Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: You Can't Afford Me by Thedora Birnir

Chapter 1056:

A paternity test risked exposing his shame, stripping away what little pride he had left. So Ferris simply ignored Eric entirely, treating him like a ghost. Pitying servants slipped him scraps to eat, and somehow, he survived. As he grew, Eric learned that his mother was the madwoman confined in the estate’s shadowed corner.

Whenever Ferris visited her, he would return in a rage and take it out on Eric, lashing him with a whip. At first, Eric would cry out, “Dad, it hurts! Please stop! I’ll behave!” But Ferris was unmoved.

“Don’t call me that!” he would sneer. “You’re nothing but a bastard, unfit to claim me as your father.” So Eric stopped speaking.

Even as the whip tore his skin and left him bloodied, he never called Ferris “dad” again, nor begged for mercy.

“Bastard!”

“You’re just like your mother—a worthless stain!”

“Why don’t you die? How dare you still breathe?”

Eric was trapped in the nightmare, his face contorted, shaking his head. “No… no…”

he jolted awake, bolting upright on the couch, chest heaving. His

pulse with a faint, lingering pain. His head pounded. Eric pressed a hand to his temple, and then staggered to

he realized that without meeting Ernest and being welcomed into the Flynn family, he’d never have known what it meant to live

and responsibilities to uphold. But now, the Flynn family had

smile. “Borrowed joy always comes

he had a family of

thoughts turned to Hadley and Joy—their warmth, Hadley’s grace, Joy’s infectious laughter. His beloved and

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privilege and prestige. He was a stand-in, a nobody. Even the

her name like a mantra, raising the bottle again and

preoccupied for days. Whenever she had a moment to herself, Brady’s words kept replaying in

I can help

me

bed, Hadley stared at her daughter’s peaceful face and made up her mind. She retrieved the business card Brady had slipped her, opened her