Chapter 4 - The Lie Conrad Had Believed for Eight Years
I thought Conrad had abandoned me because he didn't trust me.
That had always been painful enough.
Then he told me what his father had shown him the night before he left.
"I thought you admitted it."
We were still standing in Howard's study.
I stared at Conrad.
"Admitted what?"
His face had gone pale.
"That the pregnancy might not be mine."
For a second, I couldn't speak.
Then I laughed.
It came out sharp and stunned.
"What?"
Felicity looked at him.
"Conrad, you never told me that."
"Because I didn't think it mattered anymore."
"It mattered to me."
I stepped closer.
"You looked me in the face when I told you I was pregnant. You accused me of trying to trap you. You never once accused me of cheating."
"Because Dad told me not to."
I felt cold despite the fire burning across the room.
Conrad rubbed both hands across his face.
"The night before I left, my father came to my office. He had printed emails."
My heartbeat changed.
"What emails?"
"Messages between you and a man named Thomas Mercer."
I stared at him.
"Thomas was my obstetrician."
Conrad froze.
"What?"
"Dr. Thomas Mercer was the physician who confirmed my pregnancy."
Margaret made a small sound of disbelief.
Conrad shook his head.
"No. The emails weren't medical."
"Because they weren't real."
He looked sick.
Howard had shown him pages supposedly copied from my email account.
In them, "I" had written that Conrad would never question the pregnancy if the timing was right.
Another message suggested that once Conrad accepted the baby, I could secure my financial future.
I had never written either sentence.
Never seen those messages.
Never even communicated with Dr. Mercer outside the hospital portal.
Conrad opened another folder from Howard's drawer.
Inside were printed copies of the same emails.
One glance told me something Conrad hadn't noticed eight years earlier.
The address was wrong.
Not obviously wrong.
One character had been changed.
My real email used two Ls in my middle name.
The forged address used one.
I pointed.
"That isn't mine."
Conrad stared.
His jaw tightened.
"I should've checked."
"Yes."
I didn't soften it.
"You should have."
He looked at me.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't say that yet."
The words stopped him.
"You don't get to solve eight years with two words because you've finally learned your father lied."
He nodded slowly.
"You're right."
That answer surprised me.
Conrad wasn't finished.
"Three months after I left, Dad showed me one more email."
My stomach twisted.
"What did it say?"
His voice dropped.
"That there wasn't a baby anymore."
Margaret covered her mouth.
I stared at Conrad.
He continued carefully.
"It said you'd miscarried and wanted no further contact."
My knees nearly weakened.
I grabbed the edge of the desk.
"No."
"I believed it."
"No."
"I thought..."
His voice broke.
"I thought there was no child."
"There were four."
"I know."
"You thought they died?"
"I thought one pregnancy ended."
He looked toward the doorway where the children had disappeared.
"I had no idea four people were growing up without me."
Ava's laugh carried faintly from the sitting room.
Conrad closed his eyes.
It was the first moment I truly understood that Howard hadn't simply separated us.
He had built two different realities.
One for Conrad.
One for me.
And for eight years, we had each lived inside the one he designed.
Felicity picked up another page from the drawer.
"There's something else."
She handed it to Conrad.
It was an invoice from a private digital-forensics contractor.
Eight years old.
Paid by Ashby Holdings.
The service description was short.
EMAIL ACCOUNT REPLICATION / CORRESPONDENCE SIMULATION.
Conrad stared at it.
Proof.
His father had paid someone to manufacture messages in my name.
But there was another line beneath it.
A second account had been replicated.
Conrad's.
I saw his expression change.
"What?"
He handed me the page.
According to the invoice, Howard hadn't only forged messages from me.
He had forged messages from Conrad too.
That meant something I had believed for eight years might also be false.
Because six weeks after the quadruplets were born, I had received a short email from Conrad's account.
It contained only one sentence.
Stop contacting me. Whatever child you had is your responsibility now.
I had read that sentence while sitting beside four premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
It was the moment I stopped trying.
May you like
Now Conrad looked at me and whispered:
"I never sent that."
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