Chapter 2 - THE IMPOSSIBLE TESTDr. Warren ordered Grant out of the room.
He didn’t go quietly.
“I’m her husband.”
“And she is my patient.”
“She’s injured and medicated.”
“She is completely capable of making her own medical decisions.”
Grant looked at me.
“Claire, tell her.”
I studied the man I had been married to for six years.
Until that night, I had believed I knew every version of Grant Whitmore.
The charming Grant who brought coffee to my desk when we first started dating.
The ambitious Grant who built Whitmore Development from his father’s struggling real-estate company.
The grieving Grant who held me after our first failed IVF cycle.
The hopeful Grant who cried when we saw two heartbeats on the ultrasound.
I had never met this Grant.
The one standing beside my hospital bed with panic hiding behind anger.
“Leave,” I said.
His face hardened.
“Claire.”
“Leave.”
Dr. Warren opened the door.
Grant walked out.
But before he did, he looked at the folder one more time.
That glance stayed with me.
At eight the following morning, a genetic counselor named Monica Lee came into my room.
Dr. Warren followed her.
They explained the procedure twice.
A noninvasive prenatal parentage test could compare fetal DNA circulating in my blood with samples from Grant and me.
Grant refused at first.
Then he agreed after my attorney threatened to request a court order.
His sudden cooperation made me more frightened.
The results were expedited.
Thirty-one hours later, Dr. Warren returned.
She wasn’t alone.
Monica was with her.
So was a hospital administrator.
I knew before anyone spoke.
“Tell me.”
Dr. Warren sat down.
“Claire, the laboratory repeated the analysis.”
My heart pounded.
“And?”
“The results show with overwhelming probability that Grant Whitmore is the biological father of both fetuses.”
I closed my eyes.
Relief lasted less than one second.
Then Dr. Warren continued.
“But you are excluded as the biological mother.”
I opened my eyes again.
“I’m what?”
Monica leaned forward.
“The babies do not carry your genetic profile.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I understand why it sounds impossible.”
“They’re inside my body.”
“Yes.”
“I did IVF.”
“Yes.”
“They transferred my embryos.”
Dr. Warren’s voice softened.
“Apparently, Claire, they did not.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“We checked for laboratory error.”
“No.”
“We ran a second sample.”
“No.”
“The conclusion is the same.”
I pushed the blanket away as though I could somehow escape my own body.
“These babies belong to my husband…”
I could barely speak.
“…but they are not biologically mine?”
Dr. Warren nodded.
A terrible sound came from my throat.
I pressed both palms against my belly.
One of the twins moved.
For seven months, I had talked to them every morning.
I had called them Peanut and Bean before we learned they were boys.
I had decorated their nursery.
I had spent entire nights terrified that my body would fail them.
I had injected hormones into my stomach.
Endured surgeries.
Bleeding.
Loss.
And now someone was telling me that genetically, they were strangers.
No.
Not strangers.
My sons.
I felt them kick.
I had already loved them.
DNA could not erase that.
But someone had put them inside me.
Without my knowledge.
“Whose eggs?” I whispered.
“We don’t know.”
I looked toward the door.
“Grant knows.”
Nobody answered.
“Grant knew something last night.”
Monica exchanged a look with Dr. Warren.
I reached for my phone.
Grant had sent nineteen messages.
Can we talk?
Please don’t involve lawyers.
There may be an explanation.
Brighton made mistakes years ago.
Do not call the clinic until I get there.
That last message turned my stomach.
Do not call the clinic.
I called immediately.
The number disconnected.
I tried their website.
Gone.
I searched the clinic name.
A notice appeared stating Brighton Reproductive Center had “temporarily suspended patient services.”
The notice was dated six days earlier.
Six days.
Grant had said nothing.
My attorney, Maya Brooks, arrived at noon.
Maya had been my college roommate before becoming one of Manhattan’s most aggressive civil litigators.
She read the DNA report twice.
Then she looked at me.
“Do you have copies of your IVF records?”
“At home.”
“Cloud portal?”
“I think so.”
We tried.
My login failed.
Maya’s expression changed.
“When did you last access it?”
“Months ago.”
She picked up her phone.
“I’m sending an investigator to preserve everything we can.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But?”
“But your husband tried to stop you from contacting the clinic. That matters.”
A police detective arrived that afternoon.
Detective Lena Ortiz.
She asked me about the fall.
I told her everything.
Vanessa pushing me.
Grant refusing to help immediately.
Vanessa knowing my medical details.
Ortiz wrote the last part down carefully.
“Mrs. Whitmore, did Ms. Hale ever accompany you to fertility appointments?”
“Never.”
“Did she work at Brighton?”
“No.”
Then I remembered something.
Three years earlier, before Grant hired Vanessa as a consultant, she had worked in healthcare marketing.
For a fertility network.
I searched her résumé.
Maya leaned over my shoulder.
There it was.
Vanessa Hale.
Director of Strategic Communications.
Brighton Fertility Partners.
2019–2022.
The same clinic where my embryos had supposedly been created.
My blood turned cold.
“She worked there.”
Detective Ortiz stared at the screen.
“Before your treatment?”
“During it.”
The twins shifted inside me.
I suddenly felt sick.
At 5:17 p.m., Maya’s investigator called.
He had reached the former Brighton building.
The offices had been emptied.
Computers removed.
Paper records gone.
But a night security guard remembered one thing.
Three nights earlier, after midnight, two people had entered through the loading entrance.
One was Vanessa Hale.
The other was Grant Whitmore.
Maya put the phone on speaker.
“Are you certain?”
The guard answered.
“Yes.”
“And how do you recognize Mr. Whitmore?”
“Because he signed the building visitor log.”
Maya frowned.
“He used his real name?”
“Apparently he didn’t think anyone would keep the log.”
“Do you have it?”
A pause.
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to it?”
“Someone came yesterday and took it.”
“Who?”
The guard hesitated.
Then he answered.
“Mr. Whitmore’s attorney.”
I closed my eyes.
Grant wasn’t hiding an affair anymore.
He was hiding evidence.
And whatever happened inside Brighton Reproductive Center had begun long before Vanessa pushed me down those stairs.
That evening, Grant requested five minutes alone with me.
I agreed only because Detective Ortiz placed an officer outside.
Grant entered carrying flowers.
I laughed when I saw them.
He put them down.
“Claire.”
“Whose eggs are they?”
He froze.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Lie again and I will spend the rest of my life making sure you regret it.”
His jaw tightened.
“Things happened at Brighton that I didn’t understand at the time.”
“What things?”
“I signed forms.”
“What forms?”
“For embryo storage.”
“Whose embryos?”
“I thought they were ours.”
“You thought?”
“Claire, fertility medicine is complicated.”
“You own a billion-dollar property company. Don’t pretend paperwork confuses you.”
He looked toward the door.
Then lowered his voice.
“There was a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Then tell me the part you do know.”
He stared at me.
Finally, he whispered:
“Vanessa donated eggs.”
My lungs stopped working.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“For whom?”
He did not answer.
I understood anyway.
“For us?”
Grant looked away.
I felt as though I had fallen down the staircase again.
“You used your mistress’s eggs to make the babies I’m carrying?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I didn’t know they were hers when the embryos were created.”
“But you know now.”
Silence.
“How long?”
Grant closed his eyes.
“How long have you known?”
“Four months.”
Four months.
I had been five months pregnant.
He had known.
He had watched me choose names.
Watched me paint the nursery.
Watched me cry at ultrasound photographs.
And every single day, he had looked at my stomach knowing that another woman was the biological mother of my children.
I whispered, “Get out.”
“Claire, please—”
“GET OUT!”
The officer opened the door.
Grant backed away.
Then, just before he stepped into the hall, he said something that made the entire room go still.
“You don’t understand, Claire. Vanessa isn’t the only person involved.”
I stared at him.
May you like
Grant swallowed.
“The clinic didn’t choose you by accident.”
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