Chapter 2 - THE REPORT THAT RUINED HIS PERFECT FAMILY
The first thing Ethan Blackwood did after reading his fertility report was accuse me of forging it.
The second was something I hadn't expected.
He called the doctor himself.
I wasn't there to enjoy the performance, which I considered deeply unfair. Forty million dollars bought me a beautiful new life, but apparently it couldn't buy front-row seats to my ex-husband's humiliation.
Fortunately, Ethan's attorney, Martin Hayes, called me afterward.
"Claire, I think you should sit down."
"I'm already sitting."
"Where?"
"On my sofa."
A pause.
"You took the sofa?"
"Martin, focus."
He sighed.
"Ethan has demanded an independent review of the medical results."
"Wonderful. I support second opinions."
"Vanessa says the report is fraudulent."
"Naturally."
"And Ethan believes someone at the clinic may have deliberately switched his samples."
That made me stop smiling.
"Did he say who?"
"No. But he wants every employee investigated."
I looked out over Lake Michigan.
My new condo occupied the thirty-sixth floor of a glass tower. The furniture was expensive, the windows were enormous, and the Italian leather sofa looked magnificent beside the fireplace.
I should have been celebrating.
Instead, I remembered the doctor's face when she'd handed me Ethan's results.
Dr. Miriam Keller had been careful with her words.
Three separate tests showed no sperm in Ethan's samples. The results made natural conception extremely unlikely, although she recommended additional evaluation before anyone treated the diagnosis as permanent.
I'd assumed Ethan would respond with anger.
I hadn't considered that anger might land on the doctor.
"Martin, tell him not to threaten the clinic."
"I've already tried."
"Try harder."
Then he said something strange.
"Claire, there's another issue."
"What?"
"Vanessa claims she's twenty-two weeks pregnant."
I glanced at the calendar.
Twenty-two weeks.
That was almost five months.
Ethan and Vanessa had supposedly reunited three months earlier.
"Interesting," I said.
"Apparently, they've been seeing each other longer than you realized."
"Apparently."
I wasn't jealous.
At least, that was what I told myself.
But learning that my husband had spent months pretending to rebuild our marriage while secretly meeting his first love felt different from discovering that he'd simply fallen in love again.
One was painful.
The other was deliberate.
Martin lowered his voice.
"And Claire? Ethan has requested an audit of the divorce settlement."
My smile disappeared.
"Why?"
"He's questioning whether you concealed information that affected his decision."
I laughed once.
"He offered me money because he wanted to marry another woman. I didn't invent her pregnancy."
"I know."
"Then tell him to enjoy his honeymoon."
I ended the call.
For exactly twelve minutes, I believed the problem was finished.
Then my building manager called.
"Mrs. Blackwood, there's a woman downstairs insisting she knows you."
"Who?"
"She says her name is Margaret Monroe."
I knew that name.
Vanessa's mother.
And according to the society magazines, she'd spent the last decade pretending her family's money had never disappeared.
"Send her up."
Five minutes later, Margaret entered my living room wearing a camel-colored coat that had seen better days.
Her pearl earrings were beautiful.
Her handbag was not.
People with money rarely noticed such details.
People who had once been poor noticed everything.
Margaret examined my windows.
"Vanessa said Ethan was generous."
"Vanessa has always been observant."
She didn't smile.
"I need you to stop whatever you're doing."
"I'm drinking coffee."
"You know what I mean."
I gestured toward the sofa.
"Sit."
She remained standing.
"My daughter is pregnant. Stress is dangerous for her."
"Then perhaps she should stop sending messages about my former husband's reproductive abilities."
Margaret flinched.
I hadn't expected that.
She looked toward the windows.
"You think you've won because you have money."
"I think I've won because I no longer have to attend dinners where Ethan's business associates discuss women as though we're expensive furniture."
"Vanessa loves him."
"Then she should tell him the truth."
Margaret's mouth tightened.
For a moment, she looked much older.
"You don't understand what that girl has been through."
"Then explain."
Instead of answering, she reached into her handbag and withdrew a small photograph.
It showed Vanessa at approximately seventeen, standing beside a smiling teenage Ethan.
Between them stood another young man.
He had Ethan's dark hair, but a narrower face and a distinctive scar cutting through his left eyebrow.
I recognized him.
Not from any family photograph.
From Ethan's office.
An old newspaper clipping had once been hidden inside a locked desk drawer.
The headline concerned a violent warehouse fire seventeen years earlier.
One man had died.
Another had disappeared.
The missing man's name was Daniel Mercer.
"Who is he?" I asked, although I already knew.
Margaret looked at the photograph with an expression that resembled grief.
"Someone Vanessa should have forgotten."
"Daniel Mercer?"
Her eyes snapped toward mine.
"How do you know that name?"
"Ethan kept a newspaper clipping."
Margaret sat down so suddenly that the sofa cushions shifted.
For almost a minute, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, "He wasn't supposed to survive."
My stomach tightened.
"Survive what?"
Margaret put the photograph away.
"I shouldn't have come."
She stood.
"Mrs. Monroe."
She stopped at the door.
"Is Daniel the father of Vanessa's baby?"
Her face drained of color.
That was answer enough to make me suspicious, but not enough to prove anything.
"Ask Ethan what happened at the warehouse," she whispered.
Then she left.
I sat alone for a long time.
Money had always made sense to me.
You earned it.
You saved it.
You spent it.
Love was complicated, loyalty was unreliable, and powerful men could change their minds before breakfast.
But photographs?
Photographs told you who had once stood beside whom.
And the young man in Margaret's picture had been standing between Ethan and Vanessa.
Not beside them.
Between them.
That evening, I went through the belongings I'd brought from the mansion.
My jewelry.
My watches.
Several books.
And a small wooden box that Ethan had given me during our first Christmas together.
Inside lay a silver pocket watch that had belonged to his father.
He'd once told me to keep it because he never wanted to see it again.
I'd assumed it was another expensive object with an unpleasant memory attached.
Now I turned it over.
On the back were three engraved initials.
E.B.
D.M.
V.M.
Ethan Blackwood.
Daniel Mercer.
Vanessa Monroe.
Beneath them was a date.
June 14, 2009.
I remembered the newspaper clipping.
The warehouse fire had happened on June 14, 2009.
My phone vibrated with a message from Martin.
Claire, Ethan has discovered something during the clinic investigation. He wants you at the mansion tomorrow.
I was about to decline when a second message arrived.
He found the original records. Someone signed his name seventeen years ago to authorize a medical procedure.
I stared at the watch.
Then Martin sent one more sentence.
May you like
The witness signature belongs to Daniel Mercer.
And suddenly I understood that Ethan's infertility might be the smallest secret in this family.
