Chapter 13 - The Fake Baby
Savannah asked to meet Claire one final time before entering a cooperation agreement.
They sat in a quiet hotel lounge.
Savannah looked smaller without the performance.
“No more lies.”
Claire waited.
Savannah took out an envelope.
Inside was a real ultrasound.
Claire frowned.
“I thought you weren’t pregnant.”
“I’m not.”
“That is my sister’s.”
Savannah had used it to convince Adrian.
Claire almost laughed at the absurdity.
Then Savannah said.
“I did get pregnant once.”
Claire looked up.
“By Adrian?”
“No.”
“Before him.”
Savannah lost the pregnancy three years earlier.
Her fiancé left soon afterward.
When Adrian began talking obsessively about wanting another son, Savannah discovered how easy it was to become indispensable.
She hated herself for that.
Claire asked.
“Why tell me?”
“Because you probably think I’m evil.”
Claire answered carefully.
“I think you made cruel choices.”
Savannah nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Then she admitted something else.
Adrian had never promised to leave Claire.
Not until after Savannah claimed pregnancy.
Before that, he said Claire was “safe.”
She would tolerate anything.
Savannah hated being second.
So the pregnancy became leverage.
She created a competition Claire never agreed to enter.
“I wanted him to choose me.”
Savannah said.
Claire looked at her.
“And now?”
“I think winning him would have been punishment.”
Claire almost smiled.
Savannah gave her the second phone permanently.
It contained an old audio clip.
Adrian and Ethan.
Adrian complained that Claire had asked about a corporate account.
Ethan replied.
Keep her focused on home.
Adrian laughed.
“She doesn’t care about business.”
Ethan said.
Good.
That sentence mattered.
Because Claire’s alleged irrelevance had been useful to everyone.
No one watched the quiet wife.
No one wondered what she read after Noah slept.
No one asked why Eleanor Whitmore’s daughter never discussed money.
They assumed silence meant ignorance.
Claire understood now why her mother delayed the trust.
May you like
Not only to protect her from fortune.
To teach her what people revealed when they believed she had none.
