I Paid His Down Payment, But My Son Thanked His Stepmom Instead Chapter 10

“I earned this.”

She paused and gave a small smile.

“I raised Rourke. I stayed up with him when he had a fever. I went to all his parent-teacher

conferences.”

“What did you ever do? Besides give birth to him?”

I looked at her.

I thought of the girl who’d stood at my door in soaked shoes and said, “Delphine, you’re the kindest

person I’ve ever met.”

Twenty-odd years had passed.

One by one, she’d taken everything of mine.

My husband. My son. My company. My home.

Even the word “Mom” from my son’s lips.

And now she sat across from me, pressing the folder down so hard her knuckles were white.

She’d spent more than twenty years winning.

In the end, all she had to show for it was her name on a deed.

“Tamsin. All the things you wanted-I don’t want anymore.”

“The house, my son, that family. You can keep it all.”

“I just want to live out the rest of my life in peace.”

Tamsin froze. She must have prepared a whole speech, expecting me to cry, to curse her, to lunge at \ her and fight for everything I’d lost.

Just like I had sixteen years ago.

But I didn’t.

Her expression changed before she let out a cold laugh.

“Delphine, who are you trying to fool with this saint act?”

“If you’d known your place back then, your mother might have lived a few more years.”

I looked up. “What do you mean?”

Tamsin leaned back in her chair and spoke slowly.

“Barrett asked me to transfer the money that day. I did start.”

“Then I shut off my phone halfway through.”

“I wanted to see what you’d do without your mother. What gave you the nerve to keep fighting me

for Rourke.”

“While you were outside the OR, begging the doctors to save her, I was sitting in my car

downstairs.”

The room went so silent I could hear leaves rustling outside the window.

Junie gasped and covered her mouth.

I sat on the edge of the bed, not moving.

Sixteen years. I’d always thought it was a bank transfer limit, bad luck, or just fate.

I’d hated Barrett. I’d hated Tamsin. I’d even hated myself for signing that paper.

But I’d never once imagined that while my mother lay on the gurney, her life slipping away, someone was sitting in a car downstairs, waiting.

I stood up. My legs went weak. I had to grip the desk to steady myself.

I walked up to her, raised my hand, and slapped her with everything I had.

“That’s for my mother.”

Tamsin clutched her cheek, staring at me in disbelief.

She opened her mouth to say something when a sharp crack came from the doorway.

Something hit the floor. We both turned.

The door was slightly ajar. I hadn’t noticed when it had opened.

Rourke stood outside. At his feet was a torn carton of oat milk, spilling across the floor, still

steaming.

his other hand was a box of fresh lemon poppy seed cake. My favorite.

When he was little, he’d saved up a week’s allowance to buy me one.

He stared at Tamsin, his face drained of color. His lips trembled before he got the words ou

“Tamsin, did you just say…”

“The night Grandma died, you were sitting in your car downstairs?”

All the color drained from Tamsin’s face.

She got to her feet and took two steps toward the door, her voice trembling as she tried to sound

gentle.

“Rourke, you heard wrong.”

“I was just angry. Delphine pushed me too far…’

Rourke didn’t look at her.

He bent down, tossed the oat milk into the trash by the door, then carefully set the cake on the table.