Chapter 2
I carried Rosie into my library while Marco restrained Vivienne in the dining room.
Detective Reed followed us.
Maria hurried behind her, wiping tears from her cheeks.
Rosie sat on my desk with the stuffed rabbit in her lap.
“Your mother put something inside?” I asked.
She nodded.
“She said only you could have it.”
Maria found a small tear beneath the rabbit’s left arm.
I used a letter opener to cut two stitches.
A folded envelope slid into my palm.
My name was written across it in Sofia’s handwriting.
Damian.
Just seeing those seven letters made my throat close.
I had signed Sofia’s death certificate as her employer because no close relative had arrived in time.
I had stood beside her coffin.
I had watched Rosie place a yellow flower on it.
Yet the woman I intended to marry had possessed Sofia’s ring, and someone had hidden Sofia’s medication inside my desk.
I opened the envelope.
Damian,
If you are reading this, I either found the courage to tell you everything, or something happened before I could.
Rosie is your daughter.
My hands stopped moving.
The room tilted around me.
“What does it say?” Detective Reed asked.
I couldn’t answer.
I looked at Rosie.
She was swinging her small legs above the floor, watching me with Sofia’s dark eyes.
Memories struck without mercy.
Sofia and I had known each other long before she worked for me.
We had spent one night together four years earlier after my father’s funeral.
I was broken.
She had stayed because she refused to leave me alone.
The next morning, fear had turned me cold.
I told her the night could never happen again.
Three months later, she resigned from my company’s accounting department.
Months after that, she returned as part of the household staff, carrying a baby she introduced as her daughter.
I had never counted backward.
I had never asked.
I had chosen not to see.
My voice cracked as I continued reading.
I tried to tell you when I discovered I was pregnant, but Vivienne intercepted me outside your office.
She said you were already committed to her.
She showed me messages that appeared to come from you, saying you would take my child away if I embarrassed you.
I believed them because you had already pushed me away.
I am ashamed that fear kept me silent.
But that is no longer the only reason I am writing.
Vivienne and Adrian are stealing from the Mercer Children’s Foundation through contracts awarded to Vale Medical.
I found altered invoices, false patient records, and payments routed into private accounts.
Your signature appears on documents you never signed.
Rosie climbed off the desk and touched my knee.
“Are you mad at Mommy?”
I pulled her into my arms.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Are you mad at me?”
The question destroyed something inside me.
“No. Never at you.”
She placed her little hand against my cheek.
“Mommy said you were good but busy.”
I bowed my head.
Busy.
That was the kind lie Sofia had given our daughter.
I finished the letter.
The evidence is hidden where your mother kept her North Star.
Do not trust anyone who tells you the company matters more than Rosie.
If I am gone, protect her.
She deserves a father who chooses her while he still has time.
Sofia.
Under her signature was a phone number and four words.
Ask Claire about the test.
Claire Bennett was my personal attorney.
She was also seated in the drawing room with the other guests.
Detective Reed took the letter as evidence after photographing it.
“Until we confirm this,” she said, “you cannot assume the accusation is true.”
“I know Sofia’s handwriting.”
“Handwriting does not prove paternity or murder.”
“I want a DNA test tonight.”
“That can be arranged.”
A crash sounded in the hallway.
Marco shouted.
I ran from the library with Rosie in my arms.
Vivienne had knocked over a console table while trying to escape.
Two officers held her.
“You’re believing a dead maid over me?” she screamed.
“I’m believing the evidence.”
“She slept with you once and spent four years trying to use that mistake.”
Rosie heard every word.
I covered her ear against my chest.
“How do you know it happened once?” I asked.
Vivienne froze.
I had never told her about Sofia.
Not once.
Adrian stepped forward.
“She probably read the letter before hiding it.”
Vivienne turned toward him.
Again, that silent communication passed between them.
Detective Reed noticed it too.
“Separate them,” she ordered.
Richard Vale protested as officers led his daughter toward the sitting room.
I went to the drawing room and found Claire.
She was forty-five, composed, and usually impossible to unsettle.
The moment I mentioned Sofia’s letter, her face broke.
“I told her to tell you,” she whispered.
“You knew Rosie might be mine?”
“I knew.”
The betrayal landed like a fist.
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
I stepped back.
“Three years?”
“Sofia came to me after receiving the threatening messages. I didn’t believe they came from you, so I arranged a private paternity test using a glass from your office.”
“You tested me without permission?”
“I was trying to protect her.”
“And the result?”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“99.98 percent probability.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
“You let me live in the same house as my daughter without telling me.”
“Sofia begged me not to. Vivienne had photographs of Rosie’s daycare, her pediatrician, even the playground she visited. Someone was watching them.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The morning you announced your engagement.”
A memory returned.
Claire had requested a private meeting that day.
Adrian told me she had been delayed in court.
“I waited two hours,” I said.
“I was trapped in an elevator at the foundation offices. The emergency system had been disabled.”
I looked through the open doorway.
Adrian was speaking quietly to Richard.
My cousin had lied.
Claire opened her handbag and removed a key.
“Sofia gave me this after the test. She said it opened the wooden box in her room.”
“We searched that room.”
“The box wasn’t there?”
“Rosie said it was beside the bed.”
Marco heard us.
“I reviewed the inventory taken after Sofia’s death. No wooden jewelry box was listed.”
Vivienne had taken the ring.
Someone else had taken the box.
I approached Adrian.
“Where were you the night Sofia died?”
His mouth tightened.
“At home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Richard interrupted.
“This interrogation is absurd.”
I ignored him.
“Why did you tell me Claire was in court on the day of my engagement announcement?”
“I was mistaken.”
“Why did you know the code to my desk?”
“Because you gave it to me.”
“Did you put Sofia’s medicine there?”
His face reddened.
“Of course not.”
Detective Reed’s phone rang.
She listened, asked two questions, then looked at me.
“The medical examiner preserved blood samples from Sofia’s autopsy.”
“And?”
“A new screening found a sedative that wasn’t prescribed to her.”
Vivienne shouted from the sitting room.
“This is a setup!”
Reed continued.
“The laboratory also examined the prescription bottle found in your desk.”
I held my breath.
“Whose fingerprints were on it?”
“Yours,” she said.
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Then she looked toward Vivienne.
“And hers.”
