“And your baby?”
“Could eventually have one too.”
I sat down.
Somewhere in America, Daniel was mourning the possibility that the baby he expected was not his.
He had no idea the biological father was his own son.
A son he didn’t know existed.
“Tell him.”
Vanessa looked terrified.
“You tell him.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“You built this part of the truth. You deliver it.”
Daniel received the truth that night.
I wasn’t there.
But he told me later exactly how it happened.
Vanessa called him from her hotel room.
Daniel answered coldly.
“What now?”
“I know who the father is.”
Silence.
“Who?”
“Lucas Hale.”
Daniel had never heard the name.
“Who is Lucas Hale?”
“Rachel Morgan’s son.”
He stopped breathing.
“Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“What does Rachel have to do with this?”
“Lucas is twenty.”
Long silence.
“Okay.”
“Daniel… Lucas is your son.”
He laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
