And in her honey-colored eyes he saw something worse than guilt.
Fear.
“Who are those children?” he asked, his voice rough.
She instinctively pulled the toddlers closer.
“I can explain—”
“Who are they?”
The children began to cry.
“That boy has my wife’s birthmark. That one has my family’s hair swirl. And she has my grandmother’s eyes. Explain that.”
Thunder cracked overhead. Rain began to fall.
Sofia trembled.
“They’re your children.”
The world went silent.
“What did you say?”
“Leo. Theo. And Mia,” she said softly, pointing to each of them. “They were born September 15th. They’re eighteen months old. They’re yours, Damian. The children Elena wanted to give you.”
His knees gave out. He fell onto the wet grass.
“The accident… there were no survivors…”
“Because Elena was never pregnant,” Sofia whispered. “I was. I was her surrogate.”
The rain poured harder.
“Elena hired me four years ago. Everything was legal. But secret.”
“Why secret?”
“One word,” Sofia said. “Victoria.”
The name hit like poison.
Victoria Cross, his late father’s widow. Obsessed with “pure bloodlines.” With natural heirs. The woman who humiliated Elena at every family gathering.