Chapter 3 - The Doctor’s Secret
The name was Claire Donovan.
Vincent knew every full-time employee on his estate.
There was no Claire Donovan.
Daniel checked personnel records anyway.
Nothing.
Security records.
Nothing.
Vendor records.
Nothing.
“Could be an alias,” Daniel said.
“For whom?”
“That is what we need to determine.”
Vincent called his head of household.
No Claire.
He called security.
No Claire.
By midnight, the mystery had grown rather than shrunk.
Then Elena knocked again.
“I know that name.”
Vincent turned.
“Claire Donovan?”
Elena nodded.
“Not personally.”
She entered the library.
“Sophia gets packages.”
“That isn't unusual.”
“Most come under her name. But twice, maybe three times, I carried packages upstairs addressed to Claire Donovan.”
Daniel stood.
“When?”
“The first was months ago.”
“Where did you leave them?”
“Outside Sophia’s dressing room.”
Vincent felt something cold settle in his chest.
“Did Sophia accept them?”
“Yes.”
Daniel asked, “What kind of packages?”
“Small pharmacy deliveries.”
Silence.
Elena immediately added, “I never opened them.”
“No one thinks you did,” Vincent said.
She looked relieved.
Daniel wrote everything down.
“Anything else?”
Elena remembered Sophia becoming unusually angry one morning when another employee almost returned one of the packages.
“I thought Claire might be a relative.”
Vincent looked toward Reed.
The doctor had been silent.
Too silent.
“Who is Claire Donovan?”
Reed closed his eyes.
“Malcolm.”
“I can't discuss another patient's medical information.”
Daniel stepped in.
“We aren't asking for her medical information. We're asking whether you know who she is.”
Reed’s hands trembled.
“Yes.”
Sophia, waiting elsewhere, could not hear them.
Neither could Bianca.
Vincent leaned against the desk.
“Who?”
Reed looked at Elena.
“I'd rather speak privately.”
Elena started toward the door.
Vincent stopped her.
“She stays.”
“Vincent—”
“She and her daughter are already involved because someone allowed sensitive documents to be left where a child could find them. I'm not treating Elena like furniture anymore.”
Elena looked at him.
It was perhaps the first time anyone in that house had openly acknowledged what she had endured.
Reed sighed.
“Claire Donovan is a real person.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
“You treated her?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I can't answer.”
Daniel intervened.
“Does Sophia know her?”
“Yes.”
“Bianca?”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“And you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is her billing address my home?”
Reed said nothing.
Vincent walked to the window.
He needed distance.
Anger made people stupid.
His father had taught him that.
The man who loses his temper gives the room away.
Vincent turned.
“Did Sophia ask you to lie to me?”
Reed looked miserable.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more because it came quietly.
“About the pregnancy?”
Reed swallowed.
“Not exactly.”
Vincent stared.
Daniel stopped writing.
“What does that mean?”
Reed rubbed both hands over his face.
“When Sophia came to me six weeks ago, she believed she might be pregnant.”
“Believed?”
“She had taken a home test.”
Vincent remembered the baby shoes.
“She told me it was confirmed.”
“It wasn't.”
“Then you performed tests.”
Reed nodded.
“And?”
“I won't disclose every medical detail. But the situation was not what you were led to believe.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“You let me hear a heartbeat.”
Reed looked down.
That was the moment Vincent knew.
Not the paperwork.
Not Lily’s sentence.
That look.
“What did I hear?”
Reed’s voice broke.
“A recording.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Daniel froze.
Vincent did nothing.
For several seconds he could hear only the antique clock.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He had put his hand over Sophia’s.
He had listened.
He had imagined a nursery.
A name.
A child wearing his father’s watch someday.
And the sound had been a recording.
“Why?” Vincent asked.
Reed looked toward him.
“I owed Bianca money.”
Daniel frowned.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Gambling?”
“No. My wife's treatment before she passed. Insurance disputes. Private care. Loans.”
Vincent’s anger remained, but its shape changed.
“Bianca paid them?”
“She bought the debt.”
Daniel understood immediately.
“And used it.”
Reed nodded.
“She asked you to fake a pregnancy?”
“Initially, no.”
Reed sat heavily.
“She wanted me to delay confirmation. Sophia was convinced she was pregnant. Bianca told me there were inheritance issues and that confirmation would come soon enough.”
“But it didn't.”
“No.”
“And then?”
Reed’s eyes filled with shame.
“Then every lie required another.”
Vincent looked at the unsigned agreement.
The mechanism was becoming visible.
But Claire Donovan still made no sense.
“Where does Claire fit?”
Reed shook his head.
“I can't tell you that without violating something that belongs to her.”
Daniel asked, “Is she in danger?”
“No.”
“Is Lily?”
“No.”
“Elena?”
“No.”
“Vincent?”
Reed hesitated.
“Financially?”
Daniel nodded.
“Yes.”
Vincent almost smiled without humor.
“At least we're narrowing it down.”
They allowed Reed to leave the library under supervision.
Not imprisonment.
Simply a request to remain until morning.
Vincent then questioned Bianca.
She arrived furious.
“You're letting a frightened employee and a preschooler dictate this family’s future.”
Vincent gestured toward a chair.
“Sit.”
“I prefer standing.”
“Suit yourself.”
Daniel placed a copy of the agreement on the desk.
“Who drafted the first version?”
“Our firm.”
“You aren't an attorney.”
“I consulted attorneys.”
“Which ones?”
Bianca named two.
Daniel knew both.
He made notes.
“What prompted the incapacitation clause?”
“Common sense.”
“No,” Daniel said. “It isn't.”
Bianca’s confidence flickered.
Daniel continued.
“The clause doesn't merely protect a child. It gives Sophia voting authority over several holding entities during a temporary incapacity.”
“Because she would be the mother of Vincent's heir.”
“Except those voting rights begin immediately upon certification of pregnancy and execution of the agreement.”
Bianca said nothing.
Vincent stared at her.
There it was.
The first clean line through the fog.
His signature would not merely have protected a future child.
It would have transferred power now.
Daniel turned another page.
“And this provision allows Sophia to appoint a representative.”
Vincent looked at Bianca.
“You?”
She smiled coldly.
“If necessary.”
“So I sign, Sophia gains authority, and Sophia can hand it to you.”
“You're making it sound sinister.”
“I'm reading your document.”
Bianca finally sat.
“This family treats Sophia like decoration.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“I don't.”
“No? You decide where she lives. Your security follows her. Your advisers review everything. Your family name consumes every room she enters.”
“She asked to marry into that name.”
“And discovered the price afterward.”
Vincent considered her.
For the first time, Bianca wasn't defending the pregnancy.
She was defending Sophia.
That mattered.
“Did you know?”
Bianca looked away.
“Know what?”
“That there was no confirmed pregnancy.”
Silence.
Vincent had his answer.
But Daniel wasn't finished.
“Who is Claire Donovan?”
Bianca’s head snapped toward him.
There.
A reaction too fast to hide.
Vincent leaned forward.
“You know her.”
Bianca stood.
“This conversation is over.”
“No,” Vincent said. “It's finally beginning.”
She headed toward the door.
Then Elena appeared outside with a tray of coffee.
Bianca nearly collided with her.
The tray tilted.
A cup fell.
It shattered.
Bianca’s handbag slipped from her shoulder and hit the floor.
The clasp opened.
Several items spilled out.
Keys.
Lipstick.
A wallet.
A folded receipt.
And a photograph.
Elena bent automatically to help.
Then stopped.
The photograph showed Sophia and Bianca standing beside a third woman.
A brunette.
Pregnant.
On the back, someone had written:
CLAIRE — WEEK 18.
Daniel picked it up.
Bianca’s face drained of color.
Vincent looked from the photograph to her.
Then to the unsigned agreement.
For the first time, he understood why Claire Donovan mattered.
Sophia’s false pregnancy had never been intended to remain false forever.
Somewhere outside the Moretti estate was a pregnant woman.
May you like
And someone had apparently built an entire legal plan around her unborn child.
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