PART 4

The clinic was twenty-three minutes away.

I drove there slowly.

Not because I was afraid.

Because I needed time to think.

When I arrived, a receptionist handed me a plain brown envelope.

There was no return address.

My name was written across the front.

CLAIRE.

Nothing else.

I sat in my car and stared at it.

For a moment, I considered throwing it into the passenger seat and driving home.

Then I remembered Helga’s voice.

We’ll make her raise this baby.

I opened the envelope.

The first photograph fell into my lap.

Julian.

Standing outside a hotel.

With Sophie.

My breath caught.

They weren’t kissing.

They didn’t need to.

Julian’s hand was resting protectively against her stomach.

Five months pregnant.

The second photograph showed them entering a building together.

The third showed Julian carrying a large box toward Sophie’s apartment.

The fourth was a photograph of Julian sitting beside her on a couch.

And the fifth—

I stopped.

It was a photograph of a document.

I unfolded the actual paper beneath it.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.

Then I saw Julian’s signature.

My hands began shaking.

It was a legal agreement.

A financial agreement.

Between Julian and Sophie.

I read it once.

Then again.

Then a third time.

My vision blurred.

Julian had promised to provide Sophie with a monthly allowance throughout her pregnancy.

That wasn’t the worst part.

He had also promised to transfer ownership of a property to her after the child’s birth.

A property I knew.

Our lake house.

The house my father had left me.

The house Julian had spent years calling “our vacation home.”

But according to this document, Julian had apparently been planning to give it away.

I leaned back against the driver’s seat.

“No.”

The word came out as a whisper.

Then I looked at the final photograph.

It wasn’t of Julian and Sophie.

It was of a document from a fertility clinic.

My name was on it.

My heart stopped.

I read the heading.

Then I read it again.

It was a medical record.

A fertility report.

And beneath my name was a handwritten note.

Embryo transfer canceled at husband’s request.

I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.

For six years, I had believed my body had failed me.

Six years of injections.

Six years of appointments.

Six years of doctors telling me to stay hopeful.

Six years of Julian holding me while I cried.

But according to this document, at least one of those treatments had never been intended to work.

Julian had canceled it.

Without telling me.

I covered my mouth.

A sob escaped before I could stop it.

Then another thought hit me.

If he had canceled the transfer…

Why?

I turned to the next page.

There was a note from the clinic.

Patient’s husband requested that all future communication regarding embryo storage and disposition be directed to him.

I stared at those words.

My husband had been controlling information about my own embryos.

I suddenly understood why Sophie had wanted me to have this.

She wasn’t simply exposing an affair.

She was warning me.

CONTINUE FOR NEXT PART….