They looked like me.
But their eyes—their deep, steady, almost painfully familiar eyes—belonged to Marianne, the woman whose heart I had shattered when I walked away while she was carrying my children.
“Hartwell,” the host repeated, proudly announcing their surname.
Their mother’s name.
“What is this?” Cordelia shrieked, scrambling to her feet. “This has to be a mistake! Where is Penelope’s name?”
The screen shifted to the consolation rankings.
There, at the very bottom, was Penelope’s name—my wealthy wife’s daughter, the girl whose every opportunity I had purchased with my fortune.
“This is a disgrace!” Cordelia screamed, striking the railing with trembling hands. “I paid a fortune for this! How could my daughter lose to two fatherless girls?!”
Her cruel words cut through me.
I looked at her furious face, then at the two girls standing proudly beneath the golden lights. They were my daughters. My own blood. Two brilliant children I had never held, never protected, never watched grow up.
