Chapter 3 - The Secret in the School Records
The air in the library went dead.
Vincent’s face drained of every drop of color. He took two rapid strides forward, inserting himself between his grandfather and his assistant.
"That's enough!" Vincent shouted, his composure shattering entirely into raw panic. "Lily is not part of this discussion! Her paternity has nothing to do with company assets!"
"Sit down, Vincent!" Arthur roared from the hearth, his voice shaking the crystal wall sconces. "Sit down before I have the security team remove you from this property!"
Vincent froze, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
I picked up the manila folder Arthur had thrown on the table. Inside was not just the deed to the Barrington mansion.
There was a second set of documents, stamped with the seal of the St. Ignatius Preparatory Academy in Chicago—the most prestigious, expensive private elementary school in the state.
A school with a four-year waiting list, where admissions were granted only to descendants of legacy families or through multi-million-dollar endowments.
"Tuition for St. Ignatius is forty-two thousand dollars a year," I said, my voice steady, cutting through the room like a scalpel. "The enrollment application for Lily Reynolds was approved three weeks ago."
I turned the page, holding it up so Vincent could see the signatures.
"Guardian One: Sophia Reynolds," I read aloud. "Emergency Contact and Primary Financial Guarantor: Vincent Moretti."
I looked up from the paper, staring directly into my husband's guilty, bloodshot eyes.
"And under the section labeled 'Father's Medical History,' you listed your own hereditary cardiac arrhythmia and your grandfather's early-onset macular degeneration," I whispered.
Sophia buried her face in both hands, letting out a loud, shuddering sob that echoed off the mahogany bookshelves.
Vincent closed his eyes. The terrifying, arrogant CEO who had dismissed my heartbreak with four little words was gone.
In his place stood a man who had built a labyrinth of lies and finally run out of turns.
"You knew her before we met," I said, feeling the final remnants of my marriage turn to cold, gray ash inside my chest.
"Claire, listen to me," Vincent pleaded, dropping to one knee beside the sofa, his hand reaching out toward mine.
I pulled my hand back as if his skin were coated in lye.
"We met four years ago at the Art Institute gala, Vincent," I said, keeping my eyes locked on his. "You pursued me for nine months. You bought flowers, you took me to Paris, you promised my father on his deathbed that your family would cherish me forever."
A bitter, quiet laugh escaped my lips.
"All while Sophia was raising your two-year-old daughter in a three-bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park paid for by your expense accounts."
"It was before you!" Vincent cried out, his voice cracking with desperation. "I swear to God, Claire, it happened before I ever laid eyes on you! Sophia and I had a brief... an affair while my divorce from my first wife was finalizing! When she got pregnant, she refused an abortion, but she agreed to keep it private to protect the firm's stock value!"
"And you thought you could keep a second family hidden in the shadows forever?" Arthur spat from the fireplace.
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"I was taking care of my blood!" Vincent shouted back, turning on his father with wild, defensive fury. "What was I supposed to do? Leave my daughter in a public school? Leave her mother with nothing while I live in a twenty-million-dollar penthouse on Lake Shore Drive?"
"You were supposed to be an honorable man, Vincent," Leonardo’s voice rumbled from behind the desk, heavy with ancient, unforgiving judgment. "An honorable man does not deceive his wife. An honorable man does not bring bastard children into the shadows while fathering legitimate heirs in the light."
