Chapter 4 - CELESTE WAS LYING TOO, BUT NOT ABOUT WHAT ELENA THOUGHT
Celeste arrived at Naomi’s office at 4:15 p.m.
No Lucien.
No Bianca.
No silk dress.
Black leggings.
Oversized coat.
Hair tied back.
She looked younger.
And much more frightened.
Naomi recorded the meeting with consent.
Elena sat across from her.
“I’m not going to fight you over Lucien.”
Celeste’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because if you wanted him, you wouldn’t have left.”
That was fair.
Then Elena placed the fertility invoice on the table.
“Explain.”
Celeste stared at it.
“Lucien didn’t know.”
“You used his genetic material without his knowledge?”
“No.”
She looked horrified.
“He provided a sample.”
“For what?”
“Screening.”
Lucien had undergone fertility screening after Elena became pregnant.
Why?
Bianca told him the family trust required updated genetic records before the birth of any direct heir.
That part was true.
But St. Margaret Reproductive Center stored part of the specimen.
Lucien signed a broad laboratory consent.
He did not, according to Celeste, authorize reproductive use.
“Then how did you become pregnant?”
Celeste’s hands shook.
“Bianca arranged it.”
Elena stared.
“You’re saying Lucien’s mother impregnated you with her son’s sperm?”
The sentence sounded insane.
Celeste started crying.
“I thought he knew.”
“Why?”
“Bianca showed me an authorization.”
Signed:
Lucien Moretti.
Celeste believed it.
The signature now looked suspiciously similar to the one placed under Elena’s succession agreement.
Same pattern.
Same family.
Same old access.
“Why would you agree?”
Celeste wiped her face.
“Because Lucien told me he was leaving you.”
Elena felt nothing at first.
Then a slow ache.
“When?”
“August.”
Five months earlier.
Elena had become pregnant in July.
Lucien had known by early September.
So he had been promising Celeste a future while Elena carried his child.
“Did he tell you I was pregnant?”
“No.”
“When did you find out?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Elena stared.
Celeste whispered:
“Bianca told me.”
Not Lucien.
“Then why come to the house?”
Celeste looked ashamed.
“Because Bianca said if I entered publicly as the mother of Lucien’s second legitimate continuity child, you would take the settlement and leave.”
Second legitimate continuity child.
Nicholas excluded because Maria refused.
Elena’s baby first.
Celeste’s baby second.
Bianca was building a succession architecture around pregnancies.
“Why eighty million?”
Celeste did not know.
Then she handed Elena another document.
Bianca’s proposal to Celeste.
Upon birth of male child:
$20 million settlement.
Upper East Side residence.
Lifetime education trust.
Temporary voting guardianship over 4.5% founder reserve until child reached twenty-five.
Celeste had not signed final terms.
“Do you know the baby’s sex?”
“Male.”
Of course.
Elena looked toward the window.
Manhattan snow had started.
Then Celeste whispered:
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The embryo transfer wasn’t the first.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
Celeste had undergone two transfers.
First failed.
Second successful.
Both using what she had been told was Lucien’s genetic material.
But after discovering Elena existed, Celeste secretly ordered an independent prenatal paternity screening.
Result?
She took out her phone.
Probability Lucien Moretti was the biological father:
0.00%.
Elena stopped breathing.
“What?”
Celeste began crying harder.
“The baby isn’t his.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Whose specimen was used?”
The clinic refused to disclose without legal action.
Donor code:
M-04.
Not L. Moretti.
Somebody substituted another sample.
Elena thought immediately of the trust.
If Celeste’s baby was not Lucien’s, it could not activate his descendant reserve.
Unless the donor was another Moretti.
Naomi saw the same possibility.
“Did the report test broader family relationship?”
Celeste nodded.
“The lab said the fetus is genetically consistent with a close paternal relative of Lucien.”
Elena felt cold.
“How close?”
“Possibly father, brother, or uncle.”
Lucien had no living brother.
His father, Dominic Moretti Sr., had died eight years earlier.
His uncle Vincent was alive.
And Vincent controlled the family trust.
The room became very quiet.
Then Celeste said:
“Bianca knew the donor code.”
“How?”
“I heard her arguing with the clinic administrator.”
“What did she say?”
Celeste looked at Elena.
“She said M-04 was the only sample that could ‘restore the line correctly.’”
Restore.
Not continue.
Restore.
That word changed everything.
Naomi searched the old Moretti genetic archive.
M-04 appeared once.
Thirty-one years earlier.
Label:
DOMINIC MORETTI SR. - FAMILY PRESERVATION SAMPLE.
Lucien’s dead father.
Elena stared at Celeste’s stomach.
If the records were genuine, Bianca had not tried to give Lucien another son.
May you like
She had tried to give herself another son by her dead husband.
And planned to let Lucien believe the child was his.
