Vanessa's question followed me through the night.
Why was Nathan suddenly questioning whether the baby was his?
By morning, I had stopped trying to guess.
I called Mara.
She arrived with coffee and a single sentence.
“Don't confront him yet.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good. Because if Nathan is asking for a paternity test now, there is probably a reason.”
Vanessa joined us later.
She looked exhausted.
“I've never seen him like this,” she said.
“How did he explain it?”
“He wouldn't.”
“Did he accuse you?”
“No.”
“That may be worse.”
Vanessa looked down at her hands.
“He asked whether I'd been seeing anyone before we became involved.”
I waited.
“And?”
“I told him the truth.”
She hesitated.
“There was someone.”
My attention sharpened.
“Before Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“Did Nathan know?”
“I told him.”
“Then why ask now?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Mara asked whether Vanessa had received any medical records or messages from Nathan.
She handed over her phone.
There was a message from him sent at 2:08 that morning.
I need you to be honest with me before the test.
Vanessa had replied:
I have been honest with you.
Nathan had not responded.
Samuel joined us by video later that afternoon.
He had traced another series of Northbridge transactions.
One payment had been made to a private genetic testing company.
The appointment had been scheduled for the following week.
I stared at the screen.
“He paid for the test himself?”
“Yes.”
“Why through Northbridge?”
Samuel shrugged.
“Because Northbridge was being used for almost everything.”
Mara looked at the transaction.
“There is something else.”
She pointed to a second payment.
Same company.
Different patient code.
“Two tests?”
Samuel nodded.
“Different dates.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who was the first?”
“We don't know.”
“Can you find out?”
“Not without legal process.”
I leaned back.
Nathan had already suspected something before he told Vanessa.
But that didn't explain why.
Then Daniel called.
He asked to meet me privately.
I almost refused.
Instead, I asked him to come to Mara's office.
He arrived carrying a folder.
“I found this after the firm's investigators searched my office.”
He placed it on the table.
“What is it?”
“Something Nathan gave me six months ago.”
I opened it.
A printed email.
Nathan had asked Daniel to locate someone named Marcus Hale.
The message contained a photograph.
A man in his early thirties.
Vanessa's former boyfriend.
I looked at Daniel.
“Why was Nathan investigating him?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you ask?”
“He told me it was personal.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Daniel shook his head.
Then I noticed a line in the email.
Find out whether Marcus had contact with Vanessa during the period between May and July.
I checked the dates.
They overlapped with the beginning of Vanessa's relationship with Nathan.
I looked at her.
“Were you still seeing Marcus?”
“No.”
“Absolutely?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
“I ended things before I met Nathan.”
Daniel shifted in his chair.
“There is more.”
He pulled out another document.
It was a private investigator's report.
Marcus had been followed.
The report concluded that he had not contacted Vanessa during the relevant period.
Nathan had known.
He had already investigated the question.
“So why ask for a paternity test?”
Nobody answered.
Then Samuel spoke.
“Maybe the test isn't about Vanessa.”
We looked at him.
He enlarged a transaction record.
The second genetic test had been paid for under a different name.
Not Vanessa.
Not Nathan.
A company executive.
Daniel.
I stared.
“Daniel?”
Daniel's face went pale.
“I didn't take a test.”
“Then someone used your name.”
Mara looked at him.
“Did Nathan ever ask for a biological sample?”
Daniel didn't answer.
His silence was enough.
“What happened?”
“About four months ago, Nathan told me he needed a blood sample for a medical screening.”
Daniel swallowed.
“He said it was for an insurance requirement.”
The room became silent.
Nathan had obtained Daniel's biological material.
Then he had paid for a genetic test under Daniel's identity.
I looked at Vanessa.
She looked confused.
“What would he need Daniel's DNA for?”
I didn't know.
Samuel did.
“There are several possibilities.”
“Such as?”
“Establishing biological relationships.”
My mind moved quickly.
The first test.
The second test.
Daniel's sample.
Nathan's suspicion.
The baby.
Then I remembered something.
At the firm, the paralegal had said:
“Your wife's baby shower.”
She had not said Vanessa's name.
She had assumed the pregnant woman was Nathan's wife.
That assumption had come from somewhere.
Perhaps Nathan had told the firm that Vanessa was his wife because he needed her father's business.
But that still didn't explain the DNA.
Daniel looked sick.
“Maybe Nathan thought the baby was mine.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“What?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“You never had an affair with me.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“This is insane.”
Mara interrupted.
“Let's not speculate.”
She turned to Samuel.
“Can the testing company provide records under subpoena?”
“Yes.”
“Then we do that.”
That evening, Nathan sent me an email.
Claire,
I know you have questions. There are things I should have told you sooner.
I did not answer.
Another email followed.
Please do not assume the worst about the baby.
I stared at that sentence.
He knew exactly what I would assume.
I forwarded both messages to Mara.
The next morning, the firm's outside counsel contacted us.
They had discovered that Nathan had used firm resources to obtain confidential information about Vanessa's former partner.
More importantly, the firm had found an encrypted folder on Nathan's work computer.
The folder was labeled “C.”
Inside were documents relating to me.
My financial records.
My father's estate.
The prenup.
The private investigator reports.
And one document dated three years earlier.
A memorandum Nathan had written before our wedding.
The first sentence read:
If the marriage proceeds, Claire must not know the extent of her father's concerns about the Cartwright family.
I stopped.
The second sentence was worse.
Her inheritance should remain untouched until the equity vote.
That meant Nathan had planned the secrecy from the beginning.
But the next page contained something unexpected.
Nathan had written:
I love her. I do not want to use her. I need time to separate myself from my mother's influence.
I read that sentence twice.
For the first time, I saw evidence that Nathan had once understood what he was doing was wrong.
He had known.
He had simply kept choosing it.
The final page contained a handwritten note.
If I fail, Claire deserves the truth.
I sat back.
The note did not excuse him.
But it changed something.
Nathan had not been unaware.
He had been conflicted.
And then he had become exactly what he feared.
Mara received another call.
The genetic testing company had responded.
The court order had revealed the identities associated with the two tests.
One belonged to Nathan.
The other belonged to Daniel.
But the test result was not for Vanessa's baby.
It was for someone else.
Mara looked at me.
“Claire, the second test was conducted on a sample from a person who isn't currently identified in the records.”
“Who?”
“The patient number belongs to a child.”
My heart stopped.
“A child?”
“Yes.”
“Whose child?”
“That is what we're trying to establish.”
Then Mara placed another document on the table.
The sample had been collected three years earlier.
Three years.
The same month Nathan and I were married.
I stared at the date.
Nathan had been conducting a genetic test involving a child before Vanessa became pregnant.
And suddenly the question wasn't whether Vanessa's baby belonged to Nathan.
The question was what child Nathan had been hiding for three years.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Child From Three Years Earlier Changed Everything, and Claire Finally Learned Why Nathan Had Needed Her Marriage Kept Invisible
The Woman Carrying His Lunch Heard One Sentence That Made Three Years of Silence Suddenly Impossible to Explain
Part 9 of 12
