Chapter 4: The Signature That Wasn’t Mine
Conrad arrived twenty minutes later in a dark suit, carrying a leather folder.
By then, half the guests had left and the wedding cake remained untouched.
“Tell them,” Vanessa said.
“Tell them Clara transferred her interest.”
Conrad opened the folder.
“This agreement was signed on January twelfth and witnessed by a licensed notary.”
He laid the document on Table Seven.
My name appeared at the bottom in blue ink.
“That looks like my signature,” I said.
“But I have never seen this.”
Vanessa gave Daniel a wounded look.
“She’s frightened because everyone is watching.”
“I was in Toronto on January twelfth,” I said.
“Aunt Patricia had surgery.
I stayed with her for two weeks.”
Patricia placed both palms on the table.
“Clara drove me home from the hospital that morning.”
Conrad tapped the notary seal.
“Travel does not invalidate a signature.”
“It does if she wasn’t here to sign it,” Daniel said.
Vanessa took his hand, but he pulled away.
“You believe her over your wife?” she asked.
“I believe dates.”
Vanessa’s mouth hardened.
“Then believe this: the transfer has already been recorded.
The house is legally mine.”
My knees weakened.
I lowered myself into Grandma’s abandoned chair.
Vanessa leaned over me.
“Dad knew you weren’t his.
He simply lacked the courage to tell you before he was gone.”
The words landed harder than the paternity report.
I pressed one hand against my mouth.
“Stop it,” Grandma said.
“Why?” Vanessa replied.
“She wanted the truth.”
Grandma turned my chair toward her and took my face between both hands.
“Listen to me, Clara.
Arthur did not discover that report at the end of his life.
He ordered it when you were eleven months old.”
I stared at her.
“He knew,” she continued.
“He held you that same evening and said, ‘She is my daughter because I have chosen to be her father every day of her life.’”
My breath broke.
Grandma pulled me against her, and I cried into her shoulder while she stroked my hair.
“He chose you,” she whispered.
“Never let anyone cut that sentence in half.”
Someone knelt beside us.
It was Maya, the photographer’s young assistant from the kitchen table.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said.
“But I may have recorded something important.”
Vanessa spun around.
“You were hired to take photographs, not interfere.”
Maya held up a small camera.
“I was filming background footage in the bridal suite.”
“Delete it.”
“No.”
“I’ll have you fired.”
“My employer already watched it.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What did you record?”
Maya opened the camera screen.
“Vanessa was speaking to Conrad before the ceremony.
I didn’t understand the conversation, so I left the camera running.”
Conrad closed his folder.
“An accidental recording inside a private room proves nothing.”
“Then you won’t mind us hearing it,” Uncle Robert said.
Maya pressed play.
Vanessa’s recorded voice filled the silence.
“Once Daniel sees Clara at the family table, he’ll ask why her name was ever on the trust.
Move her after the photographs.
By tomorrow, the bank will have the transfer, and Clara won’t be able to stop us.”
Conrad’s voice followed.
“What if she denies signing?”
“She won’t know until the money is released.”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“What money?”
No one answered.
He took out his phone, opened his banking application, and held the screen toward her.
May you like
“The one hundred and eighty thousand dollars from the sale of my flat,” he said.
“Where is it?”
