Chapter 5 - FIONA’S PREGNANCY
The obvious assumption was paternity.
Maybe Fiona’s baby was not Julian’s.
That was too simple.
The truth was stranger.
Maya Hart arrived at the ballroom ten minutes later.
No invitation.
No formal dress.
Jeans.
Raincoat.
USB drive in hand.
She looked terrified.
“My father should have told you years ago.”
Hart looked broken.
Fiona looked murderous.
Maya handed the drive to Julian.
“Clinic audit logs.”
Gordon Blake stepped forward.
“Do not touch that.”
Maya said:
“That is exactly why I copied it.”
We moved to a private conference room.
Dana Ruiz joined by video after Nora found her through a friend.
The files showed:
My pregnancy test.
My original fertility data.
Julian’s abnormal sample.
Record-access logs.
Fiona’s employee credentials.
Then a file labeled:
BLAKE SURROGACY ACCOUNT.
I stared.
Surrogacy?
Fiona was visibly pregnant.
Maya explained:
“Her embryo was not created with Julian’s sperm.”
Julian stopped breathing.
Fiona screamed:
“That’s a lie.”
Maya clicked the lab chain-of-custody file.
Donor sperm.
Anonymous donor code.
Fiona’s egg.
Embryo transfer.
Julian stared at her.
“You used donor sperm?”
She began crying.
“You couldn’t give me what I needed.”
That sentence echoed.
The same accusation he had once aimed at me.
Now redirected.
Julian whispered:
“You told me the pregnancy was natural.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“After the wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because you wanted a child.”
“I wanted truth.”
She laughed bitterly.
“No. You wanted a baby with the Vance name.”
Then she pointed at me.
“You left her because she couldn’t give you one.”
Julian flinched.
I did too.
Cruel.
True enough to hurt.
But incomplete.
Fiona had engineered the belief that I was infertile.
Then used donor conception secretly to present herself as the solution.
That was not jealousy.
That was design.
Maya said:
“There’s more.”
The donor code belonged to a specific file.
Not random.
Not anonymous.
A family-selected donor.
Gordon Blake looked toward the door.
Too late.
Julian asked:
“Who?”
Maya turned the screen.
Donor relationship:
MATERNAL HALF-SIBLING.
Fiona’s half-brother.
The room went dead silent.
Not incest.
The embryo used Fiona’s egg and sperm from her half-brother? That would indeed be incestuous genetically and medically unethical. That path was not plausible for a legitimate clinic and would make the story veer into grotesque territory.
Maya shook her head.
“Sorry. That line means relationship to the intended parent file, not Fiona.”
She opened the donor profile.
The donor was Gordon Blake’s illegitimate son.
Fiona’s half-brother.
Still genetically Fiona's half-brother, meaning yes, the clinic had created an embryo from close relatives if Fiona's egg was used.
Maya looked horrified.
“This should never have happened.”
Fiona whispered:
“I didn’t know that part.”
Gordon went pale.
May you like
And suddenly Fiona was not only perpetrator.
She had been deceived too.
