvious and I wouldn’t let her try to dissuade me from that fact.
Luka cleared his throat, as if reminding us all that we were in his home, in his study, and subject to what he decided here. “You asked why I allowed my guards to let you inside,” he said, standing and approaching the boy. He didn’t flinch or cower, eyeing my uncle with confidence. Ever so slightly, he stepped toward Raisa, as if to defend her against the clear antagonism and tension in the room.
“And it is because I was curious whyyou, a spitting image of my nephew, would show up at my door like this.” Luka raised his brows in a silent expectation for an answer.
It wasn’t like anyone had to guess or explain fucking anything.
This boy looked like me because I was his father.
“You hid my son from me?” That accusation wasn’t my finest reaction. But I couldn’t keep it in. It burst from me, blasted at Raisa with as much censure and restraint as I could summon. Shifting back and forth between shock, elation, annoyance, and anger, I wasn’t sure what to settle on.
I couldn’t believe she was here.
I couldn’t believe she had a child,myson.
I couldn’t believe she thought she had any right to breeze in here and just?—
“All these years?” I vaguely noticed Gabriella stepping forward with Misha. Alexsei was there too, perhaps worried that Raisa and I would truly fight. They all fell to a blur of the background, because all I could focus on was her.
The woman I’d pined for, the one I’d missed. The one I wanted to have a chance of loving again, just not in my dreams.
She shoved her sleeves up, her gorgeous face pinched with fury. Looking like she was ready to jump on me and strangle me, she gave no sign of backing up or calming down. Nor did she look anywhere near ready to apologize for hiding this boy from me all this time.
“How dare you!” I laughed once, choking on the words, so incredulous that this was really happening. When I worried that she might be pregnant, I followed up. I hired someone to track her. I held in my own hands the report of her losing her pregnancy.
“Oh, I dared.” She tipped her chin up, defiant and bold as ever. “I dared to do what I had to in order to keep him safe.”
“You kept him from me! My own son.”
In the background, I saw how Misha put his arm around my son and urged him back from me and Raisa.
My son.
It just couldn’t sink into my brain yet. I was that stunned.
This boy had gone his whole life without my being a part of it!
“You cheated me out of being his father all this time?—”
She stepped forward, her scowl deepening with ire. “No!Youcheated.” She wasn’t hesitating to throw that line at me. “You were the one who cheated onme. You chose someone else. You chose a different future. Remember? Remember that day when you walked away, leaving me to find out you were with that woman that whole summer?”
“You are wrong,” I bit out hotly. Disappointed that she’d still believe that stupid story I’d fed her, I wanted to scream at her until the message sunk in and permeated now. “You are wrong. I faked that. It was all a goddamn lie.”
