The Loyal Dog Becomes A Lion

" Olivia' s voice was as cold as the marble floo

d on the platinum band on her own finger,

a, sipping tea. She glanced at the papers, th

ten years of a life you could only dream

d, my voice steady. "I'm just c

lly looking up. Her eyes were empty of an

in the air, a

ion dollars, as per the contract, has been transferred to your account. And Olivia, out of the kind

er. A final pat on the head fo

w apartment later," Olivia said, waving a di

u," I sai

only thing

as hanging there, one I hadn't seen before. It was a pro

smiling man. Daniel Clark. And beside them, holding Daniel' s other hand, was my son,

mother, a doting father, and their beloved so

ther's life-saving surgery. The Hayes family needed a respectable, clean-cut husband for their daughter, Olivia, whose reputation was in tatter

the child she was already pregnant with-a child everyone assumed was Daniel's. In return, they

But I was naive. I thought I

ail

rms and swore I would be the best father I could be. I was. I changed his diapers, stayed up with him through fevers, t

their meals, and stood silently in the background at their lavish parties, a respectable but invisible fixture. I en

r let me

e. That Olivia would look at me with something other than cool indifference. That

ay nev

ned. His new money had run out, an

ack without a

slip a diamond necklace around her neck. She kissed him, a long, passionat

ayes smiled. No one

uly over. The contract was up, and s