Chapter 9 - The pregnancy test did not answer the most important question
Ethan wanted a paternity test immediately.
Claire refused.
Not permanently.
Immediately.
They were sitting in a quiet attorney’s conference room three days after the estate confrontation. Claire’s cheek still showed faint discoloration from Serena’s slap. Ethan had apologized repeatedly for not seeing what was happening, though Claire kept telling him apology could not replace chronology.
Then he asked:
“Is the baby mine?”
Claire closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan went still.
She explained.
During the early period when they reconnected, before she and Ethan agreed they were actually rebuilding a relationship, Claire had gone on several dates with a man named Adam Pierce, a conservation architect she had known professionally. There had been one intimate encounter. She ended it once she realized she wanted to try seriously with Ethan.
The conception window overlapped enough that Claire would not guess.
Serena never knew Adam existed.
That changed the emotional geometry completely.
Serena had spent months manipulating everyone based on an assumption.
The baby might be Ethan’s.
It might not.
Claire said:
“I was going to tell you I was pregnant before I knew for sure. Because even if the baby wasn’t yours, you deserved to understand why I needed time.”
Ethan looked at her.
“And Serena stopped you.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have stayed with me if it wasn’t mine?”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“That was supposed to be our question to answer.”
That sentence mattered more than DNA.
Serena had not merely hidden possible paternity.
She had stolen the conversation that should have happened before certainty existed.
Claire eventually agreed to a noninvasive prenatal paternity test after discussing it with her physician and attorney.
Results would take time.
Ethan waited.
May you like
For once, nobody allowed Serena’s urgency to control the pace.
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