Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO GAVE NOAH HIS LAST NAME
“Daniel Bennett was never Noah’s biological father.”
I said it before anyone could imagine otherwise.
Noah knew that much.
What he didn’t know was why Daniel’s name appeared on his birth certificate.
Daniel had been my oldest friend.
We grew up two streets apart.
He knew me before Chicago.
Before Vincent.
Before money changed every room I entered.
After my divorce, Daniel found me living alone in Boston, pregnant and terrified.
He was an attorney specializing in domestic and financial abuse.
He helped me untangle the last pieces of my life from Chicago.
Then he discovered someone was watching my apartment.
“Who?” Vincent asked.
“We never knew.”
I looked at him.
“Now I think we do.”
Sophia.
Or someone working for her.
Daniel became convinced my child needed legal insulation from the Moretti name.
When I was seven months pregnant, he proposed something ridiculous.
Marriage.
Not romance.
Protection.
His health was already failing from an aggressive heart condition he had hidden from nearly everyone.
“He wanted me on his insurance,” I said. “He wanted Noah to have a legal father on paper if something happened to me.”
Noah’s eyes filled.
“You never told me.”
“You were a child.”
“And later?”
“I was afraid telling you would make you feel like your name wasn’t really yours.”
He looked down.
“Daniel gave me Bennett.”
“Yes.”
The morning Noah was born, Daniel drove me to the hospital.
He collapsed in the parking garage.
Doctors worked on him for almost an hour.
He died while I was in labor.
That was why I had told the Harvard host my husband died the day Noah was born.
It was true.
I had raised Noah alone from his first night.
Vincent was silent.
Finally, he said, “I owe Daniel a debt I can never repay.”
That surprised me.
“You’re not angry his name is on Noah’s birth certificate?”
“No.”
Vincent looked at our son.
“He was there when I wasn’t.”
No excuse.
No jealousy.
Just truth.
Noah wiped his eyes.
Then asked, “Did Daniel know who my biological father was?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever contact him?”
I hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
Vincent sat forward.
“Claire.”
“Daniel wrote you a letter.”
The room became still.
“He did what?”
“He mailed it three weeks before Noah was born.”
Vincent’s face changed.
“I never received anything.”
“I assumed you ignored it.”
“No.”
The attorney immediately ordered a search of old Moretti correspondence archives.
Three hours later, they found the mail log.
Daniel’s certified letter had arrived at Vincent’s Chicago office.
It had been signed for.
May you like
Not by Vincent.
By Sophia Reynolds.
