Page 103 of Scandalous Contract

I laughed again. “Thanks,” I whispered.

“Thanks for what?” my dad asked.

“Thanks for coming for me, Dad.”

He scoffed. “Son, I will always come for you. You’re my boy. I’d die for you.”

Tears filled my eyes. “And thank you, too, Mom.”

“You better not say for making soup and watching over you,” she told me. “I do that because I love you. You don’t have to thank me.”

A tear trailed down my cheek.

“Thanks for loving me, Mom.”Even though I’m not your biological child.

Tears filled her eyes also. “You don’t have to thank me for that, either. You’re my son. One-third of my heart. It’s me who should thank you for protecting us and for surviving. Thank you, my son.”

I closed my eyes, trying to hold the tears back. But they came anyway. Both of my parents hugged me. And it hurt like hell. But I didn’t complain. How could I, when I needed that hug so damn much.

I was a fool for avoiding them. I couldn’t change the past. But I could recognize a blessing when I saw one. My mom was my blessing. And despite the betrayal, she loved me. And she didn’t want me to know that I wasn’t hers.

So, I’d let it go. I was hers in the ways that mattered the most. Family didn’t always mean blood-related. Sometimes it meant those who loved us and whom we loved back. It meant those who showed up for us and whose backs we always had.

It meant those we’d give our lives for and who’d give their lives for us. I didn’t need to find my biological mom. I didn’t need to know why she’d dropped me off on my dad’s porch and hadn’t contacted me all these years. I honestly had no desire to know her.

The only reason I’d gone to a friend who worked at the local hospital and had them send my hair strands, along with my mom’s, for DNA testing was because I’d found it hard to believe that the woman who’d loved me all these years wasn’t related to me by blood.

I hadn’t done it because I wanted to start some important journey to find out who myrealmom was. My real mom was the one hugging me right now. She was the one who never left me when I needed her.

Plus, going to the hospital that day to drop off those strands of hair was the day I saw Stefanie Adams. I’d seen her and had been struck by her beauty. Like a fucking idiot, I’d found myself following her.

Unable to stop watching her, I’d even sat a few seats behind her in a waiting room I hadn’t needed to be in. I’d listened in on her phone conversation and realized that I wasn’t the only one who had family problems.

I wasn’t the only one hurting because of something someone else did. Her words had helped me come to grips with what I was facing even before I got the DNA results back. So, in a way, my mom had led me to the woman I craved.

I guess that was just one more thing I had to thank her for. For loving me. For raising me to be a man who wasn’t ashamed to love wholeheartedly and properly. And for leading me to the woman I love.

Thank you, Mom.