1 Prologue

"You're not my real daughter."

I sighed. Ever since I'd gotten pregnant in the middle of my college year, thanks to a drunken one night stand and had to drop out because of that, that's all my adoptive father, Alexei Ivanov, seemed to say to me, his Russian accent prominent like it usually got when he was angry.

Even when I'd just given birth to a beautiful baby boy who was lying in my arms with his eyes closed, blissfully oblivious to the world around him. Looking down at him, my chest felt warm, full of love for the little guy I'd only known for about ten minutes tops.

Yeah, that was the only amount of peace I got before my adoptive father decided to grace me with his presence.

"You should be grateful I've paid for your shit so far, you're not getting a penny out of me after this," he told me, not even bothering to look at the baby boy resting in my arms.

I looked at him, missing the man who had once loved me more than people loved their own flesh and blood. He hadn't always been like this. He and his first wife, Jean Ivanov, had given me a childhood most would envy. It was after she had died when I was thirteen and he had remarried a year later that things started going downhill.

His new wife, Jennifer, hated my guts. She had a pair of twins of her own from her previous marriage, four years younger than me and she wanted my father to love them more than he loved me.

So naturally, over the years, she made him hate me.

Speaking of the witch, she entered the ward before I could say anything to my father. "Honey, let's get going. James and Gwen must've come home already," she said to her husband in a voice that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard.

My father looked down at her with a sickeningly sweet smile. It made me want to gag. "Sure, honey. I was just telling Sofia here that now that the kid was born, she's not welcome in our home anymore."

The witch looked at me, smirking to herself. "Of course. That's what the agreement had been about, right?"

I rolled my eyes. The day I'd found out I was pregnant, the little bit of love my father had left for me had gone completely out the window for I had tainted the family's name, a family that hadn't been mine for a long time now. He'd told me that he would give me a roof over my head and food to eat only until I'd given birth to the child growing inside of me. After that, I was never to show him my face again.

With no other option in sight, I'd agreed.

"Right." I swallowed. Even though I'd known this day was about to come and had prepared myself for it, it still wasn't easy. This was the man I'd spent some of the best moments of my childhood with, and to never be able to see him again, or call him dad again was hard on me.

I cleared my throat, saying the words I'd practiced a million times in my head. "Thanks for taking care of me for so long, dad. Thanks for everything. I'll never trouble you again after this," I told him, saying my last goodbyes.

For a moment, his gaze softened and I caught a glimpse of the man who had loved me with all his heart. It made me want to bawl my eyes out. But the moment was gone as quickly as it had come. "Of course." He nodded at me and then he was gone, his witch of a wife right behind him.

I shook my head. No, I would not cry over this. I had to be strong for my child. I was the only one he had. And he was the only one I had now, too.

I'd done a few odd jobs here and there for at least six months of my pregnancy before I'd become too puffed up to do much. That had allowed me to save enough to tide us over for the next three months at least.

I'd also arranged for us to stay at a friend's place, the only one who had stuck by me even after finding out about my pregnancy. She lived alone in a rather shady party of town, definitely not ideal for a child to grow up in. Her job wasn't very up there either, she worked as a stripper at local strip club to make ends meet, but she was a kind soul, one who'd taken one look at my swollen belly and red face and accepted me, mistakes be damned.

I picked up my phone and called her. "Hello? Is the baby here? Do I need to rush to the hospital?" Was what she asked as soon as she picked up the call.

I laughed, feeling nearly giddy as I shared the information with my best friend. "Yes, Maggie, he's finally here."

"What?!" She screeched down the phone and I had to pull it away from my ear so she wouldn't blast my ear drums. "And you're telling me this just now? What kind of a friend are you, Sof?"

I rolled my eyes at her dramatics. "The contractions started suddenly after my water broke and I was too busy moaning in pain to call you."

She huffed. "Tell him his Godmother is on his way to see him right away," she said before hanging up.

I chuckled lightly to myself. Maggie, with her head of unruly dark curls was a force to be reckoned with.

I looked down at the baby in my arms who hadn't moved an inch since I'd started talking on the phone. "Your Godmother is coming to meet you, Leonardo," I whispered softly to him, calling him by the name Maggie and I had spent months deciding.

I felt my eyes well up with tears as I stared at my baby some more. God, he was such a beautiful little boy with a shock of dark brown curls atop his head and the cutest button nose. It was too early to say if he looked like me or not, but I hoped to God he did.

Because I couldn't even remember what his father had looked like.

I had had a fight with my father about something or the other and had decided to get black out drunk at a club close to where my college had been. And next thing I knew, I woke up in someone's bed with my clothes strewn all over the hotel room. Sure, I'd had sex before but it was the first time I'd had a one night stand. And the worst part was, I didn't even remember any of it.

I remember hearing the shower running, so the guy was probably in there having a shower. Too mortified to face him, I had quickly gotten into my clothes from the night before and high tailed it out of there without ever seeing what he had looked like, let alone asking his name or where he lived.

After I'd found out I was pregnant, I'd tried time and again to remember something, anything about that night so it would give me a clue so as to what the guy had looked like or who he was, but nothing had come to my mind. I'd even gone to the hotel to find him but try as I might, they hadn't given me a single piece of information.

I wanted to know who he was, not so I could demand child support or ask him to marry me, no, I just felt as if he at least had a right to know. Eventually, I'd given up on ever finding him.

On some of the harder days, I wished he was here to help me, share the small moments together like I'd seen other couples do. More than that, I felt bad that Leo would never be able to meet his father.

The door to my room burst open suddenly, pulling me out of my fast dwindling thoughts. A panting Maggie stood at the entrance, her warm brown eyes alight with joy at seeing the little bundle in my arms.

She wasted no time in closing the door behind her and coming to stand next to me. "Look at that. He's going to grow up to be such a heartthrob. Did you fuck an Adonis that night or what?"

"Maggie!" I hissed at her, even as my lips pulled up into a smile. "Don't say things like that in front of a kid."

"The kid doesn't even understand me," she waved me away, staring down at him as if he was the best thing to happen after M&Ms and trust me, that girl loved M&Ms like no other.

"Can I hold him?" She asked softly after a while.

"Sure," I replied before transferring a sleeping Leo to her arms, hoping against hope that everything would be alright.