Chapter 6 - THE WORST LIE“No.”
Jonathan closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Ethan—”
I slammed him against the wall.
“If Clara is your daughter—”
“She isn’t.”
I froze.
He pushed my hands away.
“You might let me finish before committing fratricide.”
“You said—”
“I said I know who her father is.”
“You said ‘me.’”
“I was twenty-one. Diane and I were together.”
My brain refused to cooperate.
“Then Clara—”
“Was born four years before I met Diane.”
Silence.
Malcolm appeared in the doorway.
“I leave for ninety seconds and somehow the family tree catches fire.”
Jonathan glared at him.
Malcolm raised both hands.
“Continuing to wait outside.”
Jonathan sank into a chair.
“Diane was twenty-six. I was twenty-one. Dad hated it. She already had a four-year-old daughter.”
“Clara.”
“Yes.”
“And the photograph?”
“Dad helped Diane financially. He adored Clara.”
I stared.
“My father?”
“People aren’t one thing, Ethan.”
That was becoming the central horror of my life.
Jonathan continued.
“Dad was ruthless. Controlling. Sometimes cruel. But he loved that little girl.”
“Why?”
“Because she reminded him of Mom.”
Our mother had died when I was nineteen.
Jonathan smiled faintly.
“Clara used to climb onto his desk and steal his pens.”
A memory surfaced.
A little blonde girl running through our house.
I had been sixteen or seventeen.
I had forgotten her completely.
“Clara was there.”
“Yes.”
“I knew her?”
“Barely.”
Relief nearly dropped me to my knees.
No biological relation.
Still, another question remained.
“Who was her father?”
Jonathan looked away.
“Diane never told me.”
When we returned to the penthouse, Clara was waiting.
She looked furious.
Good.
Fury meant she was still standing.
I told her everything.
Not selectively.
Not gently.
Everything.
When I finished, she stared at Jonathan.
“You knew me?”
He smiled sadly.
“You bit me once.”
Clara blinked.
“I was four.”
“You had excellent teeth.”
Against all reason, she laughed.
Then cried.
Then laughed again because crying hurt.
Jonathan knelt beside her bed.
“I loved your mother.”
“Do you still?”
He looked toward the empty doorway where Diane had disappeared.
“Yes.”
That answer softened something in Clara.
Not forgiveness.
But possibility.
Then Reyes entered carrying an envelope.
The paternity results.
Every person in the room became silent.
He looked at me first.
“Twin B is yours.”
The words entered me slowly.
Mine.
A child.
My child.
I sat down.
I had imagined fatherhood exactly zero times since I was sixteen because I had been told imagining it was pointless.
Now somewhere beneath Clara’s hand was a child carrying half my DNA.
I laughed.
A strange, disbelieving sound.
Clara began crying.
I reached toward her stomach, then stopped.
“May I?”
She nodded.
I placed my palm gently against her.
Nothing happened.
Then—
a tiny movement.
I broke.
No dramatic speech.
No masculine dignity.
I lowered my forehead against Clara’s hand and cried.
Her fingers moved into my hair.
For one minute, everything else disappeared.
Then I remembered.
“Twin A?”
Reyes hesitated.
“Not Ethan’s.”
Clara nodded slowly.
“Caleb?”
“No.”
“Jonathan?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Reyes looked uncomfortable.
“The database found a familial relationship.”
My stomach tightened.
“To whom?”
“Ethan.”
“What relationship?”
“Twin A’s biological father appears to be closely related to Ethan.”
Jonathan and I looked at each other.
“Not me,” he said.
“Not Caleb,” Reyes repeated.
There were no other Mercer men.
Except one.
Our father.
Dead fourteen years.
Impossible.
Unless—
Jonathan whispered, “Vale.”
Stored genetic material.
I felt physically ill.
“My father’s sperm?”
Reyes nodded.
“It’s possible.”
Clara stared at him.
Then at her stomach.
One baby was mine.
The other might genetically be my half-sibling.
Even Malcolm had nothing funny to say.
Clara whispered, “They used me.”
I sat beside her.
“Yes.”
Her face crumpled.
“They put someone’s child inside me without asking.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“You don’t have to know.”
“What if I love the baby?”
“Then you love the baby.”
“What if I hate what they did?”
“Then hate what they did.”
“What if both are true?”
I took her hand.
“Then both are true.”
She looked at me.
“And you?”
I looked toward the ultrasound monitor.
Two lives.
One created through violence against Clara’s autonomy.
One created during the strangest, tenderest night of my life.
Neither child had chosen any of it.
“They’re both innocent.”
Clara’s lips trembled.
“Yes.”
“So whatever happens next, nobody separates them because of what adults did.”
Something changed in her face.
That was the moment she began trusting me.
Not loving me.
That would come later.
Trust first.
It mattered more.
Then Jonathan’s phone rang.
Diane.
He answered.
“Where are you?”
Her voice came through the speaker.
“I’m sorry.”
“Diane—”
“Caleb has something I need.”
“What?”
“My original accounting ledger.”
“Where?”
“Mercer Tower.”
I stood.
Caleb’s corporate office.
Then Diane said, “Don’t come after me.”
A man laughed in the background.
Caleb.
“Too late,” he said.
The call ended.
Clara tried to stand.
I pointed at her.
“No.”
“Do not billionaire-command me.”
“I’m not billionaire-commanding you.”
“You’re pointing.”
“I point when stressed.”
Jonathan looked at Malcolm.
“Was he always like this?”
“Worse.”
Clara almost smiled.
Then she grabbed my tie and pulled me closer.
“Bring my mother back.”
I looked into her eyes.
“I will.”
“And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“If Caleb hurts you…”
She stopped.
“What?”
Her fingers loosened.
“Nothing.”
But I understood.
May you like
For the first time, Clara was afraid not only of what I could do.
She was afraid of losing me.
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