A window creaked open.
Tessa’s voice rang out, soft and affectionate. “Stephen, come inside. Dinner’s ready.”
“I know, Mommy!”
Stephen darted toward the warmth of the house, but just before disappearing inside, he turned back, his voice dripping with disdain.
“If you know what’s good for you, hurry up and get lost. A vicious woman like you doesn’t deserve to take my mom’s place. Only Auntie, someone as kind as her, does.”
His small figure vanished beyond the door, but his words remained, cutting deeper than any wound.
I thought back to the first time I met him.
Back then, he had been just a tiny baby wrapped in soft swaddling clothes. I held him in my arms, my heart swelling with tenderness.
I had loved him without reason, without hesitation, even though he wasn’t coming from my womb.
That was why, when the Cavendish family decided to send me here, I had agreed.
After all, where else could I go?
My birth mother wanted me dead.
My birth father never even knew I existed.
My siblings saw me as nothing more than a stain on their name.
But I never thought even the child I raised would come to hate me this much.
A shadow fell over me.