Chapter 15 - THE WOMAN WHO THOUGHT SHE HAD WON
Chloe and I met face-to-face for the first time two weeks later.
Not socially.
Not privately.
At a conference arranged by attorneys.
She brought Mason.
He was eight weeks old.
Tiny.
Dark hair.
Round cheeks.
Completely innocent.
I looked at him and felt something unexpected.
Nothing.
No hatred.
No anger.
He was a baby.
He had not asked to be born inside a disaster.
Chloe held him close.
She looked younger than I remembered.
Not because she was younger.
Because fear removed some of the confidence I had seen in Daniel’s photographs.
She sat across from me.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I answered.
“Then don’t apologize again.”
She nodded.
“I understand.”
For several seconds, only Mason made noise.
Small breathing.
A little grunt.
Lily was with my mother.
I was grateful.
Chloe looked down at her son.
“The paternity test is Friday.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Daniel agreed?”
“Court ordered.”
Her former husband had petitioned because he wanted clarity before finalizing child support.
Daniel had also demanded a test.
Apparently, certainty became important once money was involved.
I asked.
“What do you think?”
Chloe’s eyes filled.
“I think Daniel is his father.”
“Why?”
“The dates.”
I nodded.
“But there is a chance.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I hate saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because if Mason isn’t Daniel’s, he’ll act like none of this mattered.”
I understood.
Daniel would pretend he had not spent months building a second family.
He would reduce it to a paternity error.
Chloe continued.
“He already started.”
“What did he say?”
“That I trapped him.”
I laughed once.
“He told me I trapped him with Lily.”
Her head lifted.
“What?”
“During an argument last year.”
I had forgotten until that moment.
Daniel apologized later.
He said he was stressed.
Everything ugly had once been explained by stress.
Chloe looked sick.
“He told me you planned Lily without him.”
“That would have been difficult considering fertility appointments require participation.”
Her eyes closed.
“God.”
“He lies efficiently.”
“Yes.”
We sat in silence.
Then Chloe reached into her bag.
“I brought something.”
Her attorney nodded.
She placed a small jewelry box on the table.
Inside was a ring.
Not an engagement ring.
A diamond eternity band.
I recognized it.
Daniel bought one for me after Lily was born.
Or I thought he had.
Mine had disappeared after two days.
Daniel told me the jeweler needed to resize it.
It never came back.
I stared at Chloe’s hand.
She was wearing it.
My stomach turned.
“He gave me this after Mason was born.”
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
“He gave that to me first.”
Chloe’s face drained.
“What?”
“At the hospital.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She pulled it off immediately.
“He told me he bought it for me.”
“He probably did.”
“With our money.”
I looked at her.
“Then he gave it to his wife.”
She stared at the ring.
“Then took it back.”
“Yes.”
“And gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
Something inside Chloe broke.
Not loudly.
She simply put the ring on the table and stared at it like it was contaminated.
“I thought I was special.”
I understood too well.
“So did I.”
That was the first moment we were not wife and mistress.
We were two women who had believed different versions of the same man.
Then Chloe said something that changed the tone.
“There was another woman.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I found messages.”
“When?”
“After the baptism.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know her last name.”
My heartbeat changed.
“First name?”
“Rachel.”
I almost laughed.
“Daniel doesn’t know a Rachel.”
Chloe gave me a sad look.
“That’s what I thought about you.”
Point taken.
She opened her phone.
The messages were dated three weeks before Lily’s baptism.
Daniel wrote:
Things are almost resolved.
Rachel replied:
You keep saying that.
Daniel: After the christening.
The same promise.
After the baptism.
Everything would happen after the baptism.
Chloe continued scrolling.
Rachel: And Chloe?
My entire body went still.
Daniel: Temporary complication.
Chloe looked at me.
“I was a complication too.”
I said nothing.
She showed another message.
Rachel: Does she know the baby may not be yours?
Daniel: She knows what I tell her.
There it was.
Again.
His favorite rule.
Everyone knew what he allowed.
Chloe stared at the screen.
“I found these on his laptop.”
“How?”
“He left it at my apartment.”
“So who is Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That she was a client.”
“Of course.”
Chloe gave the information to her attorney.
Laura asked Robert.
Robert knew a Rachel.
Rachel Kim.
Senior account executive at Bennett Industrial.
Thirty-six.
Recently promoted.
Worked directly under Daniel.
Robert went quiet when Laura asked about her.
Because Rachel had resigned the same morning Daniel did.
The company had assumed coincidence.
It no longer looked like one.
Robert contacted counsel.
Counsel contacted Rachel.
Rachel initially refused to speak.
Then she learned Daniel had told Chloe she was merely a client.
Twenty-four hours later, she called.
Not me.
Robert.
Her story added another layer.
Daniel had been involved with her for approximately four months.
She knew about me.
She knew about Chloe.
Or at least Daniel had told her Chloe was “someone who wouldn’t let go.”
He promised Rachel they would start a consulting company together after he left Bennett Industrial.
He showed her projected startup capital.
Three hundred thousand dollars.
The exact commercial loan he had attempted to secure using my inherited shares.
I stared at the report Laura sent me.
Daniel had not been financing one new life.
He had been financing several possible exits.
Whichever woman.
Whichever plan.
Whichever story benefited him most.
Then Rachel gave Robert one final piece of information.
Daniel had asked her to download a client list before resigning.
She had done it.
More than four hundred client contacts.
Confidential pricing.
Vendor terms.
Contracts.
Daniel was planning a competing company.
Using Robert’s clients.
Using money borrowed against my inheritance.
Potentially using Chloe’s LLC as a payment channel.
Every part connected.
The family.
The affair.
The money.
The baptism.
The company.
The custody plan.
None of it was separate.
Daniel had tried to build a new life from pieces stolen out of everyone else’s.
Then Friday arrived.
The paternity results came at 3:06 p.m.
Chloe called me herself.
She was crying.
“Jennifer.”
I knew before she said it.
“Mason is Daniel’s.”
I closed my eyes.
For some reason, certainty hurt differently.
Chloe continued.
“Ninety-nine point nine-nine percent.”
I looked at Lily sleeping on my mother’s sofa.
Daniel had two children.
Two women recovering from childbirth.
Two babies born weeks apart.
And he had been planning to take money from one child’s mother to finance the other.
Then Chloe said something unexpected.
“He already knows.”
“How?”
“The lab sent his attorney the result.”
“What did he say?”
A strange sound came from her.
May you like
Almost a laugh.
“He asked for another test.”
