Chapter 4 - Room 1704
Clare went to Room 1704.
But she did not go alone.
Adrian walked beside her.
“You’re breaking the instruction.”
“My father doesn’t get to give me instructions after hiding a photograph of me with your father for twenty-two years.”
“You’re certain that child is you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The birthmark.”
Adrian had noticed it too.
The hallway was empty.
Clare stopped.
Adrian looked at her.
“You can still leave.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She almost laughed.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”
“I’m not particularly good at telling people what they want to hear.”
“I noticed.”
Clare knocked.
No answer.
She tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Inside, Richard stood beside the window.
Evelyn sat on the sofa.
She had been crying.
Clare entered.
Adrian remained near the door.
Richard looked at him.
“I told her to come alone.”
“And I decided not to,” Clare said.
Her father stared at her.
Then nodded.
“Fair enough.”
Clare placed the photograph on the table.
“Start talking.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Richard began.
Twenty-two years earlier, the Bennett, Mercer, and Vale families had jointly controlled a development company.
Richard handled construction.
Charles Mercer handled financing.
Adrian’s father, Dominic Vale, managed property acquisitions.
Then $18 million disappeared.
Documents pointed toward Dominic.
He denied everything.
Before he could clear his name, federal investigators arrived.
The partnership collapsed.
Dominic lost his company.
Months later, he died.
Adrian’s face became stone.
Clare looked at him.
“You knew this?”
“Most of it.”
“What didn’t you know?”
He looked at the photograph.
“You.”
Richard continued.
“At the time, Evelyn and I were having problems.”
“Problems?”
Evelyn finally spoke.
“We were separated.”
Clare turned toward her.
“For how long?”
“Almost a year.”
“And Dominic?”
Evelyn began crying again.
Clare understood before anyone said it.
“No.”
“Clare—”
“No.”
Evelyn stood.
“I loved your father.”
“Which one?”
The words cut through the room.
Richard looked away.
Clare’s heart hammered.
“Which one?”
Evelyn whispered, “We didn’t know.”
Clare stepped backward.
Adrian remained completely still.
“You’re saying Dominic Vale might have been my biological father?”
“Yes.”
The room blurred.
Clare sat.
For thirty-two years, Richard Bennett had been Dad.
The man who taught her to ride a bicycle.
The man who attended school plays while answering emails from the back row.
The man who cried secretly at her college graduation and denied it afterward.
Biology couldn’t erase that.
But lies could wound it.
“You knew?”
Richard shook his head.
“Not at first.”
“When?”
“When you were six.”
“The photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Dominic knew me?”
“He suspected.”
Adrian finally spoke.
“My father knew he might have a daughter?”
Richard looked at him.
“Yes.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Clare saw grief beneath the control.
“And you kept her from him.”
Richard stood.
“He was under investigation.”
“He was innocent.”
“We didn’t know that.”
“You knew the evidence was questionable.”
“We had a child to protect.”
“My father died believing everyone had abandoned him.”
Richard’s voice rose.
“And I raised Clare!”
Silence.
Clare stood between them.
“Stop.”
They did.
Again.
She looked at Richard.
“Did you ever test paternity?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because by the time Dominic died, it didn’t matter to me.”
“It mattered to me.”
“I was afraid.”
Clare stared.
It was the first honest answer he had given.
Richard looked suddenly older.
“I was afraid a piece of paper could take my daughter away.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“You were six.”
“Then tell me when I was sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty-one. Thirty.”
He had no answer.
Clare turned to Evelyn.
“And Grant knows?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian spoke quietly.
“He does.”
Everyone looked at him.
“The file.”
He opened the leather folder.
“The information Grant brought to my company included references to the original waterfront partnership. I thought he was looking for financial leverage.”
“Against you?” Clare asked.
“Possibly.”
“But he was looking for this.”
“Maybe.”
Clare remembered Grant’s relentless insistence on reconciliation.
The merger.
The public proposal.
A terrible possibility formed.
“If I’m Dominic Vale’s daughter…”
Adrian finished it.
“You may have a claim connected to assets from the old partnership.”
Richard nodded reluctantly.
“There was a trust.”
Clare stared.
“What trust?”
“Dominic created it shortly before he died.”
“For whom?”
Richard looked at Adrian.
Then Clare.
“His children.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Children?”
“Any legally recognized children.”
The meaning settled.
If Clare was Dominic’s daughter, she and Adrian might share inheritance rights.
Clare looked at him.
“You could be my brother.”
Adrian’s expression became almost comically uncomfortable.
“Biologically possible.”
Clare thought about the hand-holding.
The fake-boyfriend plan.
“Oh, God.”
For the first time that evening, Jenna—who had quietly entered after being summoned by Clare—made a strangled sound.
“That is going to make tomorrow’s gossip incredibly complicated.”
Despite everything, Clare laughed.
One short, shocked laugh.
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
“We need a DNA test.”
“Immediately.”
“Agreed.”
Richard opened a drawer.
“I already arranged one.”
Clare stared.
“You what?”
“I knew this night might force the truth out.”
He produced two sealed kits.
Adrian looked at him coldly.
“You planned this.”
“I planned for possibilities.”
“No,” Clare said. “No more secrets. No more plans made around me.”
She took the kits.
“I’ll choose the laboratory.”
Adrian nodded.
“Good.”
They left Room 1704 together.
In the elevator, neither spoke.
Then Clare said, “Well.”
Adrian looked at her.
“This may be the worst fake date in history.”
His mouth twitched.
“I’ve had worse.”
“You have not.”
“No.”
“Why did you say that?”
“I was trying to help.”
She laughed again.
This time he did too.
For ten seconds, the nightmare loosened its grip.
Then the elevator reached the lobby.
Grant was waiting.
He held a folder.
“You should know what they’re not telling you.”
Clare stopped.
“What now?”
Grant tossed the folder onto a nearby table.
Inside was a copy of Dominic Vale’s trust.
One paragraph had been highlighted.
Clare read it twice.
If Dominic’s surviving biological child was proven to exist, control of a massive waterfront property portfolio would transfer.
Not to Adrian.
Not to Clare.
To both of them jointly.
Grant smiled.
“Now you understand why Vale approached you.”
Clare looked at Adrian.
His expression was unreadable.
“Did you know?”
Adrian said nothing.
“Did you know about this clause before you offered to be my boyfriend?”
A pause.
One second.
Two.
Then Adrian answered.
“Yes.”
Clare’s heart dropped.
She stepped away.
Grant smiled.
But Adrian wasn’t looking at Grant.
He was looking at Clare.
And before he could explain, Clare’s phone rang.
The caller ID showed the private laboratory Richard had mentioned.
She answered.
“Ms. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a problem with your family records.”
Clare gripped the phone.
“What problem?”
May you like
The woman hesitated.
“According to the DNA profile already stored under Dominic Vale’s estate file, Adrian Vale cannot be his biological son.”
