Benjamin's POV
Slowly, painstakingly, I wrestled back my composure, then raised a trembling hand to fiercely scrub at my face. A bastard daughter. The words echoed in the sterile hospital room, a sickening, impossible truth. Especially one whose age felt unsettlingly, frighteningly close to Aria's. The thought alone was a cruel twist of the knife.
How could this possibly be? How could I, Benjamin Jones, possibly have a love child? I had never, not once in my entire life, betrayed Aria's mother, my beloved wife. Even after her untimely passing, my world had narrowed to Aria alone. I had dedicated every fiber of my being to raising her, to honoring my wife's memory.
Yet, a mere month ago, an anonymous text message had landed like a venomous snake in my inbox, claiming the existenc
