No Divorce? The Billionaire's Love Chase! novel Chapter 326

Claudia let out a hollow laugh.

"York," she said, her voice laced with bitter sarcasm, "did you want me to bring this child into the world just so they could end up like me? Ignored, controlled, and taken for granted? Forced to swallow every bit of hurt while watching you dedicate yourself day after day to that mother and son?"

York's composure completely broke. Tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes.

"Claudia," he choked out, "Ann and I were never really together!"

His voice was a low, trembling rasp. He looked her in the eye and confessed, word by painful word, "Ethan is Ann's child with her ex-husband. He is not my biological son."

Tears welled in Claudia's own eyes, spilling unbidden down her pale cheeks.

She smiled, a tragic, broken thing. "York, we've known each other for over twenty years. We've been married for three. I would have given you my heart on a platter. And yet, for Ann, you were willing to be a father to another man's son."

Her voice broke. "You confessing now doesn't change a thing. It only shows me how cheap, how worthless, how completely unimportant I must have been to you."

Darkness swam at the edges of her vision, and she slowly lost consciousness.

—

When Claudia woke again, she was back in Capital City. Back home.

She saw York slumped beside her, asleep, his hand still holding hers. She struggled to sit up, looking for her phone.

Her movement woke him. In just a day and a night, he seemed to have aged years. A dark stubble shadowed his jaw, and his eyes were still red and swollen. He took her phone from his pocket and carefully handed it to her.

His voice was hoarse with pain. "I called Gideon and got you a few days off. You should rest and recover."

Her voice was a fragile whisper. "For Ann, he was willing to treat her ex-husband's child as his own. For them, he neglected me, threatened me. He wouldn't let me cry, wouldn't let me be angry, wouldn't let me divorce him."

"He stood right in front of me and called Ann his wife. He said their child couldn't be seen as illegitimate. That he was her husband — the child's father."

"Wilma, he gave everything he had to Ann and her son. That was his choice."

"For Ann James and her son, he gave up on me. He killed my child."

...

Her voice was soft, weak, but every word carried.

Standing just outside the bedroom door, York's eyes were bloodshot. Each sentence was a sharp dagger twisting in his heart, the pain so intense he could barely breathe.