Hours later, Dylan wept joyful tears as he cradled his baby son in his arms and introduced him to his parents and closest relatives gathered in the maternity ward.
Two days later, the couple were preparing to go home with their son when a doctor burst into the ward and insisted on speaking with Dylan in his office. Dylan was puzzled, but he followed the doctor to his office.
Shortly afterward, he stormed back into Vanessa’s ward, where all his relatives and Vanessa’s parents had gathered to take her and the baby home. “YOU LIAR!” Dylan burst into the room and confronted Vanessa.
“THIS IS NOT MY BABY!”
Everyone gasped when Dylan revealed what the doctor just said.
A weird feeling crawled up Vanessa’s gut when she realized she had a lot of explaining to do. “Shame on you for doing this to me,” Dylan fumed.
“How could you even think I would father someone else’s child? Was it your plan…or were your parents involved in the scheme too?
How sick!
Mom…Dad…let’s leave. I want nothing to do with her or the child anymore.”
Vanessa begged and cried. But Dylan stormed out of the room and out of her life that day.
She returned home and pleaded with her dad to forgive her, but Alan was enraged and bitterly embarrassed.
“You’re a shame to my family,” Alan yelled.
“You disgust me. I don’t even want to see you.
How can I face everyone in town…and in church? What will I tell them if they ask me who the father of this child is?”
Those words hurt Vanessa like daggers.
She realized she’d never regain her father’s trust and would never lead a
