Chapter 8 - Beatrice’s oldest lie
Beatrice denied it.
Then cried.
Then blamed Thomas.
Then blamed Arthur.
Finally, she stopped.
Julian had been conceived during an affair between Beatrice and Arthur’s younger brother.
Arthur learned years later.
Instead of divorcing her, he buried it.
Public scandal threatened business partnerships.
More importantly, Arthur’s own infertility issues had complicated family planning.
He raised Julian as his son.
But hated what Julian represented.
Thomas’s blood inside Arthur’s household.
That explained why Arthur was obsessed with controlling Julian’s children.
Thomas died before altering certain trust structures.
His estate retained holdings that passed according to biological descent.
Julian, not Brandon, was Thomas’s biological son.
Which meant my daughter was Thomas’s direct granddaughter.
If she was born alive, an enormous block of shares could move out of Arthur’s reach.
I sat in the hospital bed staring at Julian’s childhood photographs Harris had recovered.
All those years Julian believed Arthur’s cruelty meant he was never good enough.
Maybe Arthur had known exactly whose son he was looking at.
Did that excuse Julian?
No.
Pain explains.
It does not absolve.
Then came another twist.
Did Julian know?
Beatrice claimed no.
Chloe claimed Julian once joked that Arthur “never treated him like a real son.”
Nothing more.
But investigators found a message Julian sent Brandon six months earlier.
If Dad knew what I found in Mom’s box, he’d kill us both.
He knew something.
Maybe not everything.
Then Harris recovered the “box.”
Beatrice had stored old correspondence in a private bank vault.
Thomas’s letters.
Love letters.
One mentioned “our boy.”
Julian had photographed them.
So yes.
He knew.
And suddenly his alliance with Arthur became stranger.
Why help the man who was not his father steal his own daughter’s inheritance?
Money?
Fear?
Something else?
Harris believed there was another layer.
Then Julian asked to speak with me.
Through attorneys.
I said no.
He asked again.
No.
Third request.
He offered information about Dr. Cole.
That changed things.
I agreed only with lawyers and investigators present.
Julian looked exhausted when I saw him.
No expensive cufflink performance.
No smirk.
His first words:
“Chloe wasn’t supposed to be pregnant.”
“I know.”
His eyes closed.
Then:
“And you weren’t supposed to fall that hard.”
My entire body went cold.
He had planned the shove.
Maybe not the impact.
But he had planned contact.
I wanted to leave.
Then he said:
“Arthur wasn’t trying to take the baby from you.”
May you like
I stared.
“He was trying to make you deliver early.”
