Chapter 5 - TWO HEARTBEATS
The next three months turned my life into a war fought through court filings, medical records, and locked doors.
Julian denied everything.
He claimed the altered records were administrative mistakes.
He claimed the money transfers were legitimate business expenses.
He claimed the storage unit belonged to a consultant he barely knew.
And he claimed the Mercer trust had nothing to do with his decision to leave me.
Lena responded with bank records.
Emails.
Witness statements.
And one devastating fact:
Julian had contacted a private DNA laboratory before announcing Chloe’s pregnancy.
He was not celebrating.
He was verifying.
Or trying to hide something.
Chloe moved out of my house six days after the storage unit was discovered.
She did not return to Julian.
She moved into a hotel.
Then she hired her own attorney.
Julian called her forty-three times in one night.
She stopped answering.
Meanwhile, I went to Boston.
Dr. Rebecca Sloan had spent twenty-one years in reproductive endocrinology.
She reviewed my records for nearly an hour before finally looking up.
“I need you to hear me very carefully.”
I braced myself.
“Your history does not support the story you were told.”
“What story?”
“That you were the primary cause of the infertility.”
My eyes burned.
“So I went through all of that…”
“Some treatments may have been medically unnecessary.”
The room tilted.
“Could I still have children?”
Dr. Sloan smiled gently.
“Yes.”
One word.
One word after six years of being told my body had failed.
I cried so hard I embarrassed myself.
Dr. Sloan handed me tissues.
“Your ovarian reserve is lower than it was six years ago, which is expected. But your chances with IVF remain reasonable.”
I chose donor sperm.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Not because I wanted to prove Julian wrong.
Because somewhere beneath all the anger, I realized I still wanted to be a mother.
That desire had always been mine.
Julian had simply convinced me it belonged to him.
The treatment worked.
Six months after the night he locked me out, I sat inside an ultrasound room holding Garrison’s hand so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Dr. Sloan stared at the monitor.
Then she smiled.
“Well.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
She turned the screen toward me.
“There are two.”
I stared.
“Two what?”
Garrison laughed quietly beside me.
The doctor pointed.
“Two heartbeats.”
Twins.
I cried.
Garrison looked away and rubbed his eyes.
I pretended not to notice.
For the first time in years, tears did not feel like grief.
But happiness lasted exactly twenty-seven minutes.
My phone rang as we entered the parking garage.
Lena.
“Do not post anything about the pregnancy.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not tell Julian.”
“He already knows I’m in treatment.”
“No. Listen to me.”
Her voice was tight.
“Chloe’s attorney just filed something.”
“What?”
“A request for emergency protection.”
My stomach tightened.
“From Julian?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She confronted him about the paternity testing.”
Garrison stopped walking.
I put the call on speaker.
Lena continued.
“Chloe says Julian knew there was a significant chance the baby wasn’t biologically his.”
I closed my eyes.
“Who is the father?”
“She says she doesn’t know.”
Garrison frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It gets worse,” Lena said.
“Of course it does.”
“Chloe claims Julian introduced her to a doctor five months before she became pregnant.”
“What doctor?”
“Halpern.”
My blood turned cold.
Dr. Martin Halpern.
Beacon Fertility.
The man from Julian’s hidden correspondence.
“She says she went in for what she believed was a routine hormone evaluation.”
Garrison’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“She remembers being sedated.”
I leaned against the concrete wall.
“She remembers waking up with pain.”
Nobody spoke.
Lena continued.
“Three weeks later, she was pregnant.”
I whispered, “Oh my God.”
“Chloe says Julian told her it was his.”
Garrison’s face had gone completely still.
“What records exist?”
“That’s the problem.”
Lena paused.
“The clinic says Chloe was never a patient.”
A car engine started somewhere below us.
The sound echoed through the garage.
Then Garrison slowly turned his head.
A black SUV sat two rows away.
Engine running.
Windows tinted.
He pulled me behind a concrete pillar.
“What are you doing?”
“Stay down.”
The SUV accelerated.
May you like
It did not head toward the exit.
It came straight toward us.
