Chapter 6: The Secret Heir Exposed

“Mom, it’s okay. Let Amanda move in—I’ll move out.” I couldn’t stand to see my mother-in-law torn, so I volunteered.

“Marissa, don’t worry. As long as I’m here, nobody’s going to mess with you.”

“Yeah, Marissa, don’t stress. Mom always figures it out!” Erica piped up.

“But the kids are innocent. They’re Ryan’s flesh and blood—you wouldn’t want them out on the street, right?”

Erica shook her head. “Don’t overthink it. No one can prove those are really his kids anyway. And you’ve already run yourself ragged handling Ryan’s funeral.”

My mother-in-law was quiet for a long moment, then her eyes sharpened, like she’d made up her mind.

“Marissa, do you know why no one ever talks about Ryan’s father around here?”

Neither Ryan nor Erica had ever mentioned their dad. It was like he was a ghost.

All I knew was what I’d read in the papers—he died in a car crash.

“Actually, Ryan wasn’t my biological son,” my mother-in-law said.

“So Ryan…?”

“He was his father’s son—with the secretary.”

My mother-in-law had always treated both kids the same, so even Erica was floored. Her jaw dropped.

She paused, then went on, “His father and the secretary died in the crash. I felt so sorry for Ryan—I just couldn’t send him to foster care. So I brought him home and raised him as my own.”

I sat there, stunned, letting it all sink in.

She sighed again. “I thought raising Ryan would keep him from ending up like his dad, but he still let me down. If I’d known, I would’ve sent him to dig ditches for a few years—maybe that would’ve knocked some sense into his love-struck head.”

Erica finally blinked back to life. “So Ryan’s kids with that woman aren’t even related to you, Mom!”

My mother-in-law gave her a small, approving nod.

She turned to me, regret clear in her eyes. “I pushed Ryan to marry you because I liked you, and you and Erica got along so well. I never meant for you to get hurt. Marissa, you don’t have to back down for anyone—this will always be your home.”

“But what about the shares? If Amanda gets desperate and sells them, we’re toast!” I said, still anxious.

But my mother-in-law just smiled, totally unfazed. “You think I’d let the same thing happen twice?”

Turns out, Ryan’s dad had pulled the same stunt years ago.

He and my mother-in-law built the company from nothing, but once it took off, he had an affair with his secretary. To impress her, he tried to transfer shares—almost lost the company.

But before the transfer could go through, both he and the secretary died in the crash, and everything was put on hold.

After that, my mother-in-law created a family trust and changed the company rules. Only family could hold controlling shares, and any attempt to transfer shares outside the family would trigger an automatic buyback. Amanda’s five percent? Non-voting stock. If she wasn’t family, the trust could void or buy them back at cost.

So, Ryan’s transfer to Amanda didn’t mean squat.

Amanda’s big threat? Completely toothless.