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

Chapter 1636:

These were details he hadn’t known.

“After his birth, he had an infection… He was in an incubator… He couldn’t stop crying, but when I held him, he calmed down immediately…” Elissa’s voice grew tighter with every word. “My mom said… a child without a father couldn’t stay around… She took him from me… I couldn’t stop her…”

Ernest’s chest constricted as he pulled her into a deep embrace, his hand cradling her head.

He kissed her hair and whispered, his voice hoarse, “I’m sorry.”

He had failed her. He had failed Locke. He had failed them both.

“Locke… Locke…” Elissa murmured her son’s name, her fingers clutching Ernest’s sleeve. Her tears blurred her vision, and a faint, bittersweet smile crossed her lips.

“That name… I chose it for him.”

“You did?” Ernest froze, genuinely surprised.

the orphanage, the director had said the boy had always been called Locke. He had assumed

it turned out, it was Elissa who had named

him safe and helped him grow strong

Ernest’s shoulder, her cries rough and

through her head, and her eyelids drifted closed. Her body nearly gave out,

“Elissa?”

into his arms. With steady steps, he

her grip her head in distress, his brow creased in

the

in right away. “What is

“The medicine—where is it?”

it now,” Laney

night, Elissa needed her pills, but she had dozed off too early and missed

Laney returned carrying a glass of water and

“Here’s her medicine,”