Chapter 4 - VANESSA'S BABY WAS NAMED AFTER MY HUSBAND
I learned the baby’s name from a hospital bracelet photograph.
Noah Ryan Sinclair.
Ryan.
Middle name.
Maybe coincidence.
I had stopped believing in those.
Madison sat at the foot of my bed eating vending-machine crackers.
“You want me to say something mean?”
“Yes.”
“She sounds exhausting.”
I laughed.
Then regretted it because my incision hurt.
Worth it.
Lily slept beside me.
Tiny fist beside her face.
Every time I looked at her, the rest of the hospital became background noise.
Then Vanessa asked to see me.
I almost refused.
Then said yes.
Not because I owed her anything.
Because I wanted to see whether she could lie while looking at my daughter.
Vanessa entered in a wheelchair.
Pale.
Slow.
She had undergone major surgery.
I did not need to hate her pain to hate what she had done.
“Claire.”
“Vanessa.”
Her eyes moved toward Lily.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yes.”
Vanessa began crying.
I waited.
“I never meant for this to happen.”
“Which part?”
She looked down.
“Ryan leaving you.”
“He didn’t trip and land in your suite.”
She flinched.
“I was in pain.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“No. You knew I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant. You knew the suite was mine. You knew the nurse was mine.”
Vanessa wiped her face.
“Ryan said you had your mother.”
There it was.
The excuse spreading between them.
My mother made me less deserving.
“How long have you had access to our account?”
Vanessa froze.
“I don’t.”
I showed her the attempted transfer.
She stared.
“I didn’t do that.”
“Your credentials did.”
“I swear.”
I believed nothing.
Then I asked:
“Is Noah Ryan’s biological son?”
She began crying harder.
“I don’t know.”
My stomach turned.
She claimed the clinic told her they transferred one of Daniel’s embryos.
She never requested paternity testing.
“Then why name him Ryan?”
“Because Ryan saved me after Daniel died.”
I looked away.
There are sentences that explain everything without excusing anything.
“What about the trust?”
Vanessa looked genuinely confused.
“What trust?”
I studied her.
Could be acting.
Then she said:
“Claire, Ryan told me Daniel created a trust before he died.”
“What?”
“For Noah.”
Now I was confused.
Daniel Sinclair had supposedly left very little money.
That was why Ryan paid Vanessa’s rent.
Medical bills.
Insurance.
Everything.
If Daniel left a trust, why?
I called my attorney while Vanessa was still there.
Within an hour, we found a probate filing.
Daniel had indeed created a trust.
$3.8 million.
Beneficiary: any biological child conceived from stored embryos.
Vanessa had inherited access after Noah’s birth.
So why had Ryan been paying for everything?
Vanessa looked stunned.
“He told me the trust was frozen.”
“It isn’t.”
“It became active this morning.”
My attorney continued.
“And there’s more.”
Daniel’s trust owned a life-insurance policy.
Five million dollars.
Payable upon the birth of a surviving child.
Vanessa suddenly had almost nine million dollars available.
She had never needed Ryan’s $74,000.
Maybe she truly did not know.
Then my attorney asked to speak privately.
Vanessa left.
“What?”
“Claire, there’s a problem with Daniel’s car accident.”
“What kind?”
“The insurance company investigated it as potentially staged.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Daniel changed the beneficiary and embryo instructions seventy-two hours before he died.”
“To who?”
The attorney paused.
May you like
“Ryan.”
My husband had been named contingent trustee three days before Vanessa’s husband died.
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