Chapter 4 - The Test He Never Expected
Bianca sat down so suddenly that Lucas startled awake.
“What did she say?”
Adrian rushed toward me.
“Hang up.”
I stepped away.
“Natalie, explain.”
Her breathing trembled through the phone.
“Not over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian will say I’m lying.”
“I already am,” he shouted.
Natalie went silent.
She had heard him.
“Is he there?”
“Yes.”
“Then put me on speaker.”
I did.
Adrian looked furious.
Natalie spoke.
“Hello, Adrian.”
He stared at the phone.
“You need help.”
“No,” she replied. “I needed help eighteen months ago.”
Bianca stood.
“What happened?”
Natalie hesitated.
“I was Adrian’s girlfriend.”
The word hit Bianca harder than it hit me.
Maybe because by then there was nothing left Adrian could do to surprise me.
“When?” Bianca demanded.
“Almost two years ago.”
“That’s when we were together.”
“I know.”
Bianca looked at Adrian.
“You were seeing both of us.”
He turned toward her.
“Natalie and I had ended things.”
“No,” Natalie said. “You told me Bianca was your cousin.”
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Bianca gave a broken laugh.
“My cousin?”
Adrian looked trapped.
It was the first time I had ever seen him without a version of events ready.
Natalie continued.
“We were trying to have a baby.”
Bianca’s hand moved protectively around Lucas.
“You went to the fertility clinic together?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Adrian said having a son was important to him.”
I looked at my husband.
A memory surfaced.
Eight years earlier.
A kitchen table.
A doctor’s report between us.
We had been trying to conceive for more than two years.
After tests, the specialist told us that my fertility was normal.
Adrian had severe male-factor infertility.
It was treatable in some cases.
Not impossible.
But difficult.
Adrian refused to discuss it afterward.
He told everyone we had decided not to have children.
Later, during one argument, he told me maybe I simply “wasn’t meant to be a mother.”
I had carried that sentence for years.
Now Natalie said, “The clinic ran genetic testing.”
Adrian shouted, “Stop.”
She ignored him.
“Adrian’s sperm count was nearly zero.”
Bianca looked down at Lucas.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“No,” Natalie said gently. “It doesn’t.”
Adrian seized his suitcase.
“I’m leaving.”
Martin moved toward the door.
“You’re free to leave.”
“Then get out of my way.”
“But the estate’s attorney has already petitioned the court for preservation of certain evidence.”
Adrian stopped.
“What evidence?”
“Records from Desert Bloom.”
His face changed.
I understood then.
This was not merely embarrassment.
He was hiding something else.
Natalie said, “Tell them about the donor.”
Bianca looked up.
“What donor?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Natalie answered.
“Adrian and I were going to use donor sperm.”
Bianca stared at him.
“You told me Lucas was conceived naturally.”
“He was.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Adrian’s voice broke.
“I don’t know.”
Bianca’s face went white.
I walked toward her.
“Sit down.”
She did.
Lucas had begun crying again.
I brought her a bottle of water.
She took it with shaking hands.
“Did he know?”
I asked Natalie.
“About his infertility?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely.”
I looked at Adrian.
At the airport, he had told me Bianca had given him the son I never could.
For years, he had allowed me to carry blame for something he knew was not mine.
“Say it again,” I said.
He glared at me.
“Don’t.”
“Say what you told me in the airport.”
He looked away.
“Adrian.”
Bianca stared at him too.
“You said I couldn’t give you a son.”
Silence.
“You knew.”
His jaw tightened.
“You knew our fertility problems were yours.”
“It was complicated.”
“No. It was humiliating for you.”
I finally understood.
That was why he had rewritten the story.
Not because he believed I was infertile.
Because he could not stand anyone believing he was.
Bianca wiped tears from her face.
“I want a paternity test.”
Adrian looked at her.
“That is ridiculous.”
“I want one.”
“You’re letting these people poison you.”
“These people?”
Her voice rose.
“Your wife. Your mother’s attorney. Another girlfriend you hid from me. Which one of them is lying?”
He said nothing.
“Exactly.”
Martin gathered his papers.
“A legal test can be arranged.”
“No,” Adrian said.
Bianca stared at him.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t need one.”
“I do.”
He approached her.
She stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
Something changed in her then.
She was still young.
Still frightened.
But she no longer looked like the woman who had walked through the airport believing she had won.
“I’m taking Lucas somewhere else tonight.”
“You’re not.”
“He’s my baby.”
“He’s my son.”
“We don’t know that.”
Adrian’s face twisted.
“You really think I’m letting you walk out with him?”
I stepped between them.
“Back away.”
He looked at me.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
I almost smiled.
“You brought it to my house.”
He stared.
Then his shoulders dropped.
Maybe he finally realized how completely the ground had shifted beneath him.
He took his suitcase.
“Fine.”
This time Martin stepped aside.
Adrian opened the door.
Before leaving, he looked back at me.
“You think my mother loved you more than me?”
I said nothing.
“You think that’s what this proves?”
“No.”
“What does it prove?”
“That she knew who showed up.”
His face tightened.
Then he left.
The door closed.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Bianca started crying.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
The way people cry when humiliation arrives after anger has exhausted itself.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
I believed some of that.
Not all.
She knew he was married.
Whether she believed the marriage was dead was another question.
“I thought you were staying for his money.”
I looked at her.
“Apparently everyone thought Adrian had money.”
Even Martin smiled faintly.
Bianca looked toward Evelyn’s portrait.
“She knew about me?”
“Yes,” Martin said.
“How?”
“She hired investigators after discovering the withdrawals.”
Bianca covered her face.
“Oh God.”
“She never contacted you,” Martin added. “She believed you might not know the truth.”
That made Bianca cry harder.
I looked at Lucas.
He slept again.
Completely unaware that the adults around him had turned his existence into evidence.
“Whatever happens,” I said, “don’t punish him for this.”
Bianca looked up.
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
Martin closed his case.
“There is one more issue we need to discuss tomorrow.”
I groaned softly.
He gave me an apologetic look.
“I know.”
“What issue?”
“Evelyn’s commercial holdings.”
“The partnership?”
“Yes.”
“What about them?”
“You now own her interest.”
“So?”
“It isn’t passive.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“You control thirty-eight percent of a property company.”
I stared at him.
“I design book covers.”
“You also own part of twelve commercial properties.”
Bianca blinked.
I sat down.
“Evelyn never told me that.”
“She intended to.”
“When?”
“After Adrian came home.”
I looked toward the door.
Martin’s expression became serious.
“There’s a reason.”
“What reason?”
He opened his case again.
This time he removed a photograph.
It showed Adrian standing outside a glass office building.
Beside him was a man I recognized from Evelyn’s files.
Charles Vane.
The managing partner of Hale-Mercer Commercial Holdings.
I looked at Martin.
“What am I looking at?”
“Something Evelyn discovered ten days before she died.”
He turned the photograph over.
There was a date written on the back.
May you like
Below it, Evelyn had written five words.
ADRIAN IS SELLING MY COMPANY.
