Three Instances of a Lie Chapter 12

Three Instances of a Lie Chapter 12

Three years later, he took his son to a charity gala.

The boy had grown taller. In his small tuxedo, the brash arrogance was gone, replaced by a quiet solemnity.

As Federico made small talk, his gaze was suddenly snagged by a figure across the

room.

A woman in a stunning, deep green gown was holding a toddler of about two, gently dabbing at the child’s mouth. Her movements were tender, a soft smile gracing her lips.

The blood rushed to Federico’s head.

Berry.

He had searched for her for three years.

He’d filed missing person reports, run ads, hired investigators-it was as if she’d fallen off the face of the earth.

And now, here she was, not ten paces away, holding another child, a picture of serene happiness.

Erik saw her at the same moment.

He shot forward like a bolt of lightning and threw his arms around Berry’s leg. “Mom!”

Berry looked down at the boy clinging to her, and the smile vanished from her face.

“Mom! You’re back! I missed you so much!”

Erik looked up at her, tears streaming down his face. “I had a fever and you didn’t come see me. The kids at school call me the boy with no mom. I…”

“Let go,” the woman’s voice was cool and dispassionate.

Erik froze, but his grip didn’t loosen.

“I said, let go. You’re scaring my son.” Berry took a step back, instinctively shielding the little boy in her arms.

That child stared at Erik with wide, curious eyes and asked in a sweet lilt, “Mommy,

who is he?”

Mommy.

The word was a physical blow to Erik.

His eyes widened as he stared at the child in Berry’s arms.

“Mommy… why are you holding another baby?” His voice cracked. “You promised I’d be your only baby forever! You promised!”

Berry glanced at him, a faint, distant smile playing on her lips-the kind one reserves for a complete stranger.

“So you’re the child no mother wants,” she said, her tone light and airy. “How pathetic.”

Tears welled in Erik’s eyes as he stood frozen in place.

Federico strode over. “How can you say that? He’s your son!”

Berry looked up at Federico.

Three years had aged him, worn him down.

“I have only one precious son.” She bent and pressed a kiss to the forehead of the boy

in her arms.

She turned to leave.

Erik let out a heartbreaking wail and lunged forward again, clinging to her leg.

“Mom, don’t go! I was wrong! I won’t break your watch! I won’t say bad things about

Grandma! Mom-”

“Little boy, you have the wrong person.” A young man stepped between them, shielding

ľ Berry and her child.

He nodded to a pair of bodyguards. “Please escort Madam and the young master downstairs.”

Berry walked away with her child and didn’t look back.

Federico stood stunned.

Mathew Sterling?

The heir to the West Coast tech giant.

What had he called Berry? Madam?

He suddenly recalled how several of his company’s key projects had been mysteriously crippled over the past few years. He’d investigated, and the trail always led back, indirectly, to the Sterling Corporation.

He’d dismissed it as ruthless business competition. Now he understood. It was Berry.

She had been his wife for four years. She knew the Grayson Corporation’s financials, its vulnerabilities, its pressure points.

The figures he’d discussed on the phone in his study, the contracts she’d glimpsed while tidying his desk…

He had never once considered her a threat.

Federico’s heart seized.

He thought she could never let go of their son, that she couldn’t live without him.

But she had built a new life, a new family, and from that safe distance, she had been systematically dismantling his.

He looked at Mathew Sterling’s back, a fuzzy memory trying to surface…

But it was drowned out by the sound of his son’s weeping.