- Chapter Ten -

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I just stood there, holding the champagne glass, my fingers gripping it a little too tightly as I listened to Marcus speak

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I just stood there, holding the champagne glass, my fingers gripping it a little too tightly as I listened to Marcus speak.

At first, it felt like background noise, just another conversation in the room; everything was fine until he started talking about a baby—about a family that had received a child without papers. A child whose blood didn't match the parent's.

I felt my own blood drain from my face.

My heart pounded in my chest, and the room seemed to spin. It couldn't be. He couldn't be talking about...

But he kept going, and with every word, my worst fears were being confirmed. They were searching for the birth mother. My breath hitched in my throat, and suddenly, I couldn't move. I stood there, frozen.

The world felt like it was closing in, the voices in the room fading into the background. All I could hear was Marcus's voice, cutting through everything, revealing the truth I had fought so hard to keep hidden.

They knew. They had to know.

I couldn't stop the thoughts that were flooding my mind.

They know it's me. This is a trap.

The room felt too small, too suffocating. I could barely hear the conversations around me as everything blurred into the background.

My stomach churned, and my vision narrowed. I had to leave. I had to get out of this house before it all fell apart.

But I was stuck. Frozen in place.

Marcus stepped closer; his expression was so serious.

Humiliation. Humiliated.

"Hazel, I'm afraid your father is in trouble. You were underage at the time he orchestrated all of this. He and his girlfriend at the time committed a serious crime—they sold a child."

Girlfriend?— they?

The words hit me hard, like a punch to the gut. My father? Sold my child? It just didn't make any sense. I hadn't known. I couldn't have known.

My heart pounded in my chest, but I said nothing. I couldn't. My mind was reeling.

I had handed the baby to the nurse, believing that was all I had to do. I thought I was giving my child a chance. But now, standing here, Marcus's words pulled the ground out from under me.

Everything I thought I understood about that day had shattered.

The room began to spin, Marcus's words echoing in my mind, but everything felt distant, like underwater.

My vision blurred. Before I could even process what was happening, my knees gave way, and the world tilted.

The last thing I heard before everything went dark was Chace's voice, urgent and full of concern, and the sound of his mother rushing toward me.

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