Chapter 6 - THE BABY THAT CHANGED THE PLAN
I had assumed the one thing Gavin and Maren agreed on was the pregnancy.
I was wrong.
Two days later, Maren called me.
I almost didn't answer.
Then I remembered the DNA consultation.
“Hello?”
She was crying.
“Tessa, I need to see you.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Gavin thinks I'm lying about the baby.”
That got my attention.
I said nothing.
“He hired someone to follow me.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“You know?”
“I know a lot more than you think.”
She started breathing faster.
“Tess, I swear the baby is his.”
“That's between you and him.”
“No. It's not.”
Her voice changed.
Desperate.
“There are things you don't understand.”
I laughed once.
“You slept with my husband, got pregnant, planned to move into my nursery, and tried to steal my house. I understand enough.”
“I didn't start the house plan.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“Gavin did.”
“Convenient.”
“He told me you were planning to leave him. He said the house would become part of the divorce settlement anyway.”
“You believed that?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Maren began crying harder.
“I didn't know about the medical records.”
I felt something sharpen inside me.
“What medical records?”
“He told me last week he could have you declared unstable after Emma was born.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“And you said?”
“I told him he was insane.”
“After you planned to take my nursery?”
“I know.”
“No, Maren. You don't get to use one bad thing to make the other bad things smaller.”
She went silent.
Then she whispered, “That's why I went to the DNA clinic.”
“Explain.”
“I wanted proof the baby was Gavin's before I told him I was leaving.”
My brain caught on the sentence.
“Leaving him?”
“I started realizing what he was doing.”
“And that suddenly bothered you?”
“Yes.”
“At eight months into sleeping with my husband?”
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”
She didn't argue.
Then she said something unexpected.
“Tessa, Gavin didn't meet me because he loved me.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
Her voice dropped.
“He approached me because of your grandmother.”
I sat up.
“What does my grandmother have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Maren explained that seven months before the affair became physical, Gavin started asking questions about my inheritance.
Not just the house.
A second asset.
One I barely thought about.
My grandmother had owned seventeen acres outside the city.
Land she leased to a small nursery business.
I had assumed it was worth maybe $300,000.
Maren told me Gavin had discovered something.
The county planned a new commercial bypass.
If approved, the road would run directly along the property.
Developers had already begun quietly acquiring nearby land.
My grandmother's seventeen acres could soon be worth millions.
“How much?”
Maren hesitated.
“Gavin thinks eight to twelve million.”
I closed my eyes.
Suddenly, the house wasn't the real prize.
Then Maren whispered the part she had called to tell me.
“He already signed an agreement to sell your land.”
My eyes opened.
“He can't.”
“He thinks he can.”
“Why?”
May you like
“Because he has a power of attorney with your signature on it.”
I had never signed a power of attorney.
