Chapter 4

I stared at the paternity test report. The date on it was from six years ago. Leo had been only a year old.

Richard had known for six years that Leo wasn't his biological son. Yet, he hadn't breathed a word.

He stayed by Leo's side as he grew up, just like any ordinary father. He bought him toys, took him to the amusement park, and never missed a single parent-teacher meeting. He was even more attentive and devoted than I was.

Why? Why would a man who knew his wife had betrayed him and that his son wasn't his own keep his mouth shut for six years?

Unless... he knew exactly what was going on from the very beginning.

A terrifying thought began to slither into my mind like a venomous snake.

I rushed into the bedroom, yanked open the closet, and dug out a dusty old suitcase from the very bottom. Inside were odds and ends from my pregnancy eight years ago.

I remembered it vividly. When I first found out I was pregnant, Richard had been over the moon. He told me he wanted to surprise me with a destination wedding, and we went to the Starlake Islands.

At the time, I thought it was the happiest period of my life. But looking back now, the whole thing was riddled with red flags.

While we were on the islands, I had supposedly come down with a severe fever, unable to adjust to the local environment. I was out cold for two days.

Richard told me he had hired the best local doctor to treat me at our villa. When I finally came to, I felt better, but I always had this nagging feeling that I had forgotten something important.

I dug my old passport out of the suitcase. The entry and exit stamps were all there—the dates and locations matched my memory perfectly.

I kept searching until, at the very bottom, I found a faded photograph.

It was a picture of Richard and me on the beach. I was glowing, a tiny baby bump just starting to show, while Richard had his arm around my waist, smiling at the camera. Now, that smile just looked sinister.

I flipped the photo over. On the back, someone had scribbled a tiny note in pencil: [Dr. Evan Carter's clinic], followed by a phone number.

My heart skipped a beat. It wasn't a local number for the Starlake Islands. Judging by the area code, it looked like it was from a small country in Eldoria.

With trembling hands, I looked up the clinic on my phone. The moment the search results popped up, my entire world came crashing down.

It was a private clinic in Montelisse. They were world-renowned for their cutting-edge work in in vitro fertilization and surrogacy.

So, there was no "fever" at all. During those two days I was unconscious, Richard had checked me into that clinic.

Without my knowledge or consent, he used someone else's sperm to make me pregnant with Leo.

He had been playing the long game from the very beginning.

He needed a child, a child that was "his," to permanently tie me to him, and by extension, to tie him to the power of the Grantwell Corporation. But he likely couldn't have children of his own. So, he orchestrated this entire charade.

He made sure I gave birth to a child legitimately, a child with no biological link to him, but one that secured his connection to the Grantwell.

That paternity test from six years ago wasn't proof of his discovery. It was his confirmation that the plan had worked.

He'd pulled it off. He'd been lying to me for eight years. He used me and my son to live off the fat of the land, shamelessly enjoying everything my family provided.

And now that he was successful and established, he found another woman to have a child that was truly his?

No. That didn't add up. If he was infertile, then whose daughter was Claire carrying? Or was it... that he simply didn't want me to be the mother of his biological children?

I clutched my phone, my whole body going cold.

Richard, how could you be so heartless? What did you take me for? A breeding tool to cement your status? A pawn you could deceive and manipulate at will?

I looked at the family portrait on the nightstand—Richard, Leo, and me. We looked so happy in that photo, the picture-perfect image of a normal family. Now, it just looked like one big, sick joke.

I picked up my phone and dialed Monica.

"Monica, I need you to dig into someone for me," I said, my voice eerily calm.

"Claire White. I also need the medical records from that clinic in Montelisse from six years ago. I want to know exactly who performed my surgery. And most importantly..."

"I want to know who Leo's biological father really is!"