Delusional Ex: The Child Isn't Yours

"She's six, isn't she? Why is she so tiny?" My exhusband stepped directly into my path, blocking the sidewalk.

His eyes locked onto the little girl in my arms, firing off the accusation before I could even take a breath.

Six years after our divorce, we just had to run into each other on a random street corner. And the absolute nerve of this guy—he actually thought I was holding his kid.

In his delusional mind, I was still so pathetically hung up on him that even after he cheated and walked out, I would secretly raise his baby.

I squeezed my daughter's chubby little hand. Refusing to back down from his arrogant, entitled face, I stared at him like he was a bag of unrecyclable trash.

A mocking smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. "Snap out of it.

My daughter just turned three." Chapter 1 The day Grayson laid his cards on the table, I had just found out I was pregnant.

The lab results were still clutched in my hand, unread by him. Grayson sat on the sofa. Without flinching, he announced he had been cheating for six months.

The other woman was pregnant. He wanted to keep the baby. That meant a divorce. The ringing in my ears drowned out the room.

Before I could even push the words out of my throat, Grayson met my gaze, his face a stone wall. "You heard me right." My fingernails dug so hard into my palms that the skin broke.

The room tilted, pulling the floor right out from under my feet. A crack in my marriage had never even crossed my mind. Grayson was gorgeous, sure, but always icy and reserved.

Back in college, he was the untouchable STEM prodigy with a trail of girls pining after him. It took me two years of relentless chasing to finally wear him down.

God, I was so stupidly obsessed with him. Once we got together, I was the one doing all the heavy lifting, but he comfortably settled into the habit of having me around.

We got our marriage license right after graduation. Three years dating, two years married. Five years total, and he was already bored?

My hands shook as I reached into my bag for the lab results. I wanted to scream that I was pregnant, too. Halfway there, my fingers froze. Hot tears burned my cheeks.

What was the point of pulling it out? If Grayson dumped his mistress and crawled back to play house, would I even want him? Hell no. Bile rose in the back of my throat.

The thought of him made my stomach churn. Probably terrified I would cling to him and beg, Grayson grabbed his keys and walked out. The door clicked shut.

He didn't spare me a single backward glance. He didn't show his face until the next morning.

By then, I had already slashed his designer suits to shreds, dumped the pile at the front door, and spent the night securing the most ruthless divorce attorney in the city.

Grayson stood in the entryway, hands stuffed in his pockets, taking in the scene. Not a flicker of remorse crossed his face. I stared him down from the living room.

Silence stretched tight enough to snap, until he finally opened his mouth. "Are you done throwing your tantrum?" Done throwing my tantrum?

Looking back at our five years, I was always the first to cave, no matter who was at fault. He never once tried to comfort me. My onesided devotion was nothing but a pathetic joke.

I stood up, grabbing the glass of ice water off the coffee table. I hurled the freezing water straight into his hypocritical face.

I kept my chin high, my eyes locking onto his. "Take your little mistress and get the hell out of my house." Seven years knowing him, five years together.

Last night, I had imagined a hundred different reasons he might want a divorce. I could have forgiven almost anything else. But he chose the ultimate betrayal.

Grayson slowly wiped the dripping water from his jaw. He looked away, a flicker of irritation hardening his features. "Let's not make this ugly, Sloane. We've run our course.

Can't we just part ways cleanly?" Part ways cleanly. Any lingering shred of affection I had for him flatlined.

Chapter 2 I met Grayson's shocked stare and gave a single, firm nod. "Fine." A stiff, hollow smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. "Let's get a divorce." Since I didn't put up a fight, the divorce proceedings moved at breakneck speed.

We didn't bother notifying our parents. We signed the papers and finalized it with the same rushed urgency as our wedding day.

Since Grayson was the cheating bastard at fault, he wired over a massive alimony settlement and signed the house over to me entirely.

Two years of marriage, and it only took him half a day to pack his life into a few suitcases. I stood on the porch and watched him load his bags into the trunk and drive off.

He never checked the rearview mirror. Five years. If I had raised a dog for five years, it would at least wag its tail at me. He was worse than a damn dog.

Grayson possessed a terrifying, coldblooded cruelty when he wanted to.

A morbid curiosity clawed at my chest—I wanted to see exactly what kind of woman was spectacular enough to make Grayson become the very thing he claimed to despise.

But I swallowed the urge. The ink was dry on the divorce papers. A clean break was the only dignity left in this wreckage.

The morning after the divorce, my phone buzzed with a text from Grayson's sister, Bianca. She "innocently" asked who the girl walking into the house with her brother was.

She capped off the message with three giggling emojis. I stared at the glowing screen until the words blurred.

Then, a dark amusement washed over me. [That would be your brandnew sisterinlaw.] I hit send and immediately blocked Bianca's number.

That little brat had despised me from day one. She sent that text purely to twist the knife, and I refused to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

I didn't have the stomach to be a single mother to Grayson's child. On day three, I marched into a clinic and scheduled a surgical abortion.

The sternfaced gynecologist informed me I needed a family member present for the procedure. My family lived states away, but I had friends who were better than blood anyway.

My best friend held my hand in the waiting room. Right before the nurse called my name, her grip tightened.

Her eyes searched mine, filled with a sickening worry. "Sloane, are you going to regret this?" Yes. I knew the answer.

But there were two versions of that regret, and both of them required swallowing shattered glass.

The day I was discharged, I walked straight into my office and slammed my resignation letter on the boss's desk. I had uprooted my entire life and moved to this city for Grayson.

It was only fitting I was packing up and leaving because of him, too. Looking back, my entire twenties had revolved around Grayson's orbit. A bitter laugh escaped my throat.

No wonder he got sick of me. I had suffocated my own identity. I spent a month recovering in the empty house, nursing my body back to health.

Two days before my flight, I handed the keys over to a real estate agent to list the property.

I was zipping up my final suitcase, two hours before I had to leave for the airport, when my phone vibrated. Grayson. We hadn't spoken a single word in the month since the divorce.

A clean break. Grayson initiating contact was unheard of. My thumb hovered over the screen.

I finally swiped to accept. "What." Grayson's flat, mechanical voice fed through the speaker. "You're selling the house." A knot formed in my stomach, but I shot back instantly. "Is there a law against it?" Heavy silence dragged on the other end of the line.

Finally, his voice dropped to a freezing temperature. "Suit yourself." The line went dead. Unbelievable.

Did he honestly think I was still that pathetic girl who would bend over backward to accommodate his moods? I stared blankly at his name flashing on the screen.

With a single, decisive tap, I hit block.

Stepping out of the house, I slipped the diamond engagement ring off my finger and flicked it straight through the grates of a street drain. To hell with Grayson.

I was finally free. Chapter 3 I grew up in a slowpaced, middleofnowhere town. Life here dragged on, a million miles away from the relentless hustle of the city.

The second my eightyyearold grandmother saw me, she gripped my hands like a vice.

Her eyes scanned me up and down as she relentlessly scolded me for skipping meals and losing too much weight.

I slowed my pace, matching her shuffling steps as we walked back to her house under the fading sunset. Just like when I was a kid.

Staring at her snowwhite hair and hunched back, a heavy lump formed in my throat.

All those years I spent blindly chasing after Grayson—how many times had my grandmother stood at the end of the dirt road, waiting to see if I would step off the Greyhound bus?

Grandma raised me. My relationship with my actual parents was practically nonexistent, so I hadn't bothered to inform them about the divorce or my return.

On my twelfth day back, the neighbor walked over, holding out her ringing cell phone to Grandma. The complicated look the neighbor shot me told me everything I needed to know.

It was my parents. Grandma handed me the phone. A woman's shrill screaming blasted through the speaker before I even put it to my ear. I kept my face blank and hit end.

Less than a minute later, it rang again. The second I said hello, the screeching cranked up to a whole new level. I hung up on her again.

After doing this four or five times, the woman on the other end finally ran out of steam. The yelling stopped.

Instead, she demanded my new phone number, interrogating me about how I could hide something as massive as a divorce from her. What the hell was going through my head?

I let out a cold, mocking laugh, shooting back without missing a beat. "I was thinking that since you two only ever gave a damn about your perfect little goldenchild daughter, you can back off and stop dictating my life.

My bank account and my marriage have exactly one thing in common—they're none of your business." She choked on her next word. Dead silence filled the line.

We were dead broke when I was born. My parents decided to move out of state to chase a paycheck, dumping me on Grandma. A few years later, they made some money.

They also made a new kid. I suddenly had a little sister. Their excuse for having her? They claimed I wasn't close enough to them.

One summer, they dragged me to their house for a forced family bonding trip. I was eleven. My new sister was six. At eleven, I had zero interest in fighting a toddler over toys.

But this kid, who I had met maybe twice in my life, glared at me like I was an intruder. One afternoon, she left her Barbie dolls scattered all over the couch.

I picked them up and set them neatly on the coffee table. By the time our parents got home from work, those same Barbies were mysteriously missing arms and legs.

My sister clutched the broken plastic limbs to her chest, her bottom lip quivering as she forced out pathetic, muffled sobs.

Even at six, she knew exactly how to play the victim to get the maximum amount of pity. My parents shot me a look full of pure disappointment.

I scrambled to defend myself, swearing I didn't touch them. I still remember the suffocating helplessness of that moment. My mother waved her hand, brushing me off. "Fine, fine.

I know you didn't do it." Then, she turned to my father, dropping her voice, thinking I couldn't hear. "How did your mother raise a kid like this?" My father stayed silent.

It was a clear, damning agreement. After that, they bought her a massive haul of brandnew Barbies and locked them in a spare room. They were the only three people with a key.

Chapter 4 My parents were clearly furious because they realized the man they used to look down on, Grayson, was now a rising star in the business world.

I had just let go of the golden goose that could have brought them endless business connections. Why else would they suddenly remember to call me?

Since this was apparently a massive crisis, my parents actually drove back that very night. Trailing right behind them was my collegeaged sister. We locked eyes.

She didn't even try to hide the gloating smirk plastered across her face. I hadn't seen them in over two years. They looked a lot older.

The wrinkles around their eyes were deep even when they weren't smiling, and the laugh lines around their mouths were heavily pronounced.

My mother, especially, had developed a bitter, mean look to her features. My mother ignored my grandmother's joyful greeting. Instead, she shot me a freezing glare.

Before she even sat down, she snapped, "Sloane, you think you're all grown up now, don't you?

How dare you get a divorce without even discussing it with us?" Grandma looked shellshocked. She stared at my mother, then at me, her lips trembling, but no words came out.

I already knew my family ties were practically nonexistent, so I felt nothing. I just kept petting the tabby cat curled in my lap, refusing to say a word.

My mother hated it when I ignored her. Her voice spiked into a shrill shriek. "Sloane, is this how you treat your own mother? You have zero manners.

No wonder your marriage failed, you—" Seeing her go off the rails, my father quickly grabbed her arm. He clicked his tongue, looking annoyed. "You're just angry.

How can you say that to her?" Knowing she had crossed a line but unwilling to apologize, my mother scoffed and jerked her head away.

My father looked at me awkwardly, his expression clearly expecting me to apologize to her. What a joke. I was the one getting verbally attacked, and I was supposed to apologize?

For what? Were children just born owing their parents everything?

Grandma brought out some tea, whispering to them, "Whatever it is, just talk to her nicely." My mother shot her a disgusted look. "What do you know?

She's only acting out because you spoiled her rotten!" She always used Grandma as a punching bag. To keep the peace, Grandma just swallowed it silently.

I set the tabby cat on the floor.

I watched it scurry away before finally turning to my father. "How did you know I got a divorce?" He gave a sheepish laugh. "Grayson called your mother and me.

Said he couldn't get ahold of you recently and was… worried…" Chapter 5 I pressed my lips together, a harsh, humorless laugh scraping my throat. He was the one who cheated.

He was the one who shoved the divorce papers in my face. He was the one who claimed we had run our course and needed a clean break. I walked away cleanly.

We had no kids to tie us together. I was done with him. So what the hell was his problem now? Playing the concerned ex? My mother kept running her mouth, singing Grayson's praises.

With every compliment she threw at him, she made sure to land a sharp dig at my terrible personality, claiming I was lucky a guy like Grayson had ever put up with me in the first place.

I gripped my water glass, taking slow, deliberate sips. By the time I drained the last drop, she had cataloged every mistake I'd ever made since birth. Her final verdict?

I was out of my mind. Maybe I was.

Anyone in their right mind wouldn't have spent five years eating dirt with Grayson, only to sign the divorce papers right when his bank account finally exploded.

But I didn't care how much poison she spit at me. The papers were signed. There was zero going back.

After spending an entire night choking on my own tears while he didn't even blink, I woke up. Life was way too short to waste on a man who didn't give a damn about me.

Finally, my mother reached the real point of this little family reunion. Grayson was a rising star in the corporate world. He was a goldmine with limitless potential.

They decided I could not let him go that easily. "Even if you do divorce him," my father chimed in, his eyes gleaming with raw greed, "you need to demand at least ten percent of his company's shares." I slammed my hand down on the table, the sharp crack cutting through their pathetic, greedy scheming.

A cold smirk stretched across my face. "Is your little vampire act over?

Because starting right now, you are not getting a single red cent from me." Both of their heads snapped toward me. I didn't bother sugarcoating it.

I pointed at the front door. "If you're done, get out. You can still make the last bus out of town." My mother's eyes bugged out of her skull.

It took her a full ten seconds to find her voice before she shoved her finger in my face and started screaming again. She called me an ungrateful bitch.

She called me a coldblooded monster. I gave her one last deadpan look, pushed my chair back, and walked right out the door. If I was coldblooded, it was purely genetic.

They had no one to blame but themselves