Chapter 3 - THE LIE INSIDE THE SILVER HEART
“Emily died?”
I could barely force the words out.
My daughter stood beside me, very much alive, clutching the glass trophy she had earned.
Vincent looked as shocked as I felt.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Sophia told me there had been complications.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Three days after the delivery.”
“While I was holding her in my hospital room?”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“I know how that sounds.”
“No, Vincent. You don't.”
Emily looked frightened.
“Mommy, why is everyone talking about me dying?”
I knelt immediately.
“Because someone told a lie, sweetheart. You're healthy, and you're right here with me.”
She nodded, although her eyes remained uncertain.
Madison approached.
“Claire, let me take Emily to the car.”
My daughter hesitated.
“Are you coming?”
“Right behind you.”
She kissed my cheek.
Madison took her hand and led her toward the exit.
Only when they disappeared did I turn back toward Vincent.
“Start explaining.”
He looked at the bracelet.
“The night Lucas was born, Sophia had complications. She was frightened. We spent the next two days at the hospital.”
“And during those two days,” I said, “did you once ask about your wife?”
His silence answered.
“Three days later, Sophia came to my office. She said she'd spoken with someone from the hospital.”
“Someone?”
“She told me Emily had developed an infection.”
I felt physically sick.
“And you believed her?”
“She said you didn't want me there. That you'd already arranged a private burial.”
I stared at him.
“A burial?”
Vincent rubbed his forehead.
“She gave me an envelope.”
“What was inside?”
“A hospital notice. A death certificate copy.”
Eleanor made a small sound.
Vincent looked toward her.
“Eleanor?”
The older woman clasped her hands.
“I never knew about a death certificate, sir.”
“Then why did you have the bracelet?”
“Because you gave it to Mrs. Sophia.”
His shoulders stiffened.
“I gave it to her?”
Eleanor nodded.
“You said the baby should have something from her father. She told me she'd arrange for it to be placed with the child.”
I remembered Vincent buying that bracelet.
I remembered him promising that our daughter would wear it on her first birthday.
And I remembered spending that birthday alone with Emily, wondering whether her father had ever thought about her.
Now I knew he had.
But not in the way either of us deserved.
“Where is that death certificate?” I demanded.
Vincent looked at me.
“In my private safe.”
“Then we're getting it.”
He glanced toward the auditorium.
“Sophia's still inside.”
“Good.”
I started walking.
Vincent caught up beside me.
“Claire, please. There are things you don't understand.”
I stopped.
“Here's what I understand. My sister convinced you that your newborn daughter died. You didn't attend a funeral. You didn't contact the hospital. You didn't call me. You simply accepted it.”
His expression collapsed.
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Leaving you.”
For the first time, his voice sounded older than his forty-four years.
“I knew what I'd done. When Sophia told me Emily was gone, I believed you hated me enough to keep me away.”
I looked at him for several seconds.
“Vincent, shame isn't an excuse for abandoning someone. It's what you're supposed to feel before you decide to make things right.”
He had no answer.
Inside the auditorium, most of the guests had left.
Sophia was speaking sharply to a security guard while Lucas stood beside her looking confused.
Vincent approached.
“We need to talk.”
She folded her arms.
“Not here.”
“Yes. Here.”
I stepped forward.
“Why did you tell Vincent my daughter died?”
Sophia's eyes flickered.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Vincent held up the bracelet.
Her face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Eleanor kept it.”
Sophia looked toward the older woman.
“You had no right.”
Eleanor lowered her head.
But Vincent's voice hardened.
“Answer Claire.”
Sophia laughed once.
“She's manipulating you. That's what Claire does. She disappears for seven years, comes back with a child, and suddenly everyone blames me.”
“You told me Emily died,” Vincent said.
Sophia's smile vanished.
“I told you what I was told.”
“By whom?”
“A hospital employee.”
“Name?”
“I don't remember.”
“Then explain the bracelet.”
Sophia looked from Vincent to me.
For a moment, I saw something beneath her polished confidence.
Fear.
Not fear of losing money.
Fear of being exposed.
“I was trying to protect my son.”
“From a baby girl?” I asked.
Sophia's eyes filled with tears.
“You never understood what it was like growing up in your house.”
I stared at her.
“Our house?”
“You had everything, Claire. Your parents adored you. Teachers praised you. People remembered your birthday without being reminded.”
I almost laughed.
“My parents chose you over me while I was giving birth.”
“Because for once, I mattered!”
Her voice cracked.
Lucas stepped backward.
Vincent immediately crouched beside him.
“Hey, buddy. Go with Mrs. Whitcomb for a minute.”
Lucas looked at Sophia.
“Mom?”
She wiped her face.
“Go ahead, sweetheart.”
Eleanor led him away.
Sophia watched until he disappeared.
Then she lowered her voice.
“I couldn't let you take everything from him.”
“Emily wasn't taking anything.”
“You don't know the Morettis.”
Vincent stood.
“I am a Moretti.”
Sophia turned toward him.
“Then you know exactly what your father would have done if he'd believed Claire's daughter had a stronger claim than Lucas.”
Vincent went still.
His father, Carlo Moretti, had ruled the family long before Vincent inherited its businesses and its dangerous alliances.
He had died five years earlier.
I remembered Carlo as a severe man who believed bloodlines were everything.
But I had never heard him speak against daughters.
“What claim?” I asked.
Sophia looked away.
Vincent answered.
“My grandfather established a family trust. The first legally recognized child born to my wife was supposed to inherit its controlling interest.”
I stared at him.
“Regardless of gender?”
“Yes.”
“Then Emily was first.”
Vincent nodded.
“The trust wasn't something I thought about that night. But my father was obsessed with it.”
I looked at Sophia.
Now I understood her panic.
Emily hadn't merely been an unwanted daughter.
She had stood between Sophia's son and a fortune.
Sophia's voice trembled.
“Carlo said Lucas would never be safe while Claire's daughter remained the rightful heir.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What exactly did my father do?”
Sophia shook her head.
“He said he'd handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“I thought he meant lawyers.”
I didn't believe her.
Not entirely.
But I recognized real terror when I saw it.
Vincent looked at his security chief.
“Bring the car. We're going to my office.”
Sophia grabbed his sleeve.
“Vincent, you can't open those files.”
He pulled away.
“Why?”
“Because your father kept records of everything.”
“Then it's time I read them.”
She looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.
Not jealousy.
Something close to pleading.
“Claire, please. You have Emily. She's safe. Take her home.”
I felt the bracelet in my palm.
“You don't get to decide when the truth stops.”
An hour later, Madison and Emily were settled at our hotel with two security officers I had personally approved.
I accompanied Vincent to his private office downtown.
The building hadn't changed much.
Neither had the enormous portrait of Carlo Moretti overlooking the executive suite.
Vincent opened his wall safe.
Inside were folders, jewelry boxes, and a small black envelope.
He removed the envelope first.
On its front was a handwritten label.
EMILY BENNETT MORETTI — DECEASED.
His hands trembled as he opened it.
A hospital notice lay inside.
Beneath it was a copy of a death certificate bearing a hospital administrator's name.
And behind that was a photograph.
Not of Emily.
Of me.
I was asleep in the hospital bed, our newborn daughter against my chest.
Someone had taken it without my knowledge.
On the back, in Carlo Moretti's unmistakable handwriting, was a sentence.
The mother must believe the child is hers to keep.
Vincent read it twice.
Then he opened the folded sheet tucked behind the photograph.
His face turned gray.
“Claire,” he whispered, “my father didn't order Sophia to take Emily away from me.”
May you like
He looked up.
“He ordered someone to take Emily away from you.”
