Chapter 176

Ryan's POV

The boy was small, maybe five or six, but from my vantage point, I couldn’t see the boy’s face, only the back of his head, a mop of dark hair that looked unsettlingly familiar. A sick feeling settled in my gut.

I watched as Emma knelt to the boy, her lips moving in quiet conversation, her hand gently brushing through his hair. She looked tender, motherly—a side of her I had never seen before.

A child?

Who was this child?

Does she have a child?

It couldn’t be hers. Could it?

My jealousy flared up, a wave of bitterness washing over me.

For a brief moment, I wondered if this boy was the child of the man Emma had supposedly moved on with. Was this why she had kept her life so private? Had she started a family without me?

My chest tightened as a horrible realization began to dawn on me. The child… could he be mine?

No. She wouldn’t have kept that from me. She wouldn’t have hidden something like that for six years. Would she?

But there he was, holding her hand, and she hugged