Page 117 of Ruthless Claim

“I can use headphones. Or I won’t turn the sound on,” he wheedles. “Please?”

Claire exhales through her nose, like she knows she’s lost the argument. She opens his backpack without looking at him, fishing out a tablet and a pair of headphones.

Finn excitedly takes them before he puts the headphones on and tucks his feet up underneath him and is immediately lost in technological heaven.

While Claire is fishing in the bag for the charging cable, I focus on Finn now that the initial shock of hearing Cillian may have a son has gone through me.

The brown hair, the dark eyes, the compact build, the serious face. I’m trying to find Cillian in him.

The auburn hair—nothing, his is a flat dark brown. The blue eyes—nothing, his are warm brown and nothing like the color I know.

Nothing. Nothing I can point to and say: there, that’s where he came from.

I know genetics are complicated and children aren’t a copy-paste situation.

My brother Gabriel was blue-eyed with sandy blond hair from our father’s side while Leo and I came out dark-haired, dark-eyed, our mother’s children through and through. Same parents, completely different people.

Children don’t always look like their fathers and I know this, but I’m finding exactly zero of my husband in this boy.

Hell, even Emma and Cillian look similar and they’re first cousins.

I glance at Claire while Finn settles.

My husband slept with this woman.

And the thing I don’t get is—why? She’s wholly unremarkable.

Her mousy brown hair looks like it hasn’t seen a stylist in ages, if the grays are anything to go by. Her ponytail isn’t sleek. Instead, pieces fall loose at the sides like they couldn’t be bothered anymore.

She’s wearing zero makeup.

Her outfit screams practical and I don’t care what I wear as long as it’s comfortable.

My eyes slide to her nails.

Unpolished and cut short. She looks like she has not considered her own appearance since she had a child. I internally scoff. I don’t understand those types of mothers who seemingly give up and enjoy looking like slobs.

Cillian slept with this woman.

Cillian, my Cillian, who owns four identical versions of the same perfectly tailored dark jacket.

Who has never walked into a room without me noticing. Who I have watched stop actual conversations just by existing in them.

That Cillian went to Belfast nine years ago and looked at this woman and thought: yes, her, this is the one.

What the fuck.

I mean. Okay. He was in his late twenties and probably doing terrible work in a strange city.

He must have been drunk out of his mind to choose her.

That’s what I’m going with, because the alternative is figuring out what the hell my husband saw in her. I’m currently pregnant and I look incredible even in leggings.

I know what Cillian’s preference is and it’s certainly not…her.

Suddenly, Emma’s disapproving face is in my head. “Don’t be bitchy, Valentina,” she says. I push it away because fuck off, Emma. You are equally as bitchy and mean.

“Hello? Are you okay?”