LOGINChloe sat rigid in the sleek conference room chair, one hand pressed firmly against the side of her belly while the other gripped the armrest until her knuckles ached. The neutral location Vanessa’s lawyers had chosen felt anything but neutral—sterile glass walls, expensive leather seats, and a long table that might as well have been a battlefield. Damian sat beside her, his knee pressed against hers under the table, a silent anchor.Vanessa leaned back in her chair across from them, lips curved in a smug smile as she slid a fresh folder across the polished surface. “The real, untampered results, From an independent lab I chose myself. Read them. The embryos were switched. Those twins were always meant to be mine and Damian’s. You were just the rented oven, Chloe. A convenient one with the right family connection to make it messy.”Chloe snatched the folder before Damian could reach for it. Her eyes scanned the pages, heart pounding harder with every line. Genetic markers. Probability
Damian stood frozen in the brownstone’s living room, the latest DNA report from the court-ordered lab clutched in his hands. The pages shook slightly as he reread the summary for the third time. Possible embryo mix-up. Genetic markers inconsistent with the original procedure records. Probability of sample contamination listed at eighty-seven percent. The words blurred in front of his eyes, each line hitting harder than the last. Chloe sat on the couch across from him, legs tucked under her, one hand resting on her belly. She watched him with sharp, anxious eyes. “Damian. Talk to me. You’ve been staring at that report for five minutes without saying a word.” He folded the papers once, then again, buying himself another second. Part of him wanted to burn the damn thing and tell her everything was fine. That they would handle it like they handled everything else. The other part, the one that had promised no more secrets knew she deserved the truth immediately. He crossed the room slowl
Chloe shoved the court order across the hospital tray table so hard it nearly slid off the other side. Her hands shook with fury as she glared at the official stamp and signature. “Over my dead body. Vanessa gets regular medical updates on my pregnancy? On my babies? The woman who walked away months ago and has done nothing but lie and sabotage us since? No. Absolutely not.” She pushed herself up higher against the pillows, ignoring the dull ache in her lower back. One hand stayed pressed protectively over her belly, where the twins moved in restless kicks like they could feel her anger. “I will fight this until there’s nothing left to fight with. Call the lawyers. File whatever motion we need. I don’t care how much it costs or how ugly it gets. She doesn’t get a single update. Not one heartbeat reading. Not one ultrasound photo. Nothing.” Damian stood beside the bed, reading the order over again with a clenched jaw. He set it down carefully and took her hand, squeezing once. “We fi
Damian stood in the dimly lit hallway of the private medical wing, phone pressed to his ear so hard the edges bit into his palm. Chloe had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep back in her room, monitors beeping steadily through the cracked door. He had stepped out the second the latest bank records came through, the transfer from his mother to Chloe’s mother staring at him like fresh evidence of rot. “Mother,” he said the moment she picked up, voice low and razor-sharp. “I have the transfer records. The payment to Elena Bennett, The one you made years after my father’s affair with her. You knew everything. The secrets she carried, the pregnancy, all of it. And you still dragged her daughter into this surrogacy mess as some twisted game. Explain yourself. Now.” His mother’s laugh came through the line, cool and unbothered as always. “Darling, you always did have a flair for drama. That payment was cleanup. Your father made messes, I cleaned them. The girl’s mother knew too much.
Chloe sat at the long conference table in their lawyers’ downtown office, one hand resting on the swell of her belly while the other gripped the edge of the polished wood. Stacks of legal briefs, affidavits, and highlighted court filings surrounded her like walls closing in. The custody hearing prep had been going for hours, and every new page felt like another knife aimed at her throat.“They’re trying to erase me from my own children’s lives,” she said, voice low but sharp as she pushed a particularly vicious motion across the table toward Damian. “Vanessa and your mother are arguing the entire surrogacy was fraudulent because of my mom’s connection to your father. They want the marriage invalidated. They want me declared unfit, not even considering the twins as family, they treat the twins like they’re property to be reassigned.”Damian sat beside her, sleeves rolled up, reviewing notes with their lead attorney. His jaw stayed tight as he scanned the latest filing. “We have counter
Chloe spread the new documents across the hospital tray table, her hands trembling so badly the papers kept slipping from her fingers. Black-and-white photos, old bank statements, and typed affidavits stared back at her. Her mother—young, hopeful, smiling in a way Chloe barely remembered—stood beside a much younger version of Damian’s father at what looked like a company picnic. Another photo showed them leaving a hotel together. Payment records from twenty-eight years ago. Large sums wired to her mother’s account with notes like “confidential services” and “nondisclosure.”Her head spun. She pressed one hand to her forehead and the other to her belly, where the twins kicked restlessly. “Was I picked because of some old secret? My mom and your dad… an affair? Payoffs? And your mother knew all of it when she had Sarah call me?”Damian sat on the edge of the bed beside her, close enough that his knee pressed against her thigh. Guilt etched deep lines around his mouth and eyes. “It looks







