?Chapter 688:


    “Linda…”


    His brow creased, his eyes dark with something unspoken. He held her gaze for a long, aching moment before exhaling deeply.


    Gently, deliberately, he pried her fingers from his arm.


    “We’ll talk when I return.”


    The words hit her like a blow. Linda staggered back, her breath shuddering.


    Ernest spared her onest nce before turning away.


    “Ernest! Ernest!”


    Her voice cracked, desperation spilling into the empty space between them.


    N came rushing over, her brows knitted in confusion. She had caught fragments of the exchange, but none of it made sense.


    “Linda, what’s happening? What is all this?”


    “N!”


    Linda spun toward her, her hands gripping N’s arm like a lifeline, tears pooling in her eyes.


    “I need to know,” she whispered, her voice trembling with raw emotion.


    “I need to know what he’s been hiding from me.”


    In the car.


    “I’m… Mr. Flynn?” Quentin’s sharp eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.


    “Miss Harris is following us.”


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    Ernest remained unfazed, his expression unreadable. His voice, cool and unwavering, cut through the silence.


    “Let her.”


    Quentin gave a curt nod.


    “Understood.”


    Their destination was already set—an orphanage.


    The call hade unexpectedly. The orphanage director had informed them that the child had returned.


    The boy was bright-eyed and healthy, his face carrying the kind of charm that made adoption seem inevitable.


    Yet, fate had been unkind.


    The first family weed him with open arms—only to return him six monthster when they had a biological child of their own.


    A second family took him in, promising stability. But a yearter, their marriage crumbled. The child, caught in the crossfire of their broken vows, was sent back once more.


    And that was when Quentin had found him.


    Rejected twice before even understanding what love truly meant, the boy’s once-lively spirit had faded into guarded silence. A heart too young to bear such burdens had already learned the sting of abandonment.


    When Ernest first arrived at the orphanage to take him in, the director hesitated, her eyes heavy with unspoken concern.


    “Mr. Flynn, please consider this carefully. Raising a child is an act of devotion, both to him and to yourself,” she said.


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