Chapter 3 - REED’S FATHER HAD ANOTHER FAMILY
Reed learned the truth forty minutes after Nenah did.
Jonas called.
Reed listened without interrupting.
Then he stood in his study and broke the first object he had broken in eight years.
A glass.
Against the fireplace.
Evelyn Kincaid had not been his aunt.
Marshall fabricated that relationship.
Why?
To make Reed believe loving Nenah could be incestuous.
Enough horror to force distance.
Enough uncertainty to make political marriage seem safer.
Reed immediately called his family archivist.
Old records.
Marriage certificates.
Private court filings.
Anything involving Evelyn.
Two hours later, proof arrived.
Evelyn Blake had married Reed’s father, Thomas Kincaid, at twenty-one.
Secretly.
Marriage lasted fourteen months.
Annulled.
No public announcement.
No mention in official family history.
Then Thomas later married Reed’s mother, Catherine.
So what was Nenah?
If Evelyn’s child was Thomas’s—
Reed’s half-sister.
Worse.
Reed sat down.
His hands became cold.
Then another document appeared.
Birth date.
Nenah was born two years before Evelyn married Thomas.
That changed possibility.
Who was father?
Sealed.
Reed called Arthur directly.
The doctor answered.
“Was Thomas Kincaid Nenah’s father?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Reed exhaled for first time in minutes.
“Who?”
Arthur hesitated.
“I never knew.”
“Did Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“Did he marry Evelyn knowing she had a child?”
“Yes.”
“Did he adopt Nenah?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Arthur went quiet.
Then:
“He wanted to.”
Reed closed his eyes.
Thomas Kincaid had wanted Nenah in the household.
His own father opposed it.
Family council opposed.
Evelyn eventually agreed to annulment after threats to take custody permanently.
Thomas tried supporting Nenah through an outside trust.
Then Evelyn disappeared.
Car accident.
Dead.
And baby Nenah vanished into foster system.
Reed stared at wall.
His father had spent his life building an empire and never once mentioned a woman named Evelyn.
Why?
Then the archivist found another letter.
Thomas to Marshall Puit.
Twenty-one years earlier.
Marshall had been young then.
Already serving Kincaid family.
Thomas wrote:
Find the child.
Her name is Nenah.
If my father’s people moved her, undo it.
No matter the cost.
Reed’s breathing stopped.
Marshall had been ordered to find Nenah twenty-one years ago.
Instead she spent childhood in foster care.
He had known who she was long before she ever reached Kincaid Manor.
Which meant Ruth Mallister seeing an eighteen-year-old stranger at the gate may not have been chance.
Neither was Nenah becoming kitchen staff.
Neither was Marshall discovering her and Reed seven months ago.
He had known from the beginning.
Reed called Ruth.
She came to the study shaking.
“Tell me.”
She tried lying.
Failed.
Marshall brought Nenah’s application personally.
Told Ruth:
“Give her kitchen work. Keep her away from family rooms.”
“Why?”
“He said her mother once worked for the family.”
Ruth never questioned.
Then Reed asked:
“Did Marshall tell you to report if I spoke to her?”
Ruth’s face answered.
“Yes.”
Every midnight conversation.
Every meal.
Every glance.
Marshall had likely known.
Watched.
Then why allow fourteen months?
Why not stop sooner?
Reed looked at the political marriage papers.
Because timing mattered.
Marshall needed Reed emotionally compromised when alliance became necessary.
Then Carolyn Davenport called.
His new fiancée.
“I think we need to talk.”
Reed almost ignored it.
Something in her voice stopped him.
“What?”
“Your adviser came to see my father three months before you agreed to marry me.”
“Marshall?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
Carolyn hesitated.
“He offered the alliance.”
Reed went cold.
May you like
Marshall had not responded to a political crisis.
He had built one.
