Chapter 2 - THE MAN AT THE BACK OF THE GARDENDamian Cross did not run.
That frightened me more than if he had.
A guilty man usually looks for an exit when three hundred witnesses suddenly turn in his direction.
Damian merely finished his champagne.
Then he placed the empty glass on a waiter’s tray and walked toward us as though he had been invited to join the conversation.
He had always possessed that kind of confidence.
Three years earlier, when Eric had introduced him to me at a company Christmas party, Damian had been charming enough to make half the room believe they had known him for years.
He remembered spouses’ names.
Children’s schools.
Favorite wines.
He made people feel important.
I had never trusted him.
Eric had.
That difference had cost us more than I understood at the time.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Eric said.
Damian smiled.
“It’s a party.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“I came with Natalie.”
My sister snapped her head toward him.
“Shut up.”
That was the first moment I realized Natalie was afraid of him.
Damian looked amused.
“Interesting choice of words considering you just publicly announced that another man fathered my child.”
My mother made a strangled sound.
Our father stood frozen.
Eric took one step forward.
“You’re saying the baby is yours?”
Damian shrugged.
“I’m saying Natalie knows considerably more than she has chosen to share.”
Natalie lunged for him.
“You promised!”
Eric caught her wrist before she reached Damian.
“Promised what?”
“Let go of me!”
“Promised what, Natalie?”
She ripped her arm away.
The guests surrounding us had stopped pretending not to listen.
My anniversary celebration had become a public courtroom.
I handed the microphone to the bandleader and turned to the event coordinator.
“Please ask everyone to move inside for dessert.”
Natalie stared at me.
“That’s it? You’re just continuing your party?”
“No.”
I looked at Eric.
“The party is over.”
That landed.
Maybe because those words meant more than the event.
Ten years of marriage.
A house.
Family vacations.
Christmas mornings.
Fights over paint colors and school districts.
Ten thousand ordinary moments I had once mistaken for permanence.
Eric understood.
He stepped toward me.
“Lauren—”
“Not now.”
Caleb stood twenty feet away.
His face was pale.
That mattered more than any adult betrayal in the garden.
I went to him.
He let me hug him for exactly three seconds before pulling back.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Four months.”
His eyes filled.
“You knew Dad was cheating for four months?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you are fourteen, and your parents’ marriage is not a burden you should have to carry.”
“But tonight I had to find out in front of everybody.”
That accusation was fair.
“I’m sorry.”
He rubbed his face.
“Can Grandma take me home?”
“Yes.”
My mother approached.
For once, she wasn’t defending Natalie.
She wasn’t explaining.
She simply put an arm around Caleb.
Before leaving, he looked at Eric.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
Eric flinched.
Caleb walked away.
I watched until he disappeared through the garden doors.
Then I turned back.
Natalie was crying.
I had seen those tears many times.
At sixteen when she wrecked Dad’s car.
At twenty-four when she slept with her roommate’s boyfriend.
At twenty-nine when she borrowed $18,000 from our parents for a business she never opened.
Natalie cried most effectively when consequences arrived.
“You planned this,” she said to me.
“No. You planned this.”
“You knew I was going to announce it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because you told three people this week that tonight would finally be ‘my turn to learn what humiliation feels like.’ One of those people happens to like me more than she likes you.”
Her face tightened.
Our cousin Megan owed me a bottle of wine.
Damian laughed softly.
Natalie rounded on him.
“This is your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You said the test wouldn’t matter.”
Now everyone looked at him.
Including me.
“What test?” I asked.
Natalie realized she had said too much.
Damian stopped smiling.
That was useful.
“You should leave,” he told her.
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“You told me Eric would claim the baby regardless!”
Eric looked stunned.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he was going to pay you,” Damian said.
Natalie screamed, “Stop talking!”
And suddenly the pieces began moving.
Not fitting.
But moving.
Eric and Damian had founded Halston Ridge Development twelve years earlier.
Eric handled financing and operations.
Damian found investors.
The company grew quickly.
Too quickly.
Two years ago, irregularities appeared.
Money was missing.
Documents carried Eric’s electronic signature on transactions he swore he had never approved.
Damian disappeared before the internal investigation concluded.
Eric spent nearly nine months proving he had not stolen from his own company.
Eventually the board blamed inadequate controls rather than fraud.
Damian was never charged.
But he vanished from business circles.
Until tonight.
I looked from Damian to Natalie.
“What does Eric’s company have to do with your baby?”
“Nothing,” Eric said.
Damian looked at him.
“Still slow when it matters.”
Eric swung.
His fist hit Damian squarely across the jaw.
Guests screamed.
Two security staff moved between them.
“Eric!” I shouted.
Damian wiped blood from his lip.
Then he laughed.
That laugh told me everything.
He wanted Eric angry.
He wanted chaos.
Maybe the affair had never been about romance.
Maybe even Natalie was just another weapon.
Security escorted Damian toward the driveway.
Before leaving, he looked directly at me.
“You’re asking the wrong question, Lauren.”
“What question should I be asking?”
He smiled.
“Why did your sister need Eric to believe the baby was his?”
Then he disappeared.
I turned to Natalie.
Her face told me Damian had just crossed a line.
I moved closer.
“Answer me.”
She shook her head.
“Natalie.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll find out without you.”
Eric spoke quietly behind me.
“I think I know.”
I turned.
He looked broken.
Not because of our marriage.
Because he had remembered something.
“Six months ago,” he said, “Natalie asked me to sign a document.”
“What document?”
“She said it was for prenatal insurance planning.”
My stomach tightened.
“And you signed it?”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed at the stupidity.
“You were sleeping with my sister and signing documents she put in front of you?”
“I thought the baby was mine.”
“Apparently that made you lose the ability to read.”
He closed his eyes.
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
Natalie started backing away.
That told me enough.
I caught her arm.
“What document?”
“Let me go.”
“What did my husband sign?”
She looked at me.
For the first time that night, my sister wasn’t smug.
She was terrified.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Damian said nobody would ever get hurt.”
My voice dropped.
“Natalie.”
Her shoulders shook.
“It transferred something.”
Eric stared at her.
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You forged documents?”
“No! You signed it yourself.”
“What did it transfer?”
Natalie whispered the answer.
“Your voting shares.”
Eric stopped breathing.
Halston Ridge was worth more than $120 million.
Eric owned thirty-two percent.
Or at least I had believed he did.
“When?” I asked.
“Six months ago.”
“To whom?”
She looked toward the driveway where Damian had disappeared.
“An offshore holding company.”
Eric pulled out his phone.
I caught his wrist.
“Don’t call anyone connected to the company yet.”
“Lauren—”
“If Damian engineered this, we have no idea who else is involved.”
For the first time all night, Eric listened immediately.
I turned to Natalie.
“You are coming home with me.”
She laughed through her tears.
“You hate me.”
“Yes.”
Her face crumpled.
I didn’t soften it.
“I also think Damian used you. And until I understand exactly how badly, you’re staying where I can see you.”
Our father stepped forward.
“I’ll take her.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“She’s my daughter.”
“So am I.”
That silenced him.
Years of favoritism hung between us.
I wasn’t discussing those years tonight.
There were bigger problems.
I picked up the DNA report from the table.
The first page had fallen open.
Eric stood beside me.
“I know saying sorry means nothing.”
“Correct.”
“I never wanted any of this.”
“You wanted enough of it to sleep with my sister.”
He swallowed.
I removed my wedding ring.
His eyes followed the movement.
I had worn it for ten years.
I placed it in his hand.
“I’m not deciding the rest of my life tonight,” I said. “But our marriage as you knew it ended when she picked up that microphone.”
His fingers closed around the ring.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Eric sitting in a hotel room with Natalie.
The date was eight months earlier.
Underneath it was one sentence.
YOU FOUND THE WRONG DNA SECRET.
A second photograph arrived.
It was an ultrasound.
Not Natalie’s.
The patient name printed at the top made my blood run cold.
LAUREN HART-MERCER.
The scan date was from fifteen years earlier.
Before Caleb was born.
May you like
And across the bottom, someone had typed:
ASK YOUR MOTHER WHO CALEB’S BIOLOGICAL FATHER REALLY IS.
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