Chapter 3 - THE BABY'S REAL MOTHER
“You brought my son from my dead wife?”
Alexander's voice was so quiet that the guests nearest us leaned forward to hear.
Victoria shook her head.
“From Eleanor, Alexander. Not from a dead woman.”
His expression changed.
Anger.
Disbelief.
Then something worse.
Hope.
“You're telling me Eleanor was alive when Oliver was born?”
“Yes.”
I looked down at the baby in my arms.
For eight months, this little boy had been growing up without his mother.
And somewhere in the world, a woman who looked exactly like me had been living with the knowledge that her son was calling another house his home.
Alexander moved toward Victoria.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know where she is tonight.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Victoria flinched.
Julian stepped between them.
“This conversation is over.”
Alexander turned slowly.
“You don't give orders to me.”
“I've managed your family's security for twenty-three years.”
“Then for twenty-three years, you've forgotten who employs you.”
Two guards moved forward.
A third remained standing near the fireplace.
He was the same man who had reacted when I mentioned my mother's name.
His badge read ELIAS REED.
“Sir,” Elias said carefully, “I recommend allowing the woman to finish.”
Julian stared at him.
“You are relieved.”
Elias didn't move.
Alexander noticed.
“Elias stays.”
It was a small victory.
But nobody looked relieved.
Victoria opened her evening bag and removed a faded velvet pouch.
She handed it to Alexander.
Inside was another diamond-shaped locket.
Almost identical to mine.
Except mine had a tiny letter C engraved near the clasp.
Hers carried an E.
Alexander touched it with trembling fingers.
“Eleanor wore this on our wedding day.”
“She gave it to me before Oliver was born,” Victoria said.
“Why?”
“Because she thought there might come a day when you wouldn't believe me.”
He looked at the necklace.
Then at me.
“Open yours, Claire.”
“I've tried. The clasp has been stuck for years.”
“May I?”
I hesitated.
My mother had given me that necklace on my eighteenth birthday.
She'd told me it belonged to someone who loved me before I was born.
I'd always assumed she meant my father.
I handed it to Alexander.
He worked a thumbnail beneath the damaged hinge.
The locket opened.
Inside was a photograph so small I nearly missed the details.
Two newborn girls.
Wrapped in the same white blanket.
One wore a pale pink ribbon.
The other wore yellow.
On the back, faded handwriting read:
My girls. April 2000.
My throat closed.
Two girls.
One mother.
One birth.
“My mother told me I was an only child.”
Victoria looked away.
Alexander opened Eleanor's locket.
Inside was the other half of the same photograph.
The two pieces fit perfectly.
I stared at them.
“Why would she separate us?”
Nobody answered.
I looked up at Eleanor's portrait.
The plaque said she was born in 1997.
But I was twenty-six.
Born in 2000.
If we were twins, Eleanor's birth year was a lie.
“Alexander,” I said, “how old did your wife tell you she was?”
“Twenty-seven when she died.”
“But she couldn't have been.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“No.”
Julian spoke from behind us.
“You're drawing conclusions from sentimental objects. There are legal ways to establish identity.”
“Then you should welcome an investigation,” I replied.
His eyes settled on me.
“You have no idea what you're interfering with.”
“Neither did my sister,” I answered.
Something passed across his face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Victoria stepped closer.
“Claire, listen carefully. Eleanor was raised by a family named Hart. They changed her birth records long before she met Alexander.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody paid them to make sure the Bennett sisters could never find each other.”
Alexander stared at Julian.
Julian's expression remained unreadable.
Then Victoria said something that made every word before it seem insignificant.
“Eleanor tried to come back three nights ago.”
Alexander caught the edge of the table.
“She came here?”
Victoria nodded.
“She wanted to stop the wedding.”
“Where did she go?”
Victoria's lips trembled.
“She never made it through the front gate.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Why not?”
May you like
Victoria looked directly at Julian.
“Because someone was waiting for her.”
