Chapter 8 - The Doctor Told Us the Dates Didn’t Lie
A private obstetrician confirmed what the prenatal report had already suggested.
Lucinda was just over nine weeks pregnant on the day of the wedding.
That narrowed the conception window almost exactly to the week of the Barrett gala.
The timeline alone did not prove paternity.
But it destroyed any easy lie.
Preston had been in Chicago for four straight days during the most likely conception period. Hotel records, corporate security logs, and board minutes placed him there beyond doubt.
He was not the father.
Which meant if Lucinda had slept with someone during that window, it had to be someone else.
Me.
Or another man entirely.
When the doctor suggested a noninvasive prenatal paternity test, everyone in the room went quiet.
Lucinda protested immediately.
“I’m not doing that.”
Preston gave a short, bitter laugh. “That’s the first honest answer you’ve given in a week.”
She glared at him.
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“No,” he said. “But if you intend to claim I ruined your reputation, I get to defend mine.”
Then all eyes shifted to me.
I wanted to say no.
Not because I thought the answer would clear me, but because I was beginning to fear it would not.
There is a special kind of dread in realizing your future may hinge on a night you cannot fully remember.
And there was Elisa to think about.
My daughter had already watched a bride slap her, a groom crash through flowers, and an entire wedding collapse because of an envelope she helped expose.
If this test came back the way it seemed likely to, my life would not just get complicated.
It would split open.
Still, I agreed.
Because truth delayed becomes rot.
And I had already spent too many days letting possibilities eat through me.
When we left the clinic, Preston stopped me in the parking lot.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he said quietly, “If the child is yours, I won’t ask you to pretend otherwise.”
I looked at him.
“And if it isn’t?”
His face hardened.
“Then I still need to know why my bride hid your face with her pregnancy records.”
That was the part none of us could shake.
Even if the baby somehow wasn’t mine, Lucinda had chosen to tie me to her secret.
May you like
Nothing about that was accidental.
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