Chapter 2 - Daniel Was Definitely Lily’s Father
The first line of the report did not contain the secret Margaret feared.
It contained the lie she had been using against Lily.
Daniel tore open the envelope with shaking hands.
Claire had taken Lily inside once the immediate confrontation ended. A physician was called to examine the toddler, and the chain was removed completely.
Margaret remained in the drawing room.
Silent.
Daniel stood near the fireplace reading the report.
He looked up.
“Why did you test my daughter?”
Claire crossed her arms.
“Keep reading.”
“Answer me.”
“Because your mother spent fourteen months telling everyone Lily might not be yours.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
“I said there were questions.”
Claire laughed without humor.
“You called her a bastard at her own birthday.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
He had heard versions of Margaret’s suspicion too.
Lily did not resemble him enough.
Lily’s late mother, Anna, had traveled for work around the time she became pregnant.
Anna had refused Margaret’s demands for prenatal testing.
After Anna died in a car accident when Lily was nine months old, Margaret’s insinuations became uglier because nobody remained to defend her.
Daniel never ordered a test.
He insisted publicly that Lily was his daughter.
Privately, however, the doubt began eating at him.
That was why he tolerated Margaret treating Lily differently.
He told himself:
I’m keeping the peace until I know.
Claire discovered that only three weeks earlier.
She had been away from the Whitmore estate for years, returning occasionally but never staying long.
Anna had once mailed Claire a lock of Lily’s hair with a note:
If Margaret ever tries to turn blood into a weapon, make sure Daniel knows the truth.
Claire kept it.
At the time she thought Anna was being dramatic.
Then she saw Margaret refuse to include Lily in a family photograph after Anna died.
Then another.
Then heard Daniel had stopped correcting his mother.
Claire arranged a legally compliant kinship test using samples Daniel voluntarily provided years earlier during a family medical screening and a properly collected sample from Lily through her pediatrician with Daniel’s written authorization buried inside a stack of medical forms he barely read.
Not Claire’s finest ethical moment.
She admitted that.
But the result in Daniel’s hand was unambiguous.
Probability of biological paternity:
99.99%.
Daniel sat down.
His face collapsed.
“She was mine.”
Claire stared.
“Was?”
He looked at her.
“She is mine.”
“Then start acting like it.”
That hurt.
Good.
Margaret said nothing.
Daniel looked toward the upstairs rooms where Lily rested with a nurse.
He had allowed his daughter to spend her birthday outside because Margaret said family guests would “ask uncomfortable questions.”
Daniel told himself one afternoon would not matter.
Then one afternoon became a chain around a porch post.
He covered his face.
Claire did not comfort him.
Not yet.
After several minutes he looked again at the report.
“There’s another section.”
Claire nodded.
The paternity confirmation was only page one.
Page two contained a broader family-relationship comparison.
Daniel’s eyes moved across it.
Then stopped.
He frowned.
“What does ‘maternal relationship excluded’ mean?”
Margaret rose abruptly.
“That test is garbage.”
Daniel slowly turned toward her.
Claire’s voice became quiet.
“It means exactly what you think it means.”
Daniel looked back down.
The report did not question whether Lily belonged to him.
It questioned whether Margaret belonged biologically to Daniel.
May you like
And according to the DNA—
she did not.
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