Chapter 9 - THE PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
Vanessa made the announcement publicly before we could stop her.
By breakfast, every gossip site in Charlotte had the same headline:
MERCER BILLIONAIRE’S FORMER LOVE EXPECTING CHILD AMID MARRIAGE CRISIS.
The photograph showed Vanessa leaving a private clinic with one hand over her stomach.
Ethan threw his phone across the room.
“I never touched her.”
I believed him.
Which annoyed me.
“You don’t have to convince me.”
He stared.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
Relief flashed across his face.
“Don’t look so happy. You still let her destroy our marriage without sleeping with her. That takes talent.”
Michael coughed to hide a laugh.
Ethan glared at him.
Daniel ordered an emergency hearing.
Vanessa arrived wearing cream.
Of course she did.
She looked calm, delicate, almost fragile.
Reporters shouted questions.
“Vanessa! Is Ethan the father?”
“Vanessa! When is the baby due?”
She said nothing.
Then she saw me.
And smiled.
Inside the courthouse, her attorney produced medical records confirming pregnancy.
Fourteen weeks.
Ethan leaned toward Daniel.
“I was never with her.”
“We know.”
“Then whose baby is it?”
That question was answered unexpectedly.
During recess, Graham Keller appeared.
He looked exhausted.
Terrified.
And ready to betray someone.
He asked to speak privately.
“I want immunity.”
Ethan almost hit him.
Daniel stopped him.
“For what?”
Graham looked at Vanessa through the glass doors.
“Financial crimes. Forgery. Surveillance.”
“And the pregnancy?”
Graham went pale.
“The baby is mine.”
Silence.
I almost laughed.
Ethan did.
One short, stunned sound.
Graham rubbed his face.
“Vanessa planned everything. She said if we made Ethan look like the father, Claire would leave permanently.”
“You agreed?” I asked.
“I was in love with her.”
“No,” I said. “You were useful to her.”
His face said he knew.
Graham handed Daniel a flash drive.
“Everything is here.”
Recordings.
Transfers.
Messages.
Instructions from Vanessa.
Enough to destroy her case.
Maybe enough to send her to prison.
Then Graham said, “There’s one more thing.”
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“What?”
“She didn’t come back to Charlotte because of the acquisition.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Graham looked at me.
“You don’t understand.”
He lowered his voice.
“Vanessa has been planning this since Claire and Ethan’s wedding.”
My skin went cold.
“Why?”
Graham opened a photograph on his phone.
My wedding day.
Vanessa stood across the street watching us leave the church.
But she wasn’t alone.
Beside her was my father.
Robert Bennett.
May you like
Alive.
Six months after the date I had been told he died.
