I want security.
You don’t want another scandal during your divorce.
This solves everyone’s problems.”
Owen paused the recording.
Natalie’s hands flew to her stomach.
“You recorded me?”
“After you threatened to tell my wife I had forced you into the relationship unless I stayed quiet,” he said.
“Yes.
I recorded you.”
Eric reached across the table for the phone.
Grant moved between them so quickly that Eric stopped with his hand in the air.
“Do not touch the evidence,” Grant said.
“Evidence of what?” Eric snapped.
“A private conversation? A test that could be fake?”
Owen looked at him.
“The clinic has the original.
My attorney has a certified copy.
Claire’s investigator verified the laboratory and the chain of custody.”
Eric turned to Natalie.
“You told me the baby was mine.”
She grabbed his sleeve.
“You knew enough.
Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
The anger left his face.
What replaced it was fear.
Grant noticed it too.
He reached into the red folder and removed a sealed envelope with my name written across the front.
“This is the part neither of them expected us to find,” he said.
Eric went pale before I broke the seal.
Inside were printed screenshots recovered from a cloud backup Eric believed he had deleted.
Grant had obtained them through my attorney after we secured a preservation order connected to the misuse of company funds.
The messages were between Eric and Natalie.
The first exchange had taken place two days after her laboratory result.
Natalie had written, “It’s Owen’s.
The test confirmed it.”
Eric’s response appeared beneath it.
“That changes nothing.
Claire doesn’t know.”
Another message followed.
“Once she signs the refinancing documents, the house and her company shares are exposed.
Then we announce the baby and I file.
She’ll be too humiliated to fight.”
My mother covered her mouth.
My father looked at Eric as if he had never seen him before.
I kept reading.
Natalie had asked, “What happens when the dates don’t match?”
Eric replied, “People believe the first story they hear, especially when it is announced publicly.
Owen will stay quiet to protect his divorce.
Claire will disappear before she lets anyone see her break.”
That was the sentence that hurt most.
Not because he thought I was weak.
Because he had studied my dignity and decided to use it against me.
The refinancing papers had arrived three weeks before the party.
Eric told me they were routine documents required to expand the company.
He marked the signature lines with yellow tabs and left them beside my coffee cup.
