The Student I Sponsored Is My Daughter's Real Father Chapter 1

My wife rejected the poor girl I wanted to sponsor for not being good enough.

She insisted we sponsor a cheerful, handsome male student instead.

The result? That student ended up in my house, sleeping in my bed.

Even my daughter, who was never close to me, started to look more and more like him.

I didn't expose them.

Instead, I smiled and transferred my company to that vibrant young man. It was buried under fifty million in debt.

"Liam, it is all yours now."

David POV

When I walked through the door, I was carrying a limited-edition Elsa dress for my daughter and an elegant necklace for my wife, Eleanor.

I'd squeezed a week's work in New York into four days and taken the red-eye flight home, all to be back for the weekend and surprise them.

I pictured Eleanor's delighted surprise, imagined three-year-old Chloe running into my arms.

A smile touched my lips before I could stop it.

Chloe had never been very warm with me. She didn't look like me, either. I have hooded eyes and a strong nose-a rougher kind of face. Chloe has huge, liquid eyes, porcelain skin, and a delicate chin.

When friends visited, they'd often chuckled."Well, your wife's genes won this round. Total upgrade."

I just took it as a joke. After all, Eleanor was famously beautiful; it was a good thing for our daughter to resemble her mother.

But Chloe would only sweetly call me "Dad" when she wanted toys or pocket money. The rest of the time, she looked at me with a hesitant, almost timid gaze.

Eleanor said it was because I traveled so much for work, which was why I made an effort to return early this time.

I shook my head, pushing these unsettling thoughts from my mind.

The master bedroom door was ajar, letting out a sliver of light.

I changed my shoes, about to push the door open and give Eleanor a hug, when I heard her voice from inside the bedroom.

"Chloe, look at the camera, say Daddy."

I looked up, disbelieving.

Say Daddy?

Wasn't I right outside the door?

Immediately after, Chloe's tender voice rang out, filled with a joy I'd never heard before. "Daddy! Daddy, look, Mom bought me new pajamas, aren't they pretty?"

A young man's voice came from the other end of the phone, clear and with a hint of playful teasing. "Very pretty, Chloe looks good in everything. Do you miss Daddy?"

"Yes! When will Daddy take me to the amusement park?"

"Tomorrow! That old geezer is gone on his business trip, isn't he? Daddy will come play with you tomorrow."

I held my breath, peeking through the crack in the door.

Eleanor was wearing a sheer lace nightgown, lying on the bed with her feet playfully propped up, holding an iPad.

Chloe lay next to her, their heads close together, giggling uncontrollably at the screen.

The iPad screen was large, its light illuminating Eleanor's face, making her look radiant, a liveliness I rarely saw directed at me.

And the man on the screen? I knew him too.

Liam Davis.

The impoverished university student Eleanor and I had been sponsoring for two years.