Chapter 4 - VANESSA’S PREGNANCY
Vincent nearly broke the phone when Marco told him.
“Pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“With my child?”
“That’s what she says.”
“No.”
Marco hesitated.
Vincent noticed.
“What?”
“You and Vanessa were involved before the marriage.”
“Yes.”
“After?”
Vincent’s silence answered.
Marco looked away.
It had happened twice during the first year.
Then once eighteen months ago after a family funeral.
Vincent had told himself it was complicated.
That his marriage to Claire was not real.
That Claire knew his heart belonged elsewhere.
All the cowardly sentences men use to make betrayal sound philosophical.
“Timing?” Vincent asked.
“Vanessa claims fourteen weeks.”
Vincent calculated.
Impossible.
He had not touched her in nearly a year.
“It isn’t mine.”
“Then we prove it.”
Vanessa requested an emergency family-board meeting.
The pregnancy made no legal difference to Claire’s trust.
But Vanessa did not seem to understand that.
Or maybe she wanted something else.
Vincent arrived at her Gold Coast condo.
Marco stayed outside.
Vanessa opened the door wearing cream cashmere.
No fear.
“Vincent.”
“Who is the father?”
Her expression changed.
“Yours.”
“No.”
“You don’t remember everything.”
“I remember where I put my body.”
That ended the performance.
She turned away.
“You threw me out for Claire.”
“I threw you out because your assistant nearly killed her.”
“I didn’t order that.”
“Prove it.”
Vanessa spun back.
“I loved you for fifteen years.”
“And somehow Claire ended up poisoned.”
“It wasn’t poison.”
Vincent’s face became lethal.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Vanessa swallowed.
Then:
“She was never supposed to take four.”
Silence.
There.
Vincent felt something inside himself go cold.
“You knew.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“I knew about the bottle.”
“You knew what was inside.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was going to ruin everything.”
“What everything?”
“You.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“You thought Claire was ruining me?”
“She was changing you.”
“How?”
“You listened to her about contracts. Warehouses. Staffing. You stopped giving me things you used to give me.”
He stared.
“You nearly hospitalized my wife because I respected her business judgment?”
Vanessa’s face twisted.
“She wasn’t supposed to become important.”
That sentence landed harder than anything else.
Because for three years, Vincent had behaved exactly the same way.
Claire was supposed to remain unimportant.
Vanessa simply acted on the lesson Vincent himself had taught.
“Who is the father?”
Vanessa sat.
Then whispered:
“Michael Hale.”
Vincent knew the name.
Her older brother.
No.
Different Michael.
She saw his confusion.
“Not my brother. Michael Hale Junior.”
Her cousin.
Married.
Political donor.
Messy but irrelevant.
“Why claim mine?”
“Because if Claire took control, I needed standing.”
“You have none.”
“I thought a child would.”
Vincent stared at her.
“You don’t understand the trust.”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
He turned to leave.
Then stopped.
“Who supplied the compound?”
“My assistant contacted Dr. Salvatore.”
Vincent froze.
His private physician.
The man who had supplied Claire’s false vitamins for years.
“What did Salvatore know?”
Vanessa’s eyes shifted.
Too late.
Vincent stepped closer.
“What did he know?”
“He knew Claire was taking fertility suppressants.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“He prescribed them.”
“Yes.”
“Because I told him to.”
“Yes.”
Then Vanessa whispered:
“But he increased the dosage last year without telling you.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“What?”
“He said Anthony’s instructions required Claire never become pregnant before she turned thirty.”
Vincent stared.
“Anthony?”
Vanessa nodded.
“He showed me a letter.”
The dead grandfather.
Again.
Vincent left without another word.
Dr. Salvatore had disappeared that morning.
His clinic closed.
Phone off.
But Marco found one thing in his private medical files.
Claire’s chart.
And inside it, a note written three years earlier:
PATIENT MUST NOT CONCEIVE UNTIL BENNETT CONDITION IS VERIFIED.
Vincent had believed he alone decided Claire should not have his child.
May you like
Now it appeared someone older had manipulated even that decision.
And whatever “Bennett condition” meant had been important enough for Anthony Moretti to interfere with Claire’s body before the marriage even began.
