She had attended our wedding.
She had held my hand at my father’s funeral.
She had even stayed in our house twice while Daniel was supposedly away on business.
But that still wasn’t the secret Daniel was terrified I would discover.
I confronted him in the parking lot.
“Is that boy your son?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I slapped the photographs against his chest.
“Then we’re done.”
Rachel suddenly interrupted.
“Claire, you need to read the last page.”
I opened the envelope again.
At the bottom was a DNA report.
I almost laughed.
“I already know he’s Daniel’s son.”
Rachel shook her head.
“That test isn’t for Daniel.”
I looked down.
The second name on the report was mine.
My hands started shaking.
The probability of biological relationship was listed as 99.8%.
I stared at Rachel.
“What does this mean?”
She began crying.
Then Daniel finally told me the truth.
Six years earlier, after one of my fertility treatments, the clinic had informed me that none of my embryos had survived.
Apparently, that wasn’t true.
One embryo had survived.
And without my knowledge, it had been transferred to another patient during what the clinic later called an “administrative error.”
That patient was Rachel.
The boy standing beside us wasn’t Daniel and Rachel’s child.
Biologically, he was Daniel’s child…
and mine.
I felt like the ground disappeared beneath me.
“You knew?”
Daniel nodded.
“For four years.”
I couldn’t speak.
He had discovered the truth after Rachel contacted him privately.
Instead of telling me that the son I believed I had lost before pregnancy even began was alive, he secretly became part of the boy’s life.
Birthdays.
School events.
Christmas mornings.
Everything.
Without me.
Then Rachel said something that made Daniel suddenly shout at her to stop.
“There’s one more reason he never told you.”
I turned toward her.
“What reason?”
Rachel looked at Daniel, then back at me.
“Because Daniel wasn’t the person who ordered the clinic records sealed.”
My heart started pounding.
“Then who did?”
Rachel slowly looked toward the restaurant window.
My mother was standing inside.
Watching us.
And when she realized I was looking at her…
she turned around and walked away.
