Chapter 3: The Secret Claire Couldn’t Bury
“Maya, give that to me,” Claire said.
Maya held the envelope against her chest.
“You already took my money.
You’re not taking this.”
Brooke leaned against the island.
“Let her read it.”
“Get out,” Claire said.
“I’ll leave when he knows what kind of woman he married.”
I stepped between them and held out my hand.
“Maya, please.”
She looked at me for several seconds, then placed the envelope in my palm.
Inside was a laboratory report dated four months earlier, along with a photograph of Claire standing beside a man I didn’t recognize.
The report listed three names.
Claire Morgan.
Maya Morgan.
And mine.
My eyes went to the final line: PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 0%.
Maya read over my shoulder.
Her breath caught.
“You’re not my father?”
The paper slipped from my fingers.
Claire moved toward her.
“Maya, listen to me.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Those three words stopped Claire in the middle of the kitchen.
I gripped the edge of the island.
“Who is the man in the photograph?”
“His name was Daniel,” Claire whispered.
“It happened before our wedding.”
“We were engaged.”
“I know.”
Maya’s face folded.
“Did you know about me?”
“No,” Claire said quickly.
“I believed you were his.
I never questioned it until Brooke brought me that report.”
Brooke lifted the Mustang keys.
“And now everyone knows.”
I looked at her.
“How did you get our DNA?”
“Maya left a hairbrush at my apartment.
Your coffee cup was in my car.”
“You tested us without permission?”
“I gave Claire the truth.”
“You gave me a threat,” Claire said.
Brooke’s smile vanished.
Claire took her phone from her pocket and opened a message.
“She said if I didn’t clear the loan, she would send that report to Maya.
Then she demanded the Mustang because she said silence had become ‘expensive.’”
Brooke reached for the phone.
I caught her wrist before she touched it.
“Let go of me.”
“Leave the keys.”
“The car is registered to me.”
“With Maya’s money.”
“Claire transferred it willingly.
Ask her.”
Claire’s shoulders dropped.
“She’s right about that.”
Maya backed toward the stairs.
“You chose her again.”
“I thought I was protecting you,” Claire said.
“From what?
Dad loving me?”
Claire covered her mouth, but Maya kept going.
“You didn’t protect me.
You took away my school, lied to Dad, and paid Aunt Brooke to keep me from finding out that my whole life might be a lie.”
I had spent years imagining Maya’s graduation.
Now she was looking at me as if she needed permission to keep calling me Dad.
“Come here,” I said.
She shook her head.
“What if that paper is true?”
“I taught you to ride a bicycle.
I sat beside you when you got your first stitches.
I know which song you play when you’re scared.”
“But what if—”
“I am your father.”
Maya crossed the kitchen in two steps and fell against me.
Her sob broke something open in my chest, and I held her while my own tears came.
Brooke picked up the envelope.
“Touching.
It still doesn’t change the result.”
A card fell from it and landed near my shoe.
It belonged to a private testing service called Northstar Genetics.
I picked it up.
“Where is the original report?”
“That is the original.”
“No,” I said.
“This is a photocopy.”
Brooke’s fingers closed around the keys.
Claire stared at the card.
“You told me the original had been mailed to Daniel.”
Maya lifted her head from my shoulder.
“Daniel has been gone for six years.
Mom told me that once.”
Brooke took one step toward the door.
I blocked her path.
May you like
“How did a man who has been gone for six years receive a report dated four months ago?”
For the first time that night, Brooke had no answer.
