** Ryder’s POV **

The certificate rests in my lap, the edges crinkled where my fingers have been gripping it too tightly. I can’t stop staring at the damn thing, as if I blink it’ll vanish, and I’ll wake up back in those years when I longed for Paige and had no idea our son existed.

Jaxon Madden. My son. With my name.

I trace my name under his, hardly able to breathe. It doesn’t matter that my DNA proved it; it doesn’t matter that I’ve known in my bones since the ...