Page 71 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

My stomach turned.

I pushed back in my chair, unable to breathe.

“You… dated Leo?” I said again, needing to hear it, to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. “My son?”

Time didn’t slow. It stopped.

I sat there, absolutely frozen.

What the fuck?

I remembered him offhandedly talking about an ex once. Said her name was Mariella, I think.

No. No fucking way.

Mariella. Ella.

“You’re that ex?” My voice was a rasp. “Leo’s Mariella?”

She winced.

“You knew this? All this time?” My hands clenched the table’s edge. My jaw clenched so tight it ached. Fury. Betrayal. Confusion. All of it whirled like a storm behind my ribs.

And it made me want to punch something.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I growled, my voice low but lethal.

She flinched, and part of me hated that, but the rest of me was too full of shock and betrayal to stop.

This wasn’t just some awkward coincidence.

This was my son.

This was Ella.

She sat still, like she was bracing for me to explode.

And honestly? I didn’t know what I was going to say next.

So I didn’t speak.

Not when she whispered my name.

Not when she reached across the table like she could take the words back.

Not when the waiter brought the dessert menu like we weren’t both seconds from imploding.

I raised a hand. “Check.”

Ella blinked, her face pale now under the flickering candlelight. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Smart. Because if she said the wrong thing right now, I didn’t know what I’d do.

My hands shook. I hid them beneath the table.

My thoughts were a cyclone—Leo’s voice, Ella’s eyes, the image of my girls asleep in their bassinets, soft and pink and perfect. Our girls.

God. What did this mean?

Leo would never forgive this.

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