Chapter 2 - THE BABIES WHO COULDN’T BE HIS
Richard Whitmore arrived seven minutes after I left the apartment.
I knew because I watched his black sedan turn onto the block from inside Rachel’s car.
“He knows,” I said.
Rachel glanced at me.
“Knows what?”
“That I found something.”
I showed her Julian’s fertility report.
She read it.
Her eyes widened.
“Evelyn.”
“I know.”
“If Julian is infertile—”
“Nearly infertile.”
“Then Vanessa’s triplets might not be his.”
“Exactly.”
Rachel looked through the windshield.
“And your babies?”
That question hurt differently.
Because I had conceived naturally too.
I pressed a hand against my stomach.
Four lives.
Four impossible little heartbeats.
“Maybe the test was wrong.”
“Twice?”
I didn’t answer.
The following morning, I met Daniel Morris at his office.
He read the fertility report without speaking.
Then he placed it carefully on his desk.
“Where did you get this?”
“Julian’s drawer.”
“Legally, that creates problems if we use it.”
“I don’t want to use it. I want to understand it.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Was there fertility treatment during your marriage?”
“For me, yes. Hormonal monitoring, medications, procedures. But nothing involving donor sperm.”
“IVF?”
“One cycle was planned, but we canceled it after my response to medication became complicated.”
Daniel frowned.
“Who managed your treatment?”
“Whitmore Reproductive Center.”
He looked at the report again.
“The same clinic.”
“Yes.”
That was when the first real fear entered the room.
Not heartbreak.
Fear.
Daniel pulled up the clinic’s corporate information.
Whitmore Reproductive Center was privately funded.
Its largest donor?
The Whitmore Family Foundation.
Chairman?
Richard Whitmore.
My stomach turned.
“Richard paid for the clinic?”
“Partially.”
I remembered Margaret choosing my doctors.
Richard insisting we use “the best specialists.”
Julian saying his family knew people.
At the time, I thought they were helping.
Now every kindness looked different.
Daniel made several calls.
By afternoon, he found something else.
The physician who had signed Julian’s infertility report, Dr. Aaron Kline, had resigned from the clinic eight months earlier.
No explanation.
Current location unknown.
“Can we find him?”
“I’m trying.”
At 4:12 p.m., Julian texted me.
We need to talk without my father.
I stared at the message for almost a minute.
Then responded.
Public place.
We met at a hotel lounge near Central Park.
Julian looked terrible.
Not devastated enough to make me sympathetic.
But close.
He sat opposite me.
“You found my test.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? After Vanessa gave birth to children that might not be yours?”
His face tightened.
“They’re mine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked away.
That told me he wasn’t sure.
“Julian.”
He leaned forward.
“Vanessa says they were conceived naturally.”
“And you believed her despite your diagnosis?”
“My doctor said conception was unlikely. Not impossible.”
“Four babies are growing inside me right now.”
The sentence escaped before I could stop it.
Julian froze.
His entire face changed.
“What?”
Too late.
I had planned to keep it secret.
Instead, anger had betrayed me.
“I’m pregnant.”
He stared at me.
“How far?”
“About eight weeks.”
His lips parted.
Then color drained from his face.
Eight weeks.
He was doing the math.
The pregnancy had begun before Vanessa publicly announced hers.
Before the divorce meeting.
Before he discarded me.
“How many?” he asked quietly.
I should have lied.
I didn’t.
“Four.”
Julian stood so quickly his chair scraped the floor.
“Four?”
People turned.
“Sit down.”
“Evelyn—”
“Sit.”
He did.
His hands were shaking.
“Are they healthy?”
“So far.”
His eyes filled.
I hated that.
I hated seeing the man who betrayed me look moved by our children.
“They’re mine,” he whispered.
“Maybe.”
His expression snapped toward me.
“What does that mean?”
I slid the fertility report across the table.
“You tell me.”
He stared at it.
“I didn’t fake this.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“Then why would you question—”
“Because Vanessa is carrying triplets. I’m carrying quadruplets. Both supposedly conceived naturally by a man diagnosed with severe infertility.”
Julian went silent.
For once, he looked genuinely frightened.
“I never thought about it like that.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
He flinched.
“Did you ever provide genetic material to the clinic?”
He looked confused.
“During testing.”
“Samples?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“Were any frozen?”
“I don’t know.”
My pulse quickened.
The clinic had stored access to Julian’s biological material.
That changed everything.
“What about Vanessa?” I asked. “Did she use the same clinic?”
Julian’s face answered.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before we started sleeping together.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She told me she was having hormone issues.”
“And you didn’t find that suspicious?”
“I didn’t know about the pregnancy then.”
My mind raced.
Vanessa had visited the Whitmore fertility clinic before her affair with Julian.
Julian’s samples were stored there.
Richard controlled the clinic.
I had been treated there.
There was suddenly a terrifying possibility.
Someone might have manipulated both pregnancies.
Daniel called that night.
“We found Dr. Kline.”
“Where?”
“Boston.”
“Can he talk?”
“He already did.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What did he say?”
There was a pause.
“Your husband’s fertility report was accurate.”
I closed my eyes.
“And Vanessa?”
“Dr. Kline remembers her.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“He says Vanessa underwent embryo transfer.”
The room went silent.
“Using whose embryos?”
Daniel exhaled.
“That’s the problem.”
“The records were altered.”
My skin prickled.
“But he remembers one thing clearly.”
“What?”
“The embryos weren’t created with Julian’s sample.”
I stopped breathing.
“Then whose?”
Daniel answered slowly.
May you like
“According to Dr. Kline, Richard Whitmore personally delivered the donor authorization.”
And the donor name had been blacked out.
