Chapter 3 - The Lie in My Medical File
Dominic reached the room before the woman entered.
She disappeared down the corridor when she saw him.
Security found no visitor badge.
No registration.
No identification.
Nothing.
By evening, I understood something terrifying.
My pregnancy had not simply embarrassed the Kingsley family.
It had contradicted something someone had deliberately engineered.
Elena Ruiz arrived at seven.
She was forty-something, sharply dressed, calm, and unimpressed by wealth.
I liked her immediately.
She read the records.
Then she looked at me.
"Don't speak to Grant without me."
"He's the biological father."
"Biology gives him standing. It doesn't give him ownership."
"What about Victor?"
Her expression darkened.
"If this document is authentic, we have a much larger problem."
Grant filed for emergency acknowledgment of paternity before midnight.
Of course he did.
By morning, every gossip site knew.
BILLIONAIRE WEDDING CANCELED AFTER SECRET BABY REVEALED.
Sienna became the abandoned bride.
Grant became the shocked father.
And I became exactly what his publicist needed me to become.
The secretive ex-wife.
But this time I refused to disappear.
Elena arranged independent testing.
The result confirmed Grant's paternity.
He came to the hospital with no cameras.
No lawyers.
No father.
He stood six feet from my bed.
"What's her name?"
I hesitated.
"Rose."
His face changed.
"My mother's middle name."
"I know."
His eyes lowered.
"Can I hold her?"
For one second, I saw the man I had once loved.
Not the billionaire.
Not the heir.
Grant.
I hated that memory.
"You can sit."
He obeyed.
I placed Rose carefully in his arms.
Grant stared at her.
His entire body became still.
"She's so small."
"She won't stay that way."
A sad smile touched his mouth.
Then Rose opened her eyes.
Grant broke.
Not dramatically.
One tear.
That was worse.
"I missed this."
"You chose to."
"I didn't know."
"You chose everything that made telling you impossible."
He looked at me.
No defense came.
Good.
When he left, he said, "I'm going to find out what my father did."
Dominic arrived an hour later.
We were still strained.
He didn't pretend otherwise.
He handed me a folder.
"Northstar's R-series."
I opened it.
Research classifications.
R-11.
R-12.
R-16.
Then R-17.
REPRODUCTIVE SUPPRESSION TRIAL.
My stomach turned.
"Suppression?"
"Temporary hormone interference. Officially abandoned."
"Officially?"
"Lucia's files suggested otherwise."
I flipped pages.
"Why would Victor do this to me?"
Dominic looked toward Rose.
"Maybe it wasn't about you."
That frightened me more.
That afternoon, Elena obtained my complete clinic records.
There were missing pages.
Changed dates.
Medications I had never knowingly consented to.
And one repeated authorization code.
VK-01.
Victor Kingsley.
Then we found the first impossible entry.
A procedure dated eleven months before my divorce.
Egg retrieval.
I stared at Elena.
"I never had that procedure."
She looked grim.
"According to this, you did."
"I would remember surgery."
"Unless the entry is fabricated."
Dominic leaned over the page.
"Or the procedure was done during something else."
I remembered an appointment.
Sedation.
Dr. Reeves telling me he needed to perform a diagnostic examination.
Grant had driven me home afterward.
I had slept fourteen hours.
My hands began shaking.
"They took my eggs."
No one contradicted me.
Elena turned another page.
A storage transfer.
Biological material transported from Northstar Manhattan to a private facility in Connecticut.
Recipient code: K-2.
Grant arrived before sunset.
He looked exhausted.
"My father denies everything."
Dominic laughed without humor.
"Shocking."
Grant ignored him.
He placed an envelope on the table.
"I found this in his private office."
Inside was a photograph.
Victor.
Dr. Reeves.
Sienna.
Taken two years ago.
Before Sienna supposedly became Grant's assistant.
Grant looked sick.
"She wasn't hired through HR. My father placed her."
My mind raced.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Dominic studied the photograph.
Then turned it over.
There was handwriting.
Two words.
PHASE TWO.
My phone rang.
Unknown number again.
This time I answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
"Ask Grant about the second embryo."
The call ended.
I looked at him.
"What second embryo?"
Grant frowned.
"I don't know."
Dominic went very still.
Elena grabbed the storage record.
"K-2."
She looked at Grant.
"Could mean Kingsley Two."
"No," Dominic said.
He was staring at the photograph.
"Look."
In the corner behind Victor stood a whiteboard.
Most of the writing was blurred.
But one line was visible.
R-17 / SUBJECT C.B.
And underneath:
EMBRYO A — VIABLE.
EMBRYO B — TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.
My throat closed.
"Transferred where?"
Nobody answered.
Then Elena's laptop chimed.
A secure email had arrived from Northstar's former records administrator.
Subject line:
CLAIRE BENNETT — SECOND CHILD.
Elena opened it.
There was only one sentence.
If Claire's daughter was born today, then somewhere else, another child with her DNA may already be alive.
Attached was an address.
And a photograph.
Elena clicked it open.
I saw a little boy standing beside a woman I recognized.
Sienna.
May you like
On the back of his shirt was a number.
Two.
