Chapter 2

Hampton Garner POV:

"Is it painful, Josephine?"

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, cool and detached. The principal, a man who usually fawned over any Garner family member, suddenly found the paperwork on his desk fascinating and practically scurried out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

The silence that followed was heavy, thick with five years of unspoken history.

I watched her. Josephine Jackson. The woman I had plucked from obscurity, a naive artist with paint under her nails and stars in her eyes. The woman I had used as a pawn in a brutal family power struggle. The woman who had given birth to my son, a son I never intended to have.

They called me the 'Golden Son' of the Garner dynasty. A congressman at thirty, with a direct line to the Senate. My life was a carefully orchestrated performance of power and legacy. My engagement to Christabel Fitzpatrick, a woman whose family tree was as immaculate as her political connections, was the final, perfect piece of the puzzle. A bastard son and his penniless artist mother had no place in that picture.

I remembered the whispers, the accusations. They called her a social climber, a whore, a scheming nobody who had trapped me. The truth was far more complicated. I had been the one to scheme. And when she became pregnant, an unacceptable complication, I had acted with the ruthless efficiency my family was known for.

The baby, Ignatius, was taken the day he was born and given to Christabel to raise as her own. Josephine was confined, held until the scandal died down, and then, unceremoniously discarded. I had a security detail drive her to the edge of the city and leave her there with a check and a warning to never return.

That was five years ago. I hadn't thought of her since. Not once. Or so I told myself.

Now, seeing her here, kneeling on the floor for another woman's child, a fierce, unfamiliar emotion coiled in my gut. She looked different. The naive softness in her eyes had been replaced by a hardened resignation, but the gentleness was still there, wrapped around the boy clinging to her side.

She didn't answer me. She simply stood, her body a shield in front of her son-her stepson. She was trembling, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor that I knew was not from cold, but from sheer terror.

The boy, Cale, wiped his tears with the back of his hand and glared at me, his small face a mask of fierce loyalty. "Leave my mom alone."

Ignatius, my son, scoffed from behind me. He looked from Cale's protective stance to Josephine's worn clothes. "Mom? Don't be ridiculous. She's just some trash my father used to know." He spat the word 'father' like it was a curse.

"Iggy," I warned, my voice low.

The insult slid off Josephine like water. She had heard worse. I had made sure of that. I remembered the things people had called her, the lies Christabel had whispered in my ear, lies I had chosen to believe because it was easier.

I remembered how she used to bring me hand-drawn sketches, clumsy little things she made in her spare time, capturing moments of life in the city. I' d always thrown them away. Now, looking at the fierce love in her eyes as she shielded this other boy, I felt a strange, hollow ache. This raw, protective instinct-she had once tried to give it to our son. To me.

"Like I said," Ignatius sneered, his anger and shame twisting into cruelty. "She' s a whore. She probably doesn't even know who his real father is."

Cale lunged forward, a small ball of fury. "You take that back!"

Josephine caught him, her grip firm. "Cale, no. It's not worth it." She looked at Ignatius, and for a fleeting moment, her eyes were filled not with anger, but with a profound, soul-deep sadness. It was the look of a mother mourning a child who was still alive.

I knew that look. I had seen it in the rearview mirror of the car that drove her away five years ago.

"Ignatius," I said again, my voice sharper this time. "That's enough. Go wait in the car."

My son shot me a look of pure resentment but obeyed, stomping out of the office. The air cleared, but the tension remained, a taut wire between Josephine and me.

She still hadn't looked at me directly. She just kept her eyes on her son, her focus absolute.

"You haven't changed, Josephine," I said, the words tasting like ash. "Still letting people walk all over you."

"I am not going back with you, Hampton," she said, her voice quiet but unyielding. It was the first time she had spoken my name.

A wave of relief, so potent it surprised me, washed over her face. She thought I was here to drag her back into that gilded cage. The thought was absurd. She was a liability I had successfully neutralized years ago.

"Don't flatter yourself," I said coldly. "I have no intention of bringing you home."

She finally looked at me then. Her eyes, the color of warm honey, were devoid of the adoration they once held. Now, they were just empty. It was worse than hatred.

She reached into her simple purse, pulled out a worn leather wallet, and took out a small handful of crumpled bills. She placed them on the principal's desk. "This should be enough for Iggy's doctor visit. We won't be bothering you again."

She took Cale's hand and walked towards the door, moving with a desperate haste. She was escaping. From me.

As she passed, her sleeve brushed against my arm. A jolt, like static electricity, shot through me. A ghost of a memory: her scent, a mix of turpentine and wildflowers.

"Josephine," I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

She flinched but didn't stop.

"Stay away from my son." The words were a warning, a threat meant to sever this final, accidental tie.

She paused at the door, her back to me. For a moment, I thought she would turn, that she would say something, plead with me, anything.

But she just nodded once, a barely perceptible dip of her head. It was an agreement. A promise to disappear again. A final goodbye.

As she pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway, I heard Iggy's voice from down the corridor, sharp and petulant. "Hey! Wait!"

But Josephine didn't wait. She grabbed her son's hand and almost ran, her footsteps echoing down the hall, a sound of frantic, final retreat.